Bill Conerly, a construction director in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., says his crews are “a well-oiled machine.”

Watch them put together a house, and you’d never imagine that some can communicate with each other only through the foreman. But 25 percent of workers in the DiVosta division of Pulte Homes, Conerly’s employer, are native Spanish speakers and 10 percent primarily speak Haitian Creole.

Pulte faces labor shortages in some of the trades, said Kathy McGuire, its director of human resources in Palm Beach Gardens. Without Spanish and Creole speakers, she pointed out, “I wouldn’t have enough people to build my houses.”

With immigrants filling gaps in an aging work force and U.S. firms expanding to serve customers around the world, a babble of tongues is now heard in offices and at job sites across the country. The 2000 Census found that 47 million people, or 18 percent of the population, did not speak English at home — up from 32 million, or 14 percent, in 1990.

The situation poses challenges for employers, who may need to change time-worn habits of interaction, translate written materials into other languages or pay for classes for managers and employees.

But there are advantages as well. Veterans of multilingual work forces say the range of national origins not only makes companies more effective in serving customers and business partners around the globe, it makes them more interesting places to work.

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Bilingualism is Already ‘Critical’ to Success in Europe, Asia/Pacific and Latin America, and is of Growing Importance in North America

The ability to speak more than one language is critical to succeed in business in Europe, Asia/Pacific and Latin America, according to nearly nine out of ten (88 percent) executive recruiters from those regions who completed the sixth edition of the quarterly Executive Recruiter Index. The survey was released today by Korn/Ferry International (NYSE: KFY – News), the premier provider of executive search and leadership development solutions.

Nearly 85 percent of recruiters in Europe, 88 percent of recruiters in Asia and 95 percent of recruiters in Latin America either “strongly agreed” or “somewhat agreed” that being at least bilingual is critical to succeed in today’s business environment. Among recruiters in North America, that percentage was just 34 percent.

Despite these regional differences, recruiters everywhere agreed that in ten years, it will be “more important than today” for executives to be at least bilingual (Europe – 74 percent; Asia – 72 percent; Latin America – 79 percent; North America – 66 percent). They also reported there is a “significant competitive advantage” for executives who are multilingual – i.e., speak more than two languages fluently (Europe – 66 percent; Asia – 52 percent; Latin America – 79 percent; North America – 49 percent).

In terms of which foreign language capabilities are in most frequent demand by employers, recruiters in Asia, Europe and Latin America overwhelmingly chose English when asked to pick up to three languages (88 percent). Recruiters in North America selected Spanish (79 percent), French (43 percent) and Mandarin Chinese (30 percent)

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In one of the largest relief efforts in history, a new issue is cropping up: mismatched aid.

Relief groups have opened boxes meant for tsunami survivors to discover coats sent by donors apparently unaware the island nation is in the tropics, as well as polyester shirts and pants, which don’t absorb sweat, and fleece baby clothes.

“They’d melt to death,” said Pam Porodo, co-founder of Impakt Aid, a recently formed independent group working out of Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital.

Westerners touched by the suffering also have sent food, generously emptying out their larders of items that might be standard fare back home but don’t quite work locally.

Canned mixed vegetables in cream sauce are one example. First of all, most locals don’t have a can opener. Secondly, people here eat fresh vegetables and most don’t like the taste of creamed or canned food, or may well get sick from it.

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Amid the devastation of South Asia, where the earthquake and tsunamis have killed more than 150,000 people, a striking story is quietly emerging.

Western tourists — those ne’er-do-wells better known for lounging on the beach, sipping tropical drinks and haggling over the price of $4 hotel rooms in poverty-stricken towns — are doing some good.

Proclaimed Reuters: “Tsunami turns tourists into aid workers.”

Declared The Independent in Great Britain: “The tourists still come — only now they want to help.”

Instead of fleeing the devastated areas, some Western travelers are actually seeking them out, offering to lend a hand to overburdened relief agencies and local officials. The phenomenon is repeating itself, according to reports, in Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

Too many travelers, we are told, export their own culture when they go abroad, bringing Western demands with their dollars and Euros, encouraging old worlds to abandon traditions prematurely.

Long before the tsunamis struck, a subtle shift was occurring. More travelers than ever are seeking meaningful cultural exchange overseas. They are searching for ways to see the world, if only briefly, through others’ eyes, to understand foreign cultures in a way they hadn’t before.

