Rooster in the Rice captures the excitement of living, studying, and working in a foreign culture. Based on the view that there is a nether world between the edges of interacting cultures where the rules of neither culture dominate, it presents over sixty incidents where cross-cultural collisions resulted in either problems or insights that changed the experience of life abroad. It identifies immediate causes of the collisions and places those incidents in an ecological framework to understand deeper global changes that affect us all. This book also examines the nature of global citizenship, describes the shock of re-entering one's home culture after an extended period overseas, shows how natural environments mold cultural practices, and offers suggestions for strengthening global education to meet the environmental, population, and socio-economic challenges of the twenty-first century.

By George Holmes Honadle

Prologue: The Rooster in the Rice
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Land between Cultures
Chapter I: Strangers in Distant Lands
Chapter II: Food as a Key to Culture
Chapter III: Interpreting Behavior
Chapter IV: Behind the Image
Chapter V: Managing Where Cultures Meet
Chapter VI: Confrontation and Comfort Zones
Chapter VII: Nature, Culture, and Language
Chapter VIII: Proof and Perception
Chapter IX: Other Edges in Motion
Chapter X: Edges in Perspective
Postscript: The Evolutionary Edge
Appendix: Edging Forward: Why and How Strengthening the Liberal Arts and Global Study Can Help to Meet our Needs in the 21st Century
Bibliography
Index
About the Author