For Sanjay Saxena, it was his first assignment abroad when the multi-national firm that he worked for sent him to Europe. Given a tight deadline to complete his first project, he briskly called for a day-long team meeting on Saturday, to kick off the project.

Half an hour after he had sent out the communication, he got a call from his Western boss. Five minutes later, a chastened Saxena was back in his workplace recalling his email, after being soundly rebuked for being insensitive to other people.

It took a while for Saxena to internalise that working on Saturday (an off day), which was a sign of commitment to the job in India , was perceived as intruding into others’ personal space in the European office of the same company.

As India integrates into a more seamless world, the ability to work in a cross-cultural environment is a valuable asset for any ambitious executive.

Managing to understand, appreciate and perhaps even exploit the nuances of these cultural differences, could spell all the difference between success and failure in some business situations.

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“Adam” is supposed to be the Iraqi face at a key U.S. military checkpoint south of Baghdad, but he is so fearful for his life that he wears a black ski mask to hide his identity.

Dressed in camouflage fatigues, he is part of an army of [interpreters] that serves as a vital link for U.S. occupiers short on Arab speakers needed for manning roadblocks, mounting patrols and interrogating suspects.

But because of their highly visible jobs, they also face an especially high risk from Iraqi insurgents who have branded them traitors and collaborators and marked them for death.

The pressure is so intense that some [interpreters] have quit.

“We use American nicknames and wear masks because if the Ali Babas find out who we are, they will kill us,” said Adam, referring to guerrillas and bandits who have executed hundreds of interpreters hired since last year’s U.S.-led invasion.

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Within two days… the California governor’s very mild advice to the Republican Party to “cross over that center line a little bit” had snowballed into a full-blown advocacy of gay marriage and abortion rights, due to an English-German-English translation that lost a bit of accuracy, and the willingness of ideological warriors to advance their causes at any expense even, apparently, the truth.

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Christmas isn’t just a festival, it’s a cross-cultural global celebration. Variants there may be, but certain customs are common…

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Latinos are the nation’s fastest-growing ethnic group and are an attractive market segment for grocers because they often have larger families than other demographic groups. More mouths to feed means more groceries to buy.

Arizona’s Hispanic households spend an average $5,648 annually on groceries, while non-Hispanic households average $5,288, according to Phoenix-based Behavior Research Center.

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French-speaking Canadians can now get Google’s News Service in their own language, the search giant announced Wednesday.

The French edition of Google News Canada enables searches and browsing news items from more than 500 French news sources.

The feature is based on the same search service used by Google’s English division, but gives greater prominence to news and photos specific to Canada, with more links to stories about Canadian businesses, politics, celebrities and sport.

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Managers at Cary Towne Center say a growing number of shoppers speak Spanish so it’s critical Santa can connect with all the children.

“It makes a big difference to see a child wandering…standing there, wishing to be close to Santa and before you know it he’s sitting on Santa’s lap and Santa is speaking Spanish to him,” Santa added. “That’s his language [and] he does not question it.”

Whether it’s in English, Spanish or French, Santa listens carefully to each request. While Barbie and Spiderman top the list of most young children, Santa says most of the older children ask for something bigger.

“This year, more than any other year, I’ve got more requests for peace on earth,” he said.

It’s a gift all of us could ask for this Christmas, no matter what language you speak.

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Note: In the words of former South African president Nelson Mandela, “If you talk to someone in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”

The Peel District School Board has produced “Welcome to School Kits” in 26 foreign languages. The kits are available at all elementary schools and contain basic information for newcomer families enrolling their children in school.

The languages were selected in an attempt to reflect Peel region’s cultural diversity. Kits are available in Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Croatian, Farsi/Persian, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Macedonian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Serbian, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, Urdu and Vietnamese

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From “acute triangle” to “zero exponent,” the math glossary contains more
than 700 mathematical vocabulary terms commonly used in grade 6 through
Algebra 2. Users can select from among 12 languages — Arabic, Bengal,
Chinese, English, Haitian, Hmong, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Urdu and
Vietnamese. If a language other than English is chosen, users will see the
English term along with the word and its definition in the selected language.
Many terms include diagrams that illustrate the term with labels in the
appropriate language.

The glossary provides a number of benefits to students, teachers and
parents:

* Students — The tool is free, easy-to-use, and available 24/7 for those
looking to better understand mathematical terms and their definitions.

* Teachers — To communicate with students speaking many languages within
the same classroom, teachers can find help in one place. There is no
need to maintain a variety of print resources.

