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Intro to How I Learned to Communicate Across Cultures

It was early spring during my first tour of duty in 1981 when after finishing naval exercises in the Japan Sea we docked in Chinhae, South Korea. I had ridden a Korean destroyer as part of an officer exchange program during the exercises and then rejoined my shipmates once in port. I loved then and now to know about peoples from other cultures. I experienced the Korean sailors’ life first hand on one of their own ships, ate their food, slept on their undersized bunks and helped them chase away a rat.

     From the harbor to the city center was about a five kilometer walk along the sea. I loved the sea, the full double rainbows we saw while steaming from Okinawa to the Philippines, the sharks, dolphins and flying fish that fell into formation with us in the South China Sea, and when we steamed ‘darkened ship’, all lights off and hatches closed so the enemy couldn’t see us. The ships created brilliantly illuminating bright yellow-green phosphorescent wakes. It was magical.