They are signing on with organizations like Global Exchange and Cross-Cultural Solutions, which lead trips, often to little-visited places, that focus on education, understanding and, occasionally, volunteer work.

At its worst, travel in the developing world only highlights the disparities between the haves and have-nots, fostering resentment toward Western tourists.

But more often than we hear about, travel forges connections between peoples across great economic and cultural divides. It brings us together. And even in the worst of times, it can reveal us at our best.

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A seminar on Southeast Asian culture was held in Fengshan, Kaohsiung County yesterday to deepen local people’s understanding of the people of the region.

A worker from the Eden Social Welfare Foundation, which organized the forum, noted that the Taiwanese need to know more about Southeast Asia in light of the fact that more and more Taiwanese are marrying women from the region, the children are growing up in cross-cultural marriages, and leads to special challenges for schoolteachers.

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In addressing the seminar on “Combatting Islamophobia,” U.N. Secretary Kofi Annan called for the distinction of the politically-motivated violence from the religiously-motivated one.

“Islam should not be judged by the acts of extremists who deliberately target and kill civilians. The few give a bad name to the many, and this is unfair,” he said.

While addressing an audience of scholars, senior United Nations officials, and representatives from civil society organizations, Annan meant to address the Christian West at large. America in particular?

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Fat Brazilians? In a body-conscious society whose gifts to global culture include the girl from Ipanema, the tanga bikini and Gisele Bündchen and other supermodels, the idea seems heretical. Yet a controversial government study released late last month confirms it: Brazil is experiencing an epidemic of obesity.

According to the report, conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics and issued right as summer arrived and people began flocking to the beaches in skimpy clothing, just over 40 percent of Brazil’s adult population is overweight. Overall, 1 adult in 10, or more than 10 million people, are obese, by international standards, compared with fewer than four million who were deemed to be undernourished.

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With over 111,000 people arriving and settling, 2003-2004 saw the highest number of migrants and refugees coming to Australia in ten years, according to Australia’s Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (IMIA).

According to data released January 10, last year’s number was 20,000 more than in 2002-2003, and reflects a general trend for increased migration – in 1993-1994 just 70,000 settlers arrived in Australia. Furthermore, IMIA says that these figures do not include increasing numbers of people gaining permanent residency status, such as overseas students making onshore skilled migration applications.

With 18,000 British migrants to Australia last year, the UK contributed the most new arrivals, followed by New Zealand, China, India, South Africa, the Sudan and the Philippines. Over half the entrants (68,500) settled in the two most populous Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria, which contain the country’s two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne.

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The woman who led the way in fostering better German-American relations in the 1960s with the Kontakt program died Jan. 6 of natural causes in her home near Heidelberg, Germany.

A funeral for Jeanne Jones, 82, will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at the city cemetery in the town where she lived, Handschuhsheim.

Jones, who was also a public affairs specialist with U.S. Army Europe for about 30 years, was considered the mother of Kontakt, according to a statement issued by USAREUR. Kontakt clubs focus on bringing together American soldiers and local German citizens for cross-cultural activities. Jones wanted Germans and Americans to become better friends through cultural awareness, the statement said.

Jones was the original author of USAREUR Regulation 360-90, which covers Kontakt clubs in Germany. She also spearheaded the short-lived Cross-Cultural Program directly after the fall of the Berlin Wall that helped forge better relations between people living in the former East and Germans and Americans living in the West.

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Rudyard Kipling’s famous line “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet” no longer applies. Today, East and West are commingled, and in this country, the East is on the rise.

Take movies. American audiences are growing more familiar with movies from China, Japan and South Korea. Quentin Tarantino is planning a kung fu movie entirely in Mandarin, and Zhang Yimou’s stylized martial arts films like “Hero” and “House of Flying Daggers” are popular across the country. Hollywood is remaking Japanese blockbusters like “The Ring” and “Shall We Dance?”

What many Asian Americans once considered proprietary culture — kung fu, acupuncture, ginseng, incense, Confucian dramas, beef noodle soup and so on — has spilled irrevocably into the mainstream.

Three decades ago, who would have thought that sushi would become an indelible part of American cuisine? Or that Vietnamese fish sauce would be found on Aisle 3 of Safeway? Or that acupuncture would be accepted by some HMOs? That feng shui would become a household word? Or that Asian writers, especially Indian, would play a large and important role in the pantheon of American letters?

