Cheer loudly because you are really an Australia/Nigeria supporter, having just come from that part of the world?You and many other rugby/cricket/soccer fans have been in a pub or someone’s home watching the last match in a rugby/cricket test series or finals of the African Cup of Nations on TV. The South Africans have just lost to the Australians/Nigerians. Do you:
Cheer loudly because you are really an Australia/Nigeria supporter, having just come from that part of the world?
Commiserate with your hosts or pub mates, but give reasons for why you feel the other side deserved to win?
Keep your feelings to yourself and just discuss the merits and demerits of the play?
Perhaps not the most honest approach, but certainly the most likely to keep your nose in its rightful place on your face and your friends as your friends, is . Besides, discussing the game can keep you drinking with the buddies for a number of hours.
is the worst response you could have. Sport is as close as you can get to a religion without a god to many South Africans. Insulting their national team is as bad as insulting them personally. Beware of even taking sides in the national league of the various sports until you know your ground a little better.
will most likely not get you into trouble, but it may exclude you from the general conversation, as the locals will think you are just not part of them.
You are negotiating a deal with a South African supplier of a material that you need in your newly established factory. You have set up the preliminary discussions via email and/or telephone. You then arrive at the supplier’s head office to discuss the final deal with the national sales and marketing director. He puts forward an offer of a given price for the product. Do you:
Jump at the offer, sign on the dotted line and hope you can make enough mark-up on the product to keep in business?
Throw up your hands in horror and propose a 50 per cent reduction, expressing your disbelief at the outrageous price and mentioning that you could get it elsewhere at a better price?
Quietly and knowledgably discuss the offer, making it clear that the price is too high, but that for a better deal you could perhaps guarantee quicker payment, or a larger quantity of purchase among other alternatives.
If you follow option you will probably not get a good deal, as South Africans may do business ‘European’ style, but that does not preclude them from trying to get as much for their product as possible.
is most likely to antagonise and perhaps even intimidate your supplier—and sometimes a South African with their back against the wall can be quite unreasonable. There is a chance they will just say, “Well get it elsewhere, then.” You may not be able to get the product cheaper anywhere else.
This leaves you with which is the most common way business is conducted here. Give a little, take a little. The most favoured catch phrase at present is to try for a win-win situation. It is probably the most appropriate way to go, unless you are VERY sure of your options.
You are invited to a dinner party by your boss at their home. Do you:
Accept quietly and verbally, ensuring you know the time, address and date, also asking what the dress code should be and if there is anything you could bring to add to the meal?
Say “yes” and whoop around the office telling everyone, including those who may well have not been invited, that you are off to eat with the boss?
Nonchalantly say you guess it would be fine, but you need to check to see that you are not otherwise engaged and will get back to him/her nearer the time?
Option will ensure that you will not ever be invited again, and may well even get you a terse note that the dinner is off or postponed. It is not a done thing to discuss overtly with your colleagues matters such as a private dinner invitation from the boss.
is the most usual way a South African employee would respond to the invitation. Express the pleasure at being invited without being obsequious about it, get the correct information about the nature of the function, so as not to be too casually or formally dressed. The offer of a little assistance will most likely be turned down in a boss-employee situation, although it would be wise to bring a small gift of chocolates or flowers to the function.
is not a wise option as it is too casual an approach for a boss-employee invitation. It is more likely the approach you would use if a good friend made you a casual invitation to have supper with them.
You and your spouse are invited to a provincial level rugby/soccer/cricket match to be played in the big sports stadium in the city where you live. Mention is made of going out to dinner after the game. Do you:
Dress for dinner in smart casuals: women in evening make-up and high-heel shoes, and men in tie and sports jacket?
Wear jeans or shorts (depending on the weather and if you are in a covered stadium or not), T-shirt and sneakers, hats and sunglasses and a lot of sunscreen on your exposed skin?
Do you decline because you know it will be shown on TV and you just don’t know how to act at a South African sports match?
Option is certainly not the way to make friends nor get to know the local way of life. South Africans will make an effort to encourage shrinking violets into the group, but only for a limited time. If you are invited to a game and it’s the kind of recreation you like, go even if you do feel a little ill at ease. It is the best way to learn how it’s done. And your friends will certainly help you understand anything about the game and the whole outing if you just ask!
is the way to dress for sport matches, unless you are invited to a ‘box’, which is more smart-casual than described. In that case, it may be a bit more formal and it would then be quite in order to ask what dress code is best. Casual is the code word at sports matches, especially as behaviour and team support gets quite rowdy and boisterous. If you know where you going for the meal after the match, you could bring a change of clothes with you, but chances are that you will go somewhere casual or have sufficient time to go home to shower and change.
would make you stand out like a sore thumb at the match, and perhaps make your hosts feel a little ill at ease for not explaining the causal nature of the event to you. You would not be ostracised, but you would feel a little left out.
You are at a cocktail or dinner party with a group of acquaintances and the subject of South African politics arises. The locals start a heated debate over a party-political issue or something the government has done that some disagree with and others think is perfectly fine. Do you:
Join in, taking sides and expressing strong views on which you think is correct and why, adding for good measure just what is wrong with the way the country is, or was, run?
Listen politely and keep mum. Or make as innocuous a comment as you can when asked for your view?
Switch the conversation to the politics of your home country?
Option may well work if the rest of the group know of your country’s politics, and it could be a great way to diffuse what so often becomes an unpleasant slanging match with little logic and no point. But if your land is too distant for them to know much about, it will probably not draw their swords from each other’s necks.
could be quite exhilarating as long as you are well-informed on matters, and as long as you are prepared for the severe knocks you may get for ‘being a foreigner meddling in our affairs’. You may lose friends if they become too upset at your views.
is the easiest way out, rather boring but safe. Politics and religion tend to bring some of the most rational and sane people to irrational flash point in a matter of moments. Stay out of the fray until you are sure of the sensitivities of your friends.
You are with a group of people, all of one race/gender. You suddenly find the conversation has become belittling to another race or to and about women/gays. (And this can even happen in a mixed group with the silly phrase of ‘present company excluded’.) Do you:
Join in, pretending that it is quite OK to talk about people in this way, despite the fact you feel uncomfortable and disloyal to other friends and colleagues?
Stand around listening, but not actually taking part in the conversation and hope it will just peter out, or try and change the subject without actually seeming to?
Tell the company politely but firmly that these are not your views or the way you like to talk and behave, and so would prefer it if people did not speak/behave like this at all, or at least not in your presence?
Frankly option is the only correct one! But I do realise that it can be VERY difficult to act in this way when you are still not at all familiar with the people and the country. If you are confident and/or very offended (and I would be), then perhaps try to let them know that you are very uncomfortable in this situation. Otherwise try (and resolve to have as little to do with them in the future as you can). Of course is not an option at all.