2. Practice intercultural empathy. Intercultural empathy means imaginatively placing yourself in the other person’s cultural world and attempting to experience what he or she is experiencing (Ting-Toomey, 1999). The saying “Don’t judge a person until you have walked a mile in his or her shoes” captures this idea. Conveying intercultural empathy demonstrates that we sincerely respect the other person and their cultural norms even though those norms may not be ones upheld in our culture. Try to honor the practices of the host culture. If you are in an East Asian country, try to use the chopsticks rather than asking for a knife and fork. Similarly, learn whether shaking hands is appropriate when greeting others. Did you know, for instance, that Chinese people find it disrespectful to exchange business cards with one hand (rather than two)

and extremely disrespectful to put the cards in your back pocket? Because business cards are considered an extension of the self, placing a person’s business card in your back pocket is interpreted as something akin to sitting on their face.