What is "typically" German? What is "typically" French? What differences, what similarities are there between the cultures?
What does "culture" actually mean? Culture shapes where you come from, where you live, where you work, how your family lives together.
All these aspects of culture influence the image I form of myself and of others. I should know myself and my culture in order to understand the other person and thei culture. Openness is equally indispensable to get to know another culture.
Openness is a characteristic of globalization, in which borders are increasingly dissolving. Some borders remain. Borders that are barely visible, but sometimes seem insurmountable. Borders that cannot be brought into view often enough: those of cultural diversity.
It is intercultural competence with which one can encounter cultural diversity, explain one's own behavior and interpret foreign behavior.