Term Paper on "Three Cups of Tea Analysis"

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Cups of Tea Analysis

Three Cups of Tea:

study in low and high-context communication; the power of communication to alter the world

Climbing a mountain is a highly individualistic effort. Although many poor communities may live in the Himalayas, mountain-climbing is an expensive sport usually only possible for people living in highly Westernized countries. In 1993, Greg Mortenson failed in his personal attempt to climb K2, a mountain still known as 'the climber's mountain,' a peak that makes scaling Mount Everest look easy. Mortenson's efforts left him in a state of almost total physical ruin and his spirit was also crushed by a sense of having failed in his efforts. He was forced to throw himself upon the mercy of a small mountain community that had almost nothing to survive. And yet, this community gave him everything -- their best food, medical care, and shelter, even thought the children of the town were too poor to buy pencils to learn to write.

While recuperating from his efforts in the Pakistani village, Mortenson succeeded at something more impressive than climbing to the summit of K2. Since that visit, he has devoted his life to educating desperately poor children in the remote village of Korphe and other places like it. He sold his climbing equipment, and devoted every penny of his work as an ER nurse to raising money for schools. The drifting individualist Mortenson found his purpose in life, and the Balti people were able to benefit from a higher quality education that Westerners take for granted. The contact between the American Mortenson from the low-context culture of the United States with the Balti people of Pakist

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an illustrates the value of intercultural communications between individuals of low and high-context countries, with different orientations of 'time' in terms of future and past orientations. By engaging in simple, human exchanges of trust and cultural dialogue, both Mortenson and the people who helped him benefited from the exchange.

To understand the significance of what transpired between Mortenson and his Balti saviors, chronicled in his memoir entitled Three Cups of Tea, it must be understood what is meant by low and high-context cultures. High-context cultures and societies, such as the peoples indigenous to the desperately poor regions of Pakistan traversed by Mortenson are made up of groups and individuals who have close connections, usually family, national or cultural connections that have existed for centuries. "Many aspects of cultural behavior are not made explicit because most members know what to do and what to think from years of interaction with each other" (Beer, 2003). "Low-context societies, places like the United States and other areas in the industrialized West are regions where people tend to have many connections but of shorter duration or for some specific reason. In these societies, cultural behavior and beliefs may need to be spelled out explicitly so that those coming into the cultural environment know how to behave" Beer, 2003).

Mortenson came from what might be called a low-context culture that stresses individualism and personal relationships. Although laid-back, easy-going, and a self-confessed climbing bum with little respect for punctuality and discipline, he was individually-focused and internally directed unlike the indigenous people he encountered who were focused on their faith and tribe. When he came in direct contact with the high-context culture of his host, Haji Ali and his family, Mortenson left feeling a strong sense of obligation to the village. Although his family was made up of committed social activists, this was the first time Mortenson felt a sense of owing something to someone and something larger than himself, namely the people of the world like Haji Ali, who had nothing but their generosity to give to others. Mortenson's sudden sense of obligation to a larger, collective force is a feeling that someone from a high-context culture senses all of the time. A high-context culture is made up of a network of contexts, relationships, and mutual obligations to others, rather than fulfilling the needs of an 'I.' Individualistic low-context cultures are characterized by impersonal, fluid relationships where little is expected of the individual other than self-satisfaction unless the act of generosity is 'chosen' and willed.

Striving to overcome barriers of ignorance and entrenched and ineffectual ways of doing things, Mortenson returned to honor the vow he made before leaving his new friends -- to found a school. Many years later, more than fifty-five schools stand in the region in proud testimony to Mortenson's repeated and consistent efforts to give back to the community. The title of his chronicle of the work, Three Cups of Tea comes from a proverb: "the first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger...The second time, you are an honored guest. The third time you become family" (Mortenson 2007, p.150). This is a succinct statement of what might be called 'high context' cultural practices and beliefs -- it is hard to believe that such a bond would be seriously considered sacred in the United States, where the words 'we'll do this again some time,' is taken to be a formality, nothing more. For a Balti, continuing the traditions of the past and establishing and honoring friendships are what life is all about.

Mortenson found a great deal of life-sustaining sustenance in the serious rituals of the cups of tea. "By the time he'd shared a pot of butter tea with his hosts and laced up his boots, he'd become a humanitarian who'd found a meaningful path to follow for the rest of his life" (Mortenson 2007, p. 2). He could not "imagine discharging the debt he felt to his hosts in Korphe" (Mortenson 2007, p.30). Mortenson evidently found the humane and tolerant practices of the Balti people to be profoundly spiritually enriching and life-sustaining. Helping the people of Korphe healed not simply his physical wounds, but also his spiritual wounds, the sense of emptiness he had been attempting to address by climbing K2. Mortenson thought climbing a great and towering mountain would give him a sense of spiritual uplift, but more than trying to accomplish a 'personal best' for himself, Mortenson found greater joy in becoming part of a culture and community very different than his own. This goes against the wisdom of common American culture of self-fulfillment and self-directed efforts being the essence of life.

