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Introduction
Intercultural communication plays a fundamental role in every aspect of modern society.
And the occurrence of it is even more apparent when there are clear chasms existing
between different cultures. Penetrating on this perspective, the film Outsourced, which
was released in 2006, could be considered a quintessential illustration of it. Hence, based
on the knowledge that I have acquired from the Intercultural Communication course
lectured by Ms. Chau, I will extend my discussion on the film as well as analyze how
different factors of cultural diversity were successfully reflected in it.

Analysis
I. The differences between the two distinct culture and the reflection of culture
shocks on the film
1. Intermediate level:
Language
Although English is the national language in both America and India, throughout
the film, there are several times misunderstandings of word meanings occur. The
filmmakers have intelligently made use of these points in order to cause humorous
effects. For example, in the scene when Todd first sat in the taxi with his co-worker,
Puro, he used three American slangs to describe his job including kitsch, rednecks,
and schmuck and he was caught by surprise that all of these terms seemed
completely strange to Puro. In another scenario when Todd played a recording in
which the sellers suggested a woman whose sons had the first day at school to buy
a “rubber”, Todd immediately points out American “rubber” means “condom”.
However, as all of his Indian colleagues proclaimed, in Indian English, “rubber”
means “eraser” and that causes a slight awkward but funny moment.
Dining Etiquette
In the scene when Todd used his left hand to eat, he immediately received glances
from both Puro and Aunty Ji. It reflects one the most important dining etiquettes
in India. According to them, the left hand is considered “unclean” and should not
be used to eat food. To be specific, they label the left hand as the hand that you
use for picking up toilet paper.
2. Deep level culture:
Cow is sacred in India
In a training to the sellers in his company, Todd showed an American burger brand
but he innocently illustrates the process of marking the cows, in which they used a

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 hot iron stick to stick on the skin of the cows. After hearing that, one of his trainees
reacted panicking and Asha gave him the suggestion that he should learn more
about India. This presumably declares that he has done something against the
culture of India. This also explains why he couldn't find any cheeseburger in
McDonnells, which he misassembled as a Indian version of McDonald's. According
to walkthroughindia (WalkThroughIndia, n.d.), a travel guide website, Cow is the
most sacred cow in India and slaughtering them is restricted in this country.
The contrast between collectivism and individualism cultures:
When Todd told Puro that he didn’t live with his parents, he reacted fully surprised
and said that he didn’t understand about American. This can be attributed to the
strong sense of collectivism of Indian. In contrast, Todd showed his total comfort
when mentioning the fact that he was living alone, which demonstrates the sense
of individualism of Todd, or American in general. Another example is the
engagement of Asha, which was said to be done when was four. Todd reacted
completely opposed to it. This can be explained with the diverge in the notions of
them, since collectivists perpetually obey the decision or judgement of the
dominating group. Nonetheless, individualists only feel comfortable when they do
things for their own rights and purposes.
3. Culture shocks
The Journey of Todd in India not only shows us the significance of intercultural
communication, but also illustrates the obstacles that everybody must confront when
tolerating cross-cultural transitions. For instance, from the very first step in India to the
train station, Todd can sense the monumental differences of a totally strange country to
him. People were talking with another accent, the food there was different and even how
people asked questions was extremely strange to him. Things even got worse when he
arrived at his work, his colleagues seemed very far from his expectation. They possess no
mutual notion which could help achieve his goal and get back to his hometown. He got
stressed and overwhelmed by the novel culture surrounding him. Hence, Todd had no
choice but to have both Psychological adjustment and Sociocultural adjustment and he
did. He learned to speak in the way Indian native people speak, dress in the way that
native people dress, and change his attitudes when seeing an unexpected situation, such
as seeing the office drowning in water. These are exemplified for cognitive reframing.

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II. The comparison with short stories from “Gan Nhu La Nha”
1. “Tôi không biết” - Khánh Hòa (2018, pp. 119-123)
In brief, “Tôi không biết” describes the changes in viewpoints of a Vietnamese students
studying abroad in the United States. The apparent similarity that we can perceive is a
clear demonstration of collectivism. As I have mentioned in my analysis of the Outsourced,
collectivism prioritizes the group’s privileges over individual’s. Similar to Asha in the
Outsourced, the girl in this short story proclaims her strict obedience to her parents since
she was always afraid of the prejudice of society.
2. “Hành trình nước Mỹ của tôi” - Huyền (2019, pp.188-203)
Opposite to the experience of Khánh Hòa, the story about Diệu Huyền’s American is
depicted in a much more severe aspect about cultural shocks, which can be recited to the
cross culture transitions from collectivism to individualism. Hence, comparing to Todd’s
experience in the Outsourced 2006), Huyền’s was almost totally different. As she has
mentioned in her story, American tend to focus on the advantages that they can take
rather than to make friends unconditionally. Also, they prefer enjoying their meals alone
to eating in a group (2019, p.193).

Conclusion and Cultural Lesson

REFERENCES

The 5 Holy Animals Of India. WalkThroughIndia The 5 Holy Animals Of India Comments.
(n.d.). http://www.walkthroughindia.com/wildlife/the-5-holy-animals-of-india/.

Nhà Xuấ t Bản Trẻ. (2019). Gầ n như là nhà: nhiề u tác giả.

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Tom Gorai. (2006). Outsourced. United States.

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