John Pomfret Quotes

I had the interesting experience of having lived and worked for six years in China with Procter & Gamble, and that just changes, I think, your whole perspective in living overseas and living in a country like China.

I'm always amazed at how much people 'get' when I'm performing overseas. I've never had to change my act on my international shows; I just make sure that I've taken some time to get to know the people in those countries before I perform. That's been really useful.

Wear an Arab headcloth when with a tribe. Bedouin have a malignant prejudice against the hat, and believe the persistence in wearing it (due probably to British obstinacy of dictation) is founded on some immoral or irreligious principle…. if you can wear Arab kit when with the tribes, you will acquire their trust and intimacy to a degree impossible in uniform.

It's hard when you are trying to ingratiate yourself in a completely foreign world. It takes a long time.

I can identify with Riho because I was the talent that didn't speak the language in Japan. I'm very excited for the fans to kind of build a relationship with her because it's going to take work from both sides to understand one another.

My new play 'Chinglish,' which will go to Broadway, is about a white American businessman who goes to a provincial capital in China, hoping to make a deal there. It's bilingual. And it's about trying to communicate across language and cultural barriers.

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

I find it very beautiful to work in different countries because I see the mentality differences there. It is so rich, one always carries forward something.

Americans are people who prefer the Continent to their own country, but refuse to learn its languages.

I used to think that, given enough goodwill, anybody would be able to 'get' any music, no matter how distant the culture from which it came. And then I heard Chinese opera.

It's not easy for Chinese actors to do foreign films, and it's not easy for foreign actors to do Chinese films.

The greatest obstacle to international understanding is the barrier of language.

It's always overwhelming when you come to another country and you're embraced in such a positive way.

My wife is French, and so I get to see America through her eyes, which informs a lot of little moments. It means I can poke fun at very particular things about us.

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

I don't really have that much contact with Americans. I mean, I see the oddest things on the Internet, I suppose. And I've got a couple of American friends, but they are Anglophiles anyway because they've decided to come live here.

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

As an immigrant, I learned by watching other people.

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.

In my experience, Eurosceptics are likelier to have lived abroad and to have entered fully into other cultures than Euro-enthusiasts, many of whom seem to have latched on to the E.U. as a way of compensating for their poor language skills.

I felt like the Germans were being mean to me at training, but they were actually just trying to help. I learned really quick - which made me a better player. I'm appreciative of the way they treated me. It's just the language and, of course, as an American, I had to learn that. No offense to them; I love them to death, and I love my teammates.

I worked at a job where 90 percent of my coworkers were Spanish-speaking, and some of them were only Spanish-speaking. My rule was if someone came into the office needing something - I worked in HR at the time - they had to bring a Spanish word to teach me. That was the deal.

Getting access to diverse civilizations should be easy, and languages are the gateway to that.

In Italy, you're in your comfort zone when it comes to language, lifestyle, your habits and preparations, and moving abroad is not easy. It's not easy to carry over your own ideas about football, your own methods. You have to get everything across in a different language, and that wastes a lot of energy.

As a child, it was really hard because I'd be thrown into a new school and have to make new friends, or I'd sit in class for months without speaking the language, but as I got older, I welcomed the possibility of discovering new cultures and languages.