Hot vs Cold Climate Cultures
As time goes on, our world becomes more and more multicultural and diverse. So it’s important to be able to understand existing cultural differences and be ‘flexible’ to them. In this article, I want to dive into the differences between Hot-Climate Culture and Cold-Climate Culture. I hope this article can help the readers (you) in your professional career or, even, personal life.
So what do we really mean by hot and cold anyway??
There is a generalization that countries that have winter (thus called Cold-climate) and countries that does not have winter (thus called Hot-climate) follow certain characteristics and attributes correspondingly. However it’s important to note that this generalization can’t be applied to all countries. This will make more sense as I go on.
What are the characteristics of each culture?
Hot-climate:
- Relationship Oriented
- Indirect Communication
- Group Oriented
- Inclusion
Cold-climate:
- Task Oriented
- Direct Communication
- Individual
- Privacy
What countries belong to each culture?
Countries that belong to the hot-climate culture are generally located in Asia, Africa, South America, Middle East and more. On the other hand, cold-climate culture includes America, Canada, Australia, European countries and more. Some countries such as Japan and Korea are exceptions to the rule. They have some characteristics of the Asian countries but they fall into the cold-climate culture to an extend.
Now I am going to explain these characteristics in depth. I will choose two countries, Indonesia (Hot) and America (Cold), and compare them. The comparisons that I will make are based on my own personal experience which can be bias. There is no right or wrong. We are not trying to find which one is the better culture. They are just different.
Relationship vs Task Oriented
Let’s tackle the first character. Relationship Oriented means that in daily activities and conversations, people of this culture will prioritize the relationship of the people involved. On the other hand, Task Oriented people will prioritize the task at hand. For example, when I work in Indonesia, the relationships that I have with my coworkers matter a lot. It can be hard to work productively if the relationship aspect between you and your coworkers is not establish yet. There are times where you can be more productive when you have more ‘relationship’ with your coworkers. In general, it is also easier to get to know my coworkers since doing so is actually more expected in a hot-climate culture. This is why in Indonesia we relatively have more social events and orientations in a work setting.
On the other side, when I worked in the US, my coworkers would generally prioritize the tasks over relationship. There wasn’t much ‘getting to know’ session compared to the counterpart culture. One benefit of this is one’s relationship with his/her coworkers would not affect his/her job as much. So don’t be surprise if there isn’t much friendly chit chat when you work in cold-climate culture.
Direct vs Indirect Communication
This one is also interesting. Cold-climate culture tends to be more direct because they want to focus on the ‘task or goal’ at hand. Hot-climate tends to be indirect because sometimes being direct can be considered as rude. For example, when you visit someone’s house in Indonesia and they offer you a cup of tea, it is generally polite to say no a few times before saying yes. Saying no implies politeness. On the other, in America, you just directly say either yes or no. They would not get offended if you say yes right away.
I will give you another example. If your roommate ask whether you like his/her music or if someone ask whether you like the food, in Indonesia most likely you will say ‘it’s good’ or ‘it’s fine’, even if you actually don’t enjoy it. So how do you know if they actually like it or not? One way to circumvent this situation is by asking another person to ask for you. Hot climate people tend to tell more truth if being asked indirectly. They do this because they want to be polite, not so much as lying. In America, people will tend to be more straightforward. If the food/music is bad, they will tell you. When I moved to the US for the first time, I actually thought some people were rude and too straightforward. This is due to my natural hot-climate culture tendency.
So what are the reasons behind these different ways of communicating? As you see, the cold-climate people will tend to focus on answering the question because for them ‘what is being asked’ is more important than the relationship. For the hot-climate, they will focus more on the relationship and not the question itself.
Group vs Individual Oriented
Individuality and privacy is really strong in a cold-climate country such as America. It’s not common in America, based on my experience, to talk about anything personal in a professional setting. It can be offensive if you ask too many personal questions because privacy is valued more. In Indonesia, I think personal conversations can happen frequently here and there during work.
Another example of this is people of the hot-climate culture will often stay close to their extended families. They tend to adhere to their family’s values and ways of doing things. Cold-climate people will tend to be more individualistic and have this “I will do it my way” mentality. In Indonesia most people expect their parents to pay for their college expenses. Some people in America, if not a lot, work and raise their own money to pay off their college tuition. Some of them are expected to live independently in their early twenties or earlier.
Privacy vs Inclusion
Last but not least! This section is actually strongly correlated with the previous one (group vs individual). I already mentioned some aspect of individuality in the previous section. In America there is a phrase “every man for himself”. The mentality that values being independent and autonomous. The mentality that prioritizes individual purposes over group’s. I definitely experience this in the US and can attest for it. Living in the US actually pushed me to become more independent. I also felt that there were times in my life when asking for help could have been seen as a weakness.
In Indonesia, we expect to include others and being included in groups from any settings. There is a story that I heard where a cold-climate person lives in a hot-climate culture. She eventually became stressed because nobody invited her to hangout or to be included in any groups. One day she ended up talking to one of her neighbors as to why she was never invited in anything. The neighbor actually told her that they were all wondering why she never hangout with them. As you see, the hot-climate people were expecting her to hangout with them without any process of invitation. For them, inclusion is natural and expected.
Summary
Remember, all of these are just generalization and it cannot be applied to every situation. The examples that I have shown are also based on my experience only. We cannot assume that every people from a culture will behave as stated above. I have seen a person in America who has a more hot-climate tendency than me. I have also seen a cold-climate person in Indonesia. So I hope this article serves as a guide, in which we can use to identify the general idea of a country’s culture.
Extra Tip: If you want to know more about the cultural differences between any two countries, let’s say Japan and America. The best person to ask is someone who has lived in both countries, not only one. Someone who has only lived in Japan can’t make as good of a comparison.
To conclude, I believe there is no right or wrong between these two cultures. Each culture has its own benefits and drawbacks. Each individual will also prefer one or the other. I just believe that we should be able to identify and understand each culture, and behave accordingly. We need to be aware as to who we are interacting with. This would be extremely helpful in entering this multicultural world. It’s also good to note that culture is ever-changing. As time goes by, people will have more and more exposure to each other’s culture, thus new culture is created. Look at New York City, Los Angeles, London, Toronto, Singapore, etc. These are few of the most diverse melting pots in the world. All flavors are combined in one place. It’s an interesting thing to experience.