However, the divide between himself and his beloved, life-saving hosts was not accomplished without bridging some barriers to cultural understanding. Not only were relationships more important to the low-context Balti, but they did not immediately embrace the changes Mortenson wanted to orchestrate, much to his initial surprise. Carefree Mortenson, whose personal relationships had always been characterized by carelessness and fluidity, had to acknowledge aspects of past-obsessed nature of the Balti just as they had to change.

All individuals in contact with a new culture must reorient themselves in that culture's sense of time, a location that has little to do with the hands of the clock and much to do with that cultures' sense of the past. Even when his belief structures did not challenge Balti's faith and assumptions about gender norms, Mortenson's efforts would occasionally meet with intransience from a culture that had lived in the same fashion, at the same pace the same way, for so many years: "Even a beloved humanitarian has flaws. Mortenson's dogged determination to finish the school before winter hardly suits the gentle rhythms of village life. 'These mountains have been here a long time,' one irritated resident tells him. 'And so have we. Sit down and shut your mouth. You're making everyone crazy'" (Gardner 2006)

Of course, all of us to some degree live in the same 'time zone,' and time marches on for all of us. But there is also a subjective sense of time. Cultures are often classified into three types of culture: "(1) present orientated, with little attention to what has happened in past and what the future will bring. Past is considered as unimportant while future is seen as vague and unpredictable; (2) past-orientated cultures have a high sense on traditions like to their ancestors, family, traditionalism and aristocracy. The present is tried to be maintained; (3) future-orientated cultures with a high value in changes have a more desirable development in economic and social scales" (Time Concept, 2008, Via Web). As noted by the reference to the eternity of the nearby frozen mountains, the Balti are a past-obsessed culture, which is reinforced by their traditional Islamic practices.

The 'location in time' or time of a culture is very important in assessing its priorities. Americans are very future-oriented and focused on improving themselves. Mortenson's interest in education is evidence of this -- we as a culture stress education as a value, because it allows for change and self-improvement. As the Balti are very oriented towards the past, as past relationships and practices have a great deal of importance and significance in how and what is done, and why Mortenson had to take this into consideration when… READ MORE

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Three Cups of Tea

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Due: November 11

Length: 5-6 pp. (references excluded)

12 pt font, double-spaced

APA format

Course Concepts include:

-time orientation in a culture

-power distance

-high context vs low context cultures

-man-nature relationship

-prejudice, discrimination, and racism

-cultural markers

-ascribed vs achieved status

You are analyzing Three Cups of Tea through the lens of our course concepts. In this paper you are examining what the text tells you about the culture and Mortenson*****s intercultural communication. Given the page constraints, your choice of concepts will be limited. Be sure to explain/define the concept and how it relates to the text. The paper should be cohesive- with smooth transitions.

First, analyze what we learn about the culture of Pakistan (in particular the culture of the Balti people) through the description of events given by the authors using concepts covered the text and class notes.

Chapters/Terms to consider for your analysis: Cultural Patterns (Ch. 2), Verbal, Nonverbal, Identity, Education.

Explain how particular parts of the text illustrate the intercultural communication concepts we discussed in our text and class notes. When appropriate, link how cultural patterns are related to verbal and nonverbal behavior.

Second, analyze Greg Mortenson*****s behavior (challenges & successes) as a person functioning in another culture in terms of the concepts covered in text and class notes.

Chapters/Terms to consider for your analysis: Interpersonal/Intrapersonal approaches, Cultural Identity, Perception, Verbal, Nonverbal, Relationships among family/friends, Health, Intercultural Communication & Negotiations for Business, Intercultural Competence.

Consider Greg Mortenson*****s cultural identity. Examine how Greg Mortenson functions within the Pakistani culture. What aspects of intercultural communication determine Mortenson*****s success in accomplishing his goals in Pakistan?

*Be sure to consult your APA manual on how to include short and long quotations into your text.

Be prepared to share your analysis with the class on the day the paper is due.

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Two Articles Follow:

Author Greg Mortenson: Pens, Not bombs frighten the Taliban?

Ask Greg Mortenson why he risked his life to build schools for girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan and he'll tell you the tale of a girl named Aziza.

When Aziza was six-years-old, the boys in her village stoned her when she walked bravely to school.

When Aziza was a teenager, they burned her notebooks.

Aziza was the only girl in Charpusan, a village of 4,000, brave enough to try to learn.

When Mortenson built a school there for girls and boys in the 1990s, Aziza enrolled.

She graduated in 1998 and went to study maternal healthcare, because five to 20 babies died during childbirth each year in Charpusan.

Since Aziza, now 30, returned to her village in 2000, not one baby has died.

"That's why I'm focused on girls' education," Mortenson said in an interview with Communications and Media Relations.

The humanitarian spoke to over 2,000 people at xs x Sports Complex. His story, "Three Cups of Tea," told by journalist ***** Oliver Relin, has been a New York Times best-seller for 83 weeks running.

