Fasten your seatbelts - cultural guide

China 3_Lower your glass as a sign of respect. from 43 Films on Vimeo.


China 4_Do bring the right kind of gift. from 43 Films on Vimeo.

This increased mobility exposes millions of travellers every day to new cultures, customs and languages. Without education, dialogue can be difficult and misunderstandings can arise.

You can get yourself into all sorts of trouble in other countries if you don't have an understanding of the cultural language. Much of our behaviour can mean other things in other countries, some of it amusing, some of it extremely offensive. One gesture, or movement, or expression, may have many different meanings, just as our verbal language has words which may have different meanings.

Some people, when travelling to new countries, may forget to consider the different behavioural norms they are likely to encounter and behave exactly as they do at home. In such circumstances, even minor cultural differences can become major barriers to communication and cooperation. This project aims to demystify these cultural differences and encourage visitors to embrace them.

The beauty of Europe lies in the fact that even though there is a firm movement towards standardisation for the sake of efficiency, there is a strong will to cultivate and to promote the diversity of languages and cultures of the different states. With our project we would like to contribute to this important philosophy and extend it to the ‘global village’ that is our world today.

More generally, and perhaps a little less pretentiously, we would simply like to put the idea in the minds of the passengers that it is useful and fun to learn about cultural differences.

The objectives of this project are:
raising travellers' curiosity towards new languages
breaking linguistic and cultural communication barriers
using innovative communication tools and learning methods :teaching through entertainment
offering free immediate access to educational information to travellers
and last but not least, helping to kill time intelligently

The first episode (Fasten Seat Belts 1: Europe) was funded by the European Commission's Socrates-Lingua department.The second one (Fasten Seat Belts 2: Europe - Asia) was supported by the European Commission’s Life Long Learning Programme.

Un proiect european fascinant care are ca scop evitarea gafelor culturale prin educatie.
E si Romania in lista tarilor cu o "cultura speciala"

http://www.fastenseatbelts.eu/