Perspective and Culture in "the Word for World is Forest"

One of the things I really enjoy about Sci-Fi is that authors seem to just grab you and drop you into a completely new world and little by little, by paying attention to the dialogue and to the descriptions, you start to discover what is happening and how is this new world structured. It forces the reader to take a more active part in the reading process. That is what happened to me with "The Word for World is Forest," however, that experience of slowly discovering the new world played a more important part in this particular book. As soon as the story started, with Davidson's perspective, we learned about this world through his eyes. My first perception of the Ashtheans was similar to that of Davidson. I pictured them as green monkeys, not human at all (although I did not condone their slavery). But as soon as I got to read from Selver's perspective, then everything changed and I could understand who these creatures really were, even if their culture (dream-time, world-time) is still hard to wrap my head around.
I think the experience I got as a reader encountering LeGuin's world, parallels to that of an intercultural encounter. It emphasizes this idea of how difficult it is to confront and understand a different culture, the time it takes, and how we should not judge on our first impression.