Do we see things as they are?

“People only see what they are prepared to see.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

In my last blog, we learned that we hear what we want to hear.

When images are symbols, how do we know what we see is what a person of another culture sees? 

In recent months, I attended a lecture by Joe Lurie, author of Perception and Deception: A Mind Opening Journey Across Cultures, who introduced many thought provoking images. These images though common and harmless to our culture, can carry different interpretations via a cross cultural perspective. The opportunity to reexamine images is the first step in cross cultural understanding. The point is not necessarily to adopt each other’s politics, but to open that possibility of seeing another message behind the same image. Instead of seeing each other as direct opposites, a direct 180 degrees conflict, if we see each other just 10 degrees off, we can avoid a collision.

He gives plenty of examples for Anais Nin’s quote “We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are.”

Here’s a comic that he used to demonstrate his point:


Comic that Joe Lurie shared at his presentation.

Comic that Joe Lurie shared at his presentation.

About Author

yvonne.liu.wolf

Yvonne Wolf was born in Taiwan and educated in the U.S. and Europe. She has extensive experience living and working internationally (Denmark and Japan). She is fluent in English, Mandarin, and Danish, and has studied Japanese, Spanish, and Greek. Between work and personal travel, she has visited more than 20 countries and well-traveled within the U.S. and Canada. She has worked with organizations and business executives focusing on communication strategies working with Chinese and East Asian partners. Among her many skills is mediating across cultural misunderstandings.