American pundits tend to look at the world through a very old prism — they associate globalization as synonymous with Americanization: i.e., how the United States influences the world. What many tend to overlook, in the age of porous borders, is how much the world has changed the United States.

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LOOKING someone straight in the eye is bad manners for Ethiopians, but taking a pencil from a classmate without asking shows your friendship is close enough to do away with formality.

These are a couple of the ways misunderstandings can arise for the 150 Ethiopians now living in Tasmania.

It is up to cross-cultural workers such as Terhas Bayru not only to translate the language but also to explain cultural differences to both newcomers and locals.

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In an interview with DW-WORLD, the president of Germany’s Bundestag, Wolfgang Thierse, stressed it was important for the Arab-Islamic world to open up to the West for the dialogue between the two to be really fruitful.

On Dec. 12, 2005 DW-WORLD’s Arabic Web site goes online. To mark the event, the editors spoke to Wolfgang Thierse, president of the German parliament, about the much-vaunted dialogue between the West and the Arab-Islamic world.

The interview comes at a time of intense debate in Germany about the integration of foreigners living in the country and the compatibility of Islam with European values.

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The conference on Arab media in the information age concluded [in Abu Dhabi] yesterday with a clear message that the media should be given full freedom to carry out its duty in a balanced way.

The three-day conference, organised by the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR), focused on issues like how media is influenced by governments as well as by regional cultural considerations and the roles that these considerations could play both as a bridge and a barrier to cross-cultural understanding.

Media experts from around the world addressed access of information and control of media by political and commercial interests. They investigated whether the media can remain impartial in situations of war and crisis.

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New Yorkers who do not speak English face enormous problems communicating with medical professionals at the city’s private and public hospitals, a report released yesterday reveals.

Nearly 75% of the 51 hospitals surveyed by the city controller’s office failed to provide Spanish-language services to callers to one or more of the hospitals’ departments.

“Here in New York City, the world’s melting pot and home to over 2 million foreign-born residents, it is unconscionable that basic health care services remain out of reach for citizens who don’t speak English,” Controller Bill Thompson said.

According to the 2000 Census, nearly 40% of the city’s population is foreign-born, with 52% of those residents coming from Latin America.

“But while the face of New York is changing every day, our hospitals are trapped in an English-only time warp,” Thompson said.

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There’s a difference between the pre-packaged Shanghai stir-fry vegetables in my refrigerator and a McDonald’s restaurant in Brazil.

On a trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, last year, I visited Rocinha favela, one of the largest hillside shantytowns in the world. As I walked into the hillside community, surrounded by street children digging through garbage for their next meal, I noticed a McDonald’s restaurant on the corner.

The golden arches stood out amid the noticeable poverty of the community.

When I asked a resident about the presence of McDonalds, he replied that the favela residents pleaded for a McDonald’s restaurant because it made them feel connected to the rest of the city of Rio de Janeiro, and by extension, to the global community.

The golden arches symbolize inclusiveness in commercial society. Attached to the brand McDonald’s is a particular idea of modernity and development. Rocinha favela residents desired to participate in a global culture that eats McDonald’s hamburgers.

Suddenly, the difference between the pre-packaged Shanghai stir-fry vegetables in my refrigerator and the McDonald’s restaurant in Brazil is obvious.

When I take my Shanghai Stir-Fry vegetables out of the microwave and savour the exotic flavouring, I do not feel a part of Shanghai culture. By contrast, a McDonald’s hamburger carries a symbolic value to a low-income Brazilian. The hamburger symbolizes inclusiveness to a global consumer culture that can afford to purchase a hamburger.

The food we eat not only contains nutrients and minerals to keep our bodies healthy but also contains a psychological element, reflected in how we perceive our economic status in the world.

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I spent the first eight years of my life in the United States, where I was born. The next eight years were spent in Venezuela, my father’s native country. While living in Venezuela, I witnessed the arrival of Burger King. The Venezuelan fast food chain Tropi Burger or any of the local Cuban hamburger joints served better tasting burgers than Burger King’s, which tasted like they had been shipped down from the United States frozen (presumably because they had). But there was something special about eating at Burger King. It was American. Same goes for chocolate. I grew up on some of the best milk chocolate in the world in cacao-producing Venezuela. Nowadays, Venezuelans are eating American chocolate and the founder of Tropi Burger brought T.G.I. Friday’s and Benihana to Venezuela. Why? Because they’re American.