ABSTRACT
We start this preamble with a statement on translation by a Chinessse scholar of the Tang period. Translation from one language to another is, he said, rather like the wrong side of a tapestry: it has the same threads, the same colours, the same patterns, but something is different. This insightful definition could serve as a metaphor for a genuine understanding of another culture. As cultural psychologists we should concede that while total knowledge of our own culture is difficult enough, figuring out the entirety of another culture is quite rare. At best, we are likely to be grasping the general pattern, but missing the subtleties and the nuances. In communicating about the everyday life in the cultures and subcultures we know and study, we expect that the readers will gradually decipher the meanings, even if in the beginning, it is from the wrong side of the tapestry.
