A Cross-Cultural Context: Americans, Germans, and English The Americans, the Germans, and the English share significant portions of each other's cultures, but at many points their cultures clash. Consequently, the misunderstandings that arise are all the more serious because sophisticated Americans and Europeans take pride in correctly interpreting each other's behavior. Cultural differences which are out of awareness are, as a consequence, usually misunderstood as unskillfulness, ill manner, or tack of interest on the part of the other person. Germans and Intrusions I shall never forget my first experience with German proxemic patterns, which occurred when I was an undergraduate. My manners, my status, and my ego were attacked and crushed by a German in an instance where thirty years' residence in this country and an excellent command of English had not affected German definitions of intrusion. In order to understand the various issues that were at stake, it is necessary to refer back to two basic American patterns that are taken for granted in this country and which Americans therefore tend to treat as universal. First, in the United States, there is a commonly accepted, invisible boundary around any two or three people in conversation which separates them from others. Distance alone serves to isolate any such group and to provide it with a protective wall of privacy. Normally, voices are kept low to avoid intruding on others and if voices are heard, people will act as though they had not heard. In this way, privacy is granted whether it is actually present or not. The second pattern has to do with the exact point at which a person is experienced as actually having crossed a boundary' and entered a room. Talking through a screen door while standing outside a house is not considered by most Americans as being inside the house or room. If one is standing on the threshold holding the door open and. talking to someone inside, it is still defined informally and experienced as being outside. If one is in an office building and just 'pokes his head in the door' of an office, he's still outside the office. Just holding on to the door-jamb when one's body is inside the room still means a person is not quite inside the other fellow's territory. None of these American spatial definitions is valid in northern Germany, In every instance where the American would consider himself outside he has already entered the German's territory and by definition would become involved with him. The following experience brought the conflict between these two patterns into focus. It was a warm spring day. I was standing on the doorstep of a converted carriage house talking to a young woman who lived in an apartment upstairs. The first floor had been made into an artist's studio. The arrangement, however, was peculiar because the same entrance served both tenants. The occupants of the apartment used a small entryway and walked along one wall of the studio to reach the stairs to the apartment. As I stood talking on the doorstep. I glanced to the left and noticed that some fifty to sixty feet away, inside the studio, the Prussian artist and two of his friends were also in conversation. He was facing so that if he glanced to one side he Could just see me. I had noted his presence, but not wanting to interrupt his conversation, I unconsciously applied the American rule and assumed that the two activities -- my quiet conversation and his conversation -- were not involved with each other. As I was soon to learn, this was a mistake, because in less time than it takes to tell, the artist had detached himself from his friends, crossed the space between us, pushed my friend aside, and with eyes flashing, started shouting at me. By what right had I entered his studio without greeting him? Who had given me permission ? I felt hurt and humiliated, and even after almost thirty years, I c