Chapter 6: Culture and Worldview
CASE: Nike Air Bakins’
See Teacher Notes
ACTIVITY: The Parable Exercise
The Parable
Source: Stella Ting-Toomey and Leeva Chung, Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication.
Rosemary is a young woman about 21 years old. For a long time she has been engaged to a young man
named Hernando, and she is coming from a great distance to meet him for their scheduled wedding.
The problem she faces is that between her and her betrothed there lies a river. No ordinary river, mind
you, but a deep, wide river infested with hungry crocodiles.
Rosemary ponders how she can cross the river. She thinks of a man who has a boat, whose name is
Sven. She approaches Sven and asks him to take her across the river. Sven replies, “Yes, I’ll take you
across the river if you’ll spend the night with me.”
***
The Parable Exercise: Instructions to Participants
1. Write down, in rank order, the character whose behavior you MOST APPROVE to LEAST
APPROVE, plus a brief sentence explaining your first choice, second choice, and so on.
2. Split into small groups. Each group member should take turns to share his/her first choice,
MOST APPROVE:
1. ________________WHY_____________________________________
2. ________________WHY_____________________________________
3. ________________WHY_____________________________________
LEAST APPROVE:
4. ________________WHY_____________________________________
5. ________________WHY_____________________________________
Source: Adapted from Stella Ting-Toomey and Leeva Chung, Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication.
***
The Parable Exercise: Reflective Analysis
1. On the individual level, who was your top-ranked choice? What values were you defending?
2. Who was your bottom-ranked choice? What values were you rejecting?
***
MINDFUL COMMUNICATION
From Ting-Toomey’s Communicating Across Cultures, 1999, p. 46; and Judith Langer’s previous work on
mindful/mindless communication, Langer, E. J., & Moldoveanu, M., The construct of mindfulness, Journal of Social
Issues, 56(1), 2000, 1–9, p. 2.
Mindful Communication:
• Encourages individuals to tune in conscientiously…into [our] mental scripts and preconceived
expectations [of others].
Mindless Communication:
• The heavy reliance on familiar frame[s] of reference, old routinized designs or categories, and
customary ways of doing things. It means we are operating on “automatic pilot” without
