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One of the more obvious cultural differences we face is the attitude to social chit-chat. I haven’t yet worked out what fits in the category of ‘own’ in the context of, ‘mind your own business’. Personal issues for me are public issues here. Questions such as how old are you, how much do you earn, how much rent do you pay, are as commonplace as discussing the weather back home. Everyone stops and watches everything and everyone talks to everyone about what they see. The market is characterized by a constant chatter between stall holders about how much stuff costs, how well the foreigner speaks Cambodian, and how long his hair is.

As a foreigner it is hard not to judge negatively this cultural norm of social chatter. On the roads it becomes rather dangerous as motorbike drivers are texting friends while driving – otherwise they would be lonely. In the workplace it seems inefficient to have two or more people working on a task that could be completed by one. A grader that grades our street has one seat but the driver usually has a friend standing beside him - how inefficient!

However, those judgments are coming out of my western cultural viewpoint in which we have idolzed efficiency and rationality above community and relatedness. And in my typical western educated way, I want to present some research to debate the point.

Neuroscientists have found that the primitive ‘survival’ instinct of our brain, the ‘approach-avoid’ response, is triggered as much by our relatedness (our sense of belonging to a group) as it is by more physical rewards or threats. And when threatened physically, or experiencing a lack of relatedness, our ability to think creatively and solve problems decreases, while our tendency to misinterpret a situation increases. In other words our productivity in most work situations would decrease (www.your-brain-at-work.com/files/NLJ_SCARFUS.pdf).

In Cambodia we have seen this in that workers working on their own are less productive. They lack motivation and an ability to think and act intuitively compared to when working in pairs or groups.

Back home in the west, while employers have been bemoaning the cost of water cooler conversations and trying to figure out ways to reduce them, research has shown that these times of idle chatter during work hours actually increase productivity (it’s worth reading the article! http://www.greatmanagement.org/articles/622/1/News-Flash-Workplace-Socializing-Is-Productive/Page1.html).

The simple act of informally socializing with colleagues over the water cooler creates a sense of community that increases productivity. One of the researchers comments that their research findings show humans to be, “not perfectly rational, completely independent individuals. We are part of a social fabric, and our basic human nature is to pay attention to other people and to share mood and attitudes. That's really the core of who humans are. Unfortunately, the way the psychology and management literature has evolved, their model of a human is a completely isolated, completely rational person. But you know what? That person doesn't exist. There's no such thing.”

Isn’t it great when science and theology agree? The Bible teaches us that humans are created in the image of God and the essential nature of God is community. Here we have social science research “proving” that being human means to be part of a social fabric, in community with others.

I’m finishing writing this after spending 2 hours of a “work” day out having a drink with a colleague. My tendency is to feel guilty, or at least to plan for ways that enable me to ‘catch up’ at a later time. But is that fair? Has this past 2 hours been time well spent? It has been time spent building community, finding some common ground, recognizing that we belong to the same group and species and planet and as such it is what being human is about. And it will probably give me a boost to achieve more also.