Whenever you are traveling to a new place, a map is a good idea. The same is true when entering a new culture. In this lecture you will be introduced to the Cultural Adjustment map created by a group of people experienced in cross-cultural travel and adjustment. 

Muriel Elmer invites you to look at that map as having two roads - the upper track, beginning with an approach of openness, acceptance and trust, and the lower road, beginning with an approach of fear, suspicion and inflexibility. People tend to flip-flop between the upper and lower roads many times during their cross-cultural experience. In this session M. Elmer:

- tells a story about the Masai warrior who spit on her son's head three times;

- explains how to use the Cultural Adjustment map; 

- asks students to think about the differences they expect to encounter in a new culture;

- emphasizes the importance of choices we make when we have negative feelings.