Russell Peters Quotes

I say the same thing that I've said for decades now, which is: don't go over to Japan trying to change it, thinking that you know better. Go there trying to understand.

Honestly, I'm cool with everyone, and people pick up on that. I'd say, 'I'm not gay, but it's all good.' It's kind of like going to Paris when you don't know the language; some Americans get into trouble over there, but I'm just like, 'Sorry, I don't speak French.'

Working overseas is more difficult in that it's much more complicated to get people to open their hearts to you and to tell you information.

Regardless of whether you speak the language or are familiar with a culture, the picture should hold up.

I'd like to set a story in Australia, but I would need to feel confident my German and U.S. readers, for example, would stay with me.

Even when well translated. can we really understand what other cultures are talking about?

I wish more Americans would travel here. I always encourage my friends: 'Travel. See the Middle East. There's so much to see, so many good people.' And it's vice versa, and it helps stop problems of misunderstanding and stereotypes from happening.

I was not grown up in the U.S., nor in Japan. In order to create a video game that people around the globe can enjoy and relate to, I can't draw things deeply rooted in the local culture that I'm not familiar with. That's why we are not doing games about football or samurai.

I think that we in the West expect people to adapt to our culture very, very quickly when they come to our country. But when we go over to someone else's, I don't think we are willing to meet them halfway like we expect them to meet us. I think having cultural sensitivity is a lot more important than we realize.

The most difficult task for anyone wandering through a foreign land with the hope of gaining some insight into it is the profound need to come to terms with the lives and thoughts of strangers.

When you travel you experience, in a very practical way, the act of rebirth. You confront completely new situations, the day passes more slowly, and on most journeys you don't even understand the language the people speak....You begin to be more accessible to others, because they may be able to help you in difficult situations.

If you're playing with somebody from another idiom, you can't react to them in the same way that you react to somebody that is closer to your idiom. You don't fall into the same habits. You find a new way of communicating.

Compared with U.S. cities, Japanese cities bend over backward to help foreigners. The countryside is another matter.

I had a hard time convincing students that they were going to North Africa to understand the North Africans, not to understand themselves.

I should start by saying that traveling in the States is a bit like traveling in Asia. You need it, it helps to have an introduction - that there is a certain network.

The biggest lesson I've learned by living abroad for the last four years is the importance of communication.

I don't think anyone could write about another culture and get it 100 percent accurate.

We, as Americans, have so much to learn here. We have a shockingly low level of global awareness and familiarity and little idea of how the world sees us. And those disturbing facts keep getting us into a lot of trouble.

It's amazing when you're playing to a crowd who barely understands English but they're singing parts of your song back to you.

I've always seen movies in English with Spanish subtitles. For audiences around the world, the language is less important than if it's a good film.

If you go into a country, then you’re going to have to do something about it, and that is hard–harder than invading.

China is a company of contradictions. Nothing is what it appears to be. We have to be extremely respectful when we go overseas.

One can never be certain what is in the mind of the oriental but we must leave the oriental no doubt what is in our mind.

When our diplomats go abroad, they are surprised that they can't do the things that they can do here.

If I had not been coached well about how to deal with a culture and a set of values that were foreign to my own, I would not have been able to be successful.