Communication

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The movie PK offers an enormous amount of knowledge on the subject of intercultural

learning. So much can be drawn from the movie about society and the way people think. People

often fall into the thought process that their culture is the best one, and that all others are strange

or abnormal. This is of course not the case, and intercultural learning is all about seeing past this

thought process and looking at the world as a whole. Watching movies from foreign cultures,

such as this one from Bollywood, can help to broaden our viewpoint and see the world as a

diverse one, full of many unique cultures.

This movie is particularly good at addressing intercultural communication. It addresses

the topic in an almost universal way, where one can easily transpose the main story into one’s

own culture; Tipsy could have landed anywhere, and challenged any social norm that was

prevalent in that society. As an example, below is my “sequel” to how the movie could have

played out had Tipsy come to the USA.

America was a different place before he came here. The alien who we all called “Tipsy”

brought about a change in the system that none of us could have ever imagined. He improved our

economy, helped the environment, and opened everyone’s eyes to something entirely new.

It all started on a sunny April day, about 10 years ago. The birds were singing, the

flowers were blooming, and people all around the neighborhood were busy mowing their lawns.

Back then, maintaining one’s lawn was seen to be of the utmost importance, and anyone who let

their grass grow out of order was looked upon as being too lazy to mow or too poor to afford a

mower. Looking back, this all seems ridiculous; Tipsy showed us how silly it was for us all to

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sacrifice so much time and money on our yards, and even taught us ways to keep it in order with

much cheaper and easier methods.

The first time I saw Tipsy was in my local hardware store. He was examining a bag of

fertilizer next to the one that I had come to purchase. As I grabbed a bag and walked towards the

register, I saw him put down his bag and pick up another one. As he shuffled through several

different varieties, it seemed that he was quite clueless as to what variety of fertilizer to buy. I

didn’t know him at the time, but being the friendly man and lawn mowing expert that I was, I

walked over to try and help him.

“Hello there,” I said to him. “What kind of grass are you growing?”

“Grass?” he said to me with a puzzled expression. He looked back at the picture on the

bag he was currently holding.

“Yes, grass,” I repeated. “What kind are you growing? Rye, Fescue, Kentucky blue…”

The strange man seemed lost in thought, and over such a simple question!

After I gave the man a long lecture on different kinds of fertilizer and all sorts of lawn

care terms, he finally dropped the bag, threw his hands in the air, exclaimed “What a waste!” and

proceeded to exit the building. I stood there for a minute in shock over what had just happened

before walking back to the check-out lane. “Was he tipsy?” I wondered to myself.

I didn’t forget the encounter, and it was not long before I saw the man again, though this

time on live television! They called him Tipsy. He was wearing the same clothes as when I had

seen him before, and still had that profound, wide-eyed expression on his face. He was being

interviewed on a local talk show, where he was excitedly sharing his opinion on the value of a

well-maintained lawn; or rather, his opinion on its lack of value.

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“North America spends over $40 billion on their lawns every year!” he exclaimed. “Just

imagine how much good could come of diverting that money to more important sources!” He

continued on with his rant for a while, and though he made strong arguments, I simply shrugged

it off. Nobody would actually give up the pride from a well-maintained lawn to help others. I

turned the TV off and went about the rest of my day.

The next day, when I went outside for my weekly mowing, something felt different.

Normally, mowing the yard was peaceful and satisfying. Today, however, I couldn’t keep my

mind off of what Tipsy had said. $40 billion. Instead of enjoying the smell of the freshly cut

grass, I was thinking about how much gas money it cost to keep my zero-turn lawnmower fueled

up, and how little difference all of the money spent actually made in my life. I thought long and

hard the whole time I was mowing, and after I was done, I parked the mower and just sat there

thinking to myself for an hour.

Meanwhile, Tipsy was out making progress. He was talking to people and posting flyers

with messages of protest on them. As difficult as it is to believe, it started to work! When faced

with the numbers of how expensive lawn care actually was, many people decided to cut back.

Some changed from mowing twice a week to once a week, and many stopped using commercial

fertilizers. Tipsy was making a difference.

At first, I could tell that people were skeptical. When my neighbors noticed that my lawn

didn’t look quite like a golf course the way it used to, they started to question my sanity. They

asked questions like why they hadn’t seen me on the mower that week, to which I simply replied

“I’ve been busy.” Over the next few weeks, I heard more and more about Tipsy and his quest to

reduce the cost of lawn maintenance. Many people changed their mowing habits, and in only a

month, Tipsy had significantly reduced the average amount Americans spent on their yards.

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Unfortunately, some were not so quick to jump on to the “cheaper lawn wagon.” The

companies producing expensive, high-tech lawnmowers and pricey fertilizers were losing money

fast. One in particular, Farmer’s First Choice, launched a new advertisement campaign in

response to Tipsy. “Keeping a healthy lawn has been an American tradition for years!” they

declared. This was a bold statement, but one that caught the attention of many who had been

going along with Tipsy’s idea. It was hard to argue with tradition, especially one that was being

painted in a patriotic way.

Tipsy suffered a great deal of oppression from multiple businesses trying to stop him

from spreading his message, but eventually he gained enough steam to bring about massive

change. People questioned why so much value was placed on a healthy lawn, and the practice

was made obsolete. It was the hyper-obsessive people that were soon placed in the abnormal

category, and all that was considered necessary was keeping a relatively under-control grass

height.

Tipsy saw a problem with the way American society looked at things, and he saw that

they were stuck in a worthless tradition. He told people the consequences of this tradition and

brought about change in his community. For all his effort, America was a better place.