The book was required reading for x first-years this year, but the Sports Complex x was filled with over 2,000 people-around 1,000 of them being x students, and many of them upperclassmen who read it on their own.

Mortenson, 50, gave up his dream of reaching the peak of the world's second-tallest mountain, K2, in Pakistan in 1993 to save the life of a dying team member.

After saving his partner's life, Mortenson-starved, dehydrated and exhausted-stumbled into the impoverished Pakistani mountain village of Korphe- eight years later, that region would be known as the breeding ground of the Taliban, and where U.S. soldiers would hunt for Osama bin Laden.

The villagers rehydrated him with tribal tea, and nourished him with what little food they had. In return, Mortenson promised to one day return and build the village a school-a promise he eventually returned dozens of times over.

Today, Mortenson's Central Asia Institute includes 78 schools and 28,000 students- 18,000 of them female.

"We can drop bombs, we can build them new roads, but if we don't educate their girls, nothing will change," Mortenson said. "That's the Taliban's greatest fear-not the bullet, but the pen. If a girl gets an education, they have lost their ideological society."

Mortenson said he's inspired by the fact that so many college grads today go on to help the world in some way.

"There's an incredible thing happening in higher education today- 40 percent of college grads say they want to improve the world they live in.

"There is a revolution of college students wanting to do good. X is strengthening this revolution." At the College today, approximately ten to 15 members of each graduating class give a year or two to volunteer service either in the U.S. or abroad.

He said in Afghanistan today, 6.4 million children ages five to 15 are enrolled in schools, with some two million of them female. In 2000, at the height of the Taliban, there were only 800,000 students, mostly all boys.

"Student enrollment has grown eight times in eight years-that's the biggest increase in any country in world history," Mortenson said.

"That's the most inspiring news to come out of that country and no one in the U.S. is aware of it. I had lunch with two senators last week, and neither of them knew."

"The bad news is since 2007, 480 schools have been bombed by the Taliban, most of them girls' schools," he said.

Just as impressive as the 18,000 Muslim girls Mortenson's schools educate, is that four of his 540 teachers are former Taliban members.

"We've been criticized for that, but the former Talibanis are the ones who" are the biggest proponents for female education, Mortenson said. "It's like the ex-smokers who turn on smokers the hardest."

"Those four guys told me they got out of the Taliban because their mothers were educated, and their mothers said, 'What you're doing is not in the name of Islam.'"

Mortenson said if you educate a girl to a fifth-grade level, infant mortality is reduced, quality of life improves and population explosion is reduced.

He mentioned an African proverb that has come to serve as his mantra:

"If you educate a boy, you educate an individual. If you educate a girl, you educate a community."

Article 2

Humanitarian, author Greg Mortenson Inspires Thousands

William x (left and below) sat at a table in the ***** Institute drinking tea with his godfather, ***** x '58, and Greg Mortenson, author of "Three Cups of Tea."

William- a slight, 14-year-old boy with a suntan, freckles, and tussled blond hair- looked up at Mortenson, a six-foot-four bear of a man, with wide eyes.

"He's awesome," William said later. "I read his book this summer, not for school, just because I thought it looked cool. I sat at home reading this and thinking, 'What have I done?' Nothing."

"It makes you think about what you can do, and what we have here in the U.S. compared to what they have in Afghanistan and Pakistan," said William, of Concord, who starts ninth-grade at Middlesex Boarding School this fall.

The young boy wasn't the only reader touched by Mortenson's best-selling book-and over 2,000 people, including XXX students, faculty, and visitors from Easton, Brockton, and other local communities.

"Three Cups of Tea"- Mortenson's tale of building 78 schools for girls and boys in the Taliban-breeding grounds of Pakistan and Afghanistan- has been a New York Times best-seller for 83 weeks, and was required reading for xxx incoming Class of 2012 this year.

"His book gives us a very different view of Islam than what Americans generally have," said religious studies professor Mary-Joan Leith. "He matches the service message of our mission at xxxxl."

Maryjean x, a visual and performing arts professor, required her documentary film students to read the book:

"You can tell a story with documentary film, and this is a compelling story. It's amazing what one person can do, and he had nothing. At one point he was living out of his car," she said.

xxxxjunior Jennifer x said, "It was pretty inspiring that he was poor himself and didn't care how much he had to sacrifice."

Lucy x '74, a teacher in x, read "Three Cups of Tea" with her book club.

"It was very inspirational. I admire his tenacity," Smith said.

"For one man to sacrifice his own life and accomplish so much is amazing," said fellow book club member Dawn x , of x.

Senior Blake x said he "picked up the book when I heard he was coming to x. It was entertaining and inspirational at the same time."

"It was inspiring that one man did all that on his own," added senior Patrick Ryan.

"This is a story about a normal person finding a way to help a lot of people," said x College President, the x. "Establishing schools for women in Pakistan is no different than fighting for women's suffrage and voting rights" in the 1920s.

"Also, by reading it, our students are exposed to what's going on in that part of the world, so they can then go out and change the world."

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