Communication

The movie PK offers an enormous amount of knowledg e on the subject of intercultural learning. So much can be drawn from the movie about society and the way people think. People often fall into the thought process that their cult ure is the best one, and that all others are strange or abnormal. This is of course not the case, and in tercultural learning is all about seeing past this thought process and looking at the world as a whole . Watching movies from foreign cultures, such as this one from Bollywood, can help to broade n our viewpoint and see the world as a diverse one, full of many unique cultures. This movie is particularly good at addressing inte rcultural communication. It addresses the topic in an almost universal way, where one can easily transpose the main story into one’s own culture; Tipsy could have landed anywhere, and challenged any social norm that was prevalent in that society. As an example, below is my “sequel” to how the movie could have played out had Tipsy come to the USA. America was a different place before he came here. The alien who we all called “Tipsy” brought about a change in the system that none of u s could have ever imagined. He improved our economy, helped the environment, and opened everyon e’s eyes to something entirely new.

It all started on a sunny April day, about 10 years ago. The birds were singing, the flowers were blooming, and people all around the ne ighborhood were busy mowing their lawns.

Back then, maintaining one’s lawn was seen to be of the utmost importance, and anyone who let their grass grow out of order was looked upon as be ing too lazy to mow or too poor to afford a mower. Looking back, this all seems ridiculous; Tip sy showed us how silly it was for us all to sacrifice so much time and money on our yards, and even taught us ways to keep it in order with much cheaper and easier methods. The first time I saw Tipsy was in my local hardwar e store. He was examining a bag of fertilizer next to the one that I had come to purch ase. As I grabbed a bag and walked towards the register, I saw him put down his bag and pick up an other one. As he shuffled through several different varieties, it seemed that he was quite cl ueless as to what variety of fertilizer to buy. I didn’t know him at the time, but being the friendly man and lawn mowing expert that I was, I walked over to try and help him. “Hello there,” I said to him. “What kind of grass are you growing?” “Grass?” he said to me with a puzzled expression. He looked back at the picture on the bag he was currently holding.

“Yes, grass,” I repeated. “What kind are you growi ng? Rye, Fescue, Kentucky blue…” The strange man seemed lost in thought, and over su ch a simple question!

After I gave the man a long lecture on different k inds of fertilizer and all sorts of lawn care terms, he finally dropped the bag, threw his h ands in the air, exclaimed “What a waste!” and proceeded to exit the building. I stood there for a minute in shock over what had just happened before walking back to the check-out lane. “Was he tipsy?” I wondered to myself.

I didn’t forget the encounter, and it was not long before I saw the man again, though this time on live television! They called him Tipsy. He was wearing the same clothes as when I had seen him before, and still had that profound, wide- eyed expression on his face. He was being interviewed on a local talk show, where he was exci tedly sharing his opinion on the value of a well-maintained lawn; or rather, his opinion on its lack of value. “North America spends over $40 billion on their la wns every year!” he exclaimed. “Just imagine how much good could come of diverting that money to more important sources!” He continued on with his rant for a while, and though he made strong arguments, I simply shrugged it off. Nobody would actually give up the pride fro m a well-maintained lawn to help others. I turned the TV off and went about the rest of my day .

The next day, when I went outside for my weekly mo wing, something felt different.

Normally, mowing the yard was peaceful and satisfyi ng. Today, however, I couldn’t keep my mind off of what Tipsy had said. $40 billion. Instead of enjoying the smell of the freshly cut grass, I was thinking about how much gas money it c ost to keep my zero-turn lawnmower fueled up, and how little difference all of the money spen t actually made in my life. I thought long and hard the whole time I was mowing, and after I was d one, I parked the mower and just sat there thinking to myself for an hour. Meanwhile, Tipsy was out making progress. He was t alking to people and posting flyers with messages of protest on them. As difficult as i t is to believe, it started to work! When faced with the numbers of how expensive lawn care actuall y was, many people decided to cut back.

Some changed from mowing twice a week to once a wee k, and many stopped using commercial fertilizers. Tipsy was making a difference.

At first, I could tell that people were skeptical. When my neighbors noticed that my lawn didn’t look quite like a golf course the way it use d to, they started to question my sanity. They asked questions like why they hadn’t seen me on the mower that week, to which I simply replied “I’ve been busy.” Over the next few weeks, I heard more and more about Tipsy and his quest to reduce the cost of lawn maintenance. Many people ch anged their mowing habits, and in only a month, Tipsy had significantly reduced the average amount Americans spent on their yards. Unfortunately, some were not so quick to jump on t o the “cheaper lawn wagon.” The companies producing expensive, high-tech lawnmowers and pricey fertilizers were losing money fast. One in particular, Farmer’s First Choice, lau nched a new advertisement campaign in response to Tipsy. “Keeping a healthy lawn has been an American tradition for years!” they declared. This was a bold statement, but one that c aught the attention of many who had been going along with Tipsy’s idea. It was hard to argue with tradition, especially one that was being painted in a patriotic way. Tipsy suffered a great deal of oppression from mul tiple businesses trying to stop him from spreading his message, but eventually he gaine d enough steam to bring about massive change. People questioned why so much value was pla ced on a healthy lawn, and the practice was made obsolete. It was the hyper-obsessive peopl e that were soon placed in the abnormal category, and all that was considered necessary was keeping a relatively under-control grass height.

Tipsy saw a problem with the way American society looked at things, and he saw that they were stuck in a worthless tradition. He told p eople the consequences of this tradition and brought about change in his community. For all his effort, America was a better place.