http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/culture

In my cross cultural communication workshops we used it in the sense described by definitions 5 and 6:

5. the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group: the youth culture; the drug culture.

6. Anthropology . the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another.

There are lots of dimensions along which you can classify cultures and one of them is called: Boundaries of Privacy

Cultures that have a vertical hierarchy (class, caste, etc) often have rules about what are acceptable topics, and what are not.  These can differ widely, and not knowing what is personal talk (and possibly offensive) and what is public talk (and safe) can create conflict.

<I tried to insert here a picture of Lewin’s circles, but it doesn’t seem to work>

Lewin’s circles tell us that some cultures have specific regions of privacy: these cultures have a very small amount of “personal” information that is shared in the public.  Once a person gets into the “private” areas, all of the private areas are available.  So a friend who knows about your relationship with your boss, would also have access to information about your personal finances and personal relationships. Withholding information in some area is seen as offensive, because it violates the relationship.  Few people get this privilege.

In “Diffuse regions of privacy”, much is publicly available.  People who become “close” do so in specific compartments or areas: so a friend may know everything about your relationship with your boss, but nothing about your personal finances or personal relationships.  Withholding this type of information is seen as being normal and natural, and friends must be invited into each region specifically.

Friendship in the US and Germany belong to “diffuse regions of privacy” almost all of the rest of the world to the “specific regions of privacy”.  My friends in  America and Germany speak openly about having or having had cancer, whereas my friends in Austria, Hungary, Romania tend not to mention this particular kind of disease.

Back in the 70s I lived in Romania and I remember that my family members spoke openly and candidly about one of my grandfather’s dying of heart attack and the other of stroke. In 1982 I relocated to Germany and  when I came to spend the last weeks with my father everybody seemed to avoid talking about his having lung cancer. My father himself insisted on “having TBC” if he had to mention his disease at all. I was forcefully recommended not to talk about “the C-word”, either.

Having lived for almost 30 years in the “diffuse regions of privacy” of Germany I had no problem adapting at least to this aspect of American culture during the last year.

Some of my friends in Austria, Hungary and Romania must have felt the disclosure of my diagnosis as incongruent with their cultural practices and some of them seem to be embarrassed, not knowing how to react.

I am writing these notes mainly to let them know that I remember the cultural environment they live in and I understand their reactions of reticence and embarrassment.

I know that their feelings for me is the same, no matter in which way they express or not express it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNUJmPcB1_Q

I also found time to cuddle with my daughter and play the Wii with my son. I had good chats with my wife and it was an extra bonus for us to watch my daughter transform our cat into a turtle  (by  putting him under the laundry basket) or into “grocery” (by stuffing him into a shopping bag:).  She also helped me with cooking the breakfast, which was fair, since we cooked one of her favorites: sunny side up eggs.

I talked to my 80 year old dwindling mom on the phone and she was delighted by the way her sister and her family take care of her in their own home.  She said she was happy she didn’t have to go into a retirement home with strange people but could stay with her family.

I read a few more pages from Bryson’s “Mother Tongue” which I enjoy (like everything he writes:) enormously. He even mentions on page 41 the Bolyai University where I went to college ages ago.  The number of languages he mentions is definitely too low (2,700), today we think that there are almost 7000 languages spoken:

http://www.wycliffe.org/about/statistics.aspx

(Oops, I forgot that I promised not to waste my time with research and trying to prove my statements…;-)

I was surprised to get so many emails and Facebook messages and especially to find out, that some of my friends are cancer survivors.

I thank you all for your warm,  encouraging words.

Today it’s very cold but I  dont’t have to drive to Madison: I will work “remotely” in my home office. And I will start right now before the family wake up and holler for breakfast.

 The authors used nude mice that had been inoculated with human ovarian carcinoma cells, and the mice were stressed by being immobilized for several hours a day. Stressed mice had a three-fourfold increase in the number of tumor nodules and tumor weight; they also had more metastases. These results were replicated using other tumor cell lines and another method of stressing the mice.

 The stressed mice had larger adrenal glands and greater sympathetic nervous system activity than the controls, so the authors investigated whether the effect of stress on tumor growth is mediated by -adrenergic receptors. An agonist for 2-adrenergic receptor and a general -adrenergic receptor agonist increased tumor nodule number and tumor weight in a similar manner to chronic stress. Moreover, a -adrenergic antagonist could reverse these effects and the effects of chronic stress itself. By contrast, 1-adrenergic receptor agonists had no effect. [...]

 These results show one way in which stress increases tumor growth  [...]

Source and full text:http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v6/n9/full/nrc1986.html

 Original title: Tumorigenesis: Stress and cancer

Author: Patrick Goymer