* Parents — Parents are better able to help their children with math
homework even if they do not read English. The tool is available to
anyone with Internet access.

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[Spanish-speaking] travelers now enjoy a better, faster and friendlier airport experience with Delta Air Lines’ new Spanish-language automated gate announcements and select information on Delta’s Gate Information Display Screens (GIDS).

Starting Dec. 14, Delta gates in 34 U.S. airports will have the ability to play automated gate announcements in English and Spanish. Automated gate announcements will always be played in both English and Spanish in select cities and for all Delta-operated SkyTeam and Avianca codeshare domestic flights. Beginning in January 2005, display screens in Delta gate areas will also provide select information in Spanish, such as showing proper stowage instructions for carry-on baggage.

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Most companies with a considerable Web presence have bitten the bullet and migrated to a commercial content-management system (CMS). The benefits of a CMS include the ability to assign content ownership and responsibility, easily modify and add content, assign effective dates and create workflows to make sure proper approval is gained before publication.

But what about a full-featured CMS from the open-source world? Most early attempts were not well received, but today that has changed. The open-source arena now has its own world-class CMS, called Plone, which is built on Zope; its content-management framework provides a full-featured CMS for open-source-friendly customers. In fact, Plone is more than a CMS — it is a complete development platform that supports advanced templates and objects, and has a full rendering engine.

To take a look at the Plone solution, point your browser to www.plone.org, where you will find plenty of documentation — a rarity for open-source systems. A tremendous amount of functionality is available without having to resort to customization. The default Plone setup includes support for various content types, workflow, internationalization (as of this writing, the Plone user interface has been ported to 30 languages), portlets and more. The user interface is also compliant with the World Wide Web Consortium’s AA rating for accessibility. In case you’re worried about support, more than 100 developers around the world and plenty of companies are dedicated to the continued development and support of Plone.

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It’s hard to tell now, but in the future, 2004 could be seen as one of the pivotal years in the history of Japanese cinema. This is not necessarily because of the quality of films released–and there were a number of great films–but because of hints of fundamental shifts in the industry and its relation to the global marketplace.

It is significant that the most successful film with Japanese actors in the domestic market this year was not even a Japanese-made film, but The Last Samurai. That was only one of a number of foreign-made films–most released in 2003 in the United States–that underlined the strong interest that exists in Japanese pop culture on a global scale

Heterogeneity and cultural border crossings can be a good thing, especially for a Japan that was long an exclusionary nation, but this trend is not exactly new. Independent filmmakers have been deconstructing the myth of Japanese homogeneity for over a decade…

What is different about the current internationalization is not just the watering down, the turning of cultural difference into commodities to consume, but–and this is probably the origin of those side effects–the fact it’s now taking place in the major studios. What these global institutional moves threaten to do is further distance the majors from the minors and further undermine an already unfairly hampered independent industry through the force of big capital, especially in television.

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Italy has taken another step forward in fostering good relations with emerging economic superpower China via a new program for academic cooperation, Italian media reported on Wednesday.

The Marco Polo program, sponsored by Italy’s powerful industrial employers’ association Confindustria, sets up a system for “stable relations” between Chinese and Italian universities.

The agreement is the fruit of Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi’s trip to the oriental country earlier in the month, which was aimed at promoting economic and cultural ties between the countries.

Marco Polo will provide a platform for the management of joint research projects.

Offices in both countries will also be set up for the coordination of academic exchanges involving researchers and lecturers – all of which will be supported by intensive foreign language instruction programs.

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IBMers sip spring water, wear suits and go on low-carb diets.

Workers at Lenovo, China’s biggest PC maker, favor fish head soup, open-collar shirts and smoking.

Lenovo on Dec. 7 agreed to buy Big Blue’s PC, laptop and notebook unit in a $1.75 billion deal. But in acquiring the unit — and 10,000 U.S. IBM (IBM) employees — Lenovo also is acquiring a very different corporate culture.

There’s been a growing number of Chinese giants buying key business units from Western firms.

Most analysts say such East-West marriages can work if parties address cultural or managerial issues quickly. And in a rapidly globalizing world, fusions between giants on opposite ends of the world may be the only way to go, they say.

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John Yunker, author of Beyond Borders: Web Globalization Strategies, makes a few predictions for the year ahead:

– Web Globalization Goes Mainstream
– Amazon.com Adds Spanish
– Apple Launches iTunes Korea
– The Global Gateway finds the “Sweet Spot”

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