As human beings who are capable of speech, we are bound to interact with one another using verbal cues. Effective communication is a situation where the thoughts of the communicators, are expressed and received in an undistorted fashion. To me, effective communication is indispensable for meaningful and enjoyable interaction with others. However when my thoughts and feelings are misinterpreted by my listeners, I do sense frustration; and if such negative experiences prevailed, I would undoubtedly gradually generate an aversion to human interaction, or if not to that extreme at least I would keep all my thoughts, no matter how wonderful they can be, within the artificial boundary that I have set up. And to be honest, I appeared a bit withdrawn upon my arrival in Singapore which was initially a foreign place to me. Can you imagine a rather talkative and spontaneous person could suddenly becomeso introverted and friendless? In such an awkward and anxious state, I was really in a dire need of help. Thank goodness, I was fortunate enough to have some really amiable people around me whose friendliness ultimately opened up my heart.
Having experienced a real personal conflict, I began to learn the similarities and differences in terms of perceptions, perspectives, values and cultural backgrounds of the people around me and myself. I also realised that “effective communication skills” is not a perpetual concept which applies universally. The world is yet “flat”. What I had perceived as effective communication skills earlier were, on my arrival in Singapore initially, to prove ineffective and hindered my progress in this different country with, to me, a unique culture. And like many other stubborn human beings, worse still, I was not even aware of my flawed mode of thinking. It all made sense. Outdated machines need to be replaced. So as you see, holding on to my old conventions only hypnotised myself into a self-deceiving state in which self-development was hampered. Hence, I need to consistently renew my skills.
To reduce conflicts, be it inter-personal, inter-cultural, or inter-religious, we need to put ourselves in other people’s shoes and try our best to understand their thoughts and deeds as much as possible. An enthusiastic heart is not enough, effective communications applicable in different social and cultural contexts are essential for me to become a true global citizen.
Hello Xiaoxing!
ReplyDeleteI do agree that if my opinions and thoughts cannot be interpret by others correctly, it will indeed be a frustrating experience for all the parties involved. For myself, I will be disturbed by the mere fact that my message is not correctly delivered across, while the other parties will be frustrated because they cannot understand my thoughts and what I am thinking.
In fact, I experienced similar problems as you did when I was on my exchange program in Hong Kong last semester. For instance, as the primary language of communication is different, I usually have to spend the amount of time that is longer than usual to get my message across. Even when the message gets across, most of the time both of us will be so drained out from the unproductive communication and we could not help but just wish to end the whole conversation quickly. As such, the language barrier often became an issue for me to develop a more personal relationship with the other party.
Just my penny worth of thoughts. =)
Xiao Xing,
ReplyDeleteAppreciate you sharing the communication challenges you faced when you first came to Singapore. I'm sure the experience has taught you to appreciate the value and importance of communication on a deeper and more personal level.
You've definitely come a long way, as I can tell that everything is going well for you now.
You may want to review your sentence structure and see how you can 'simplify' the language. Write at a language level that your readers understand - ask yourself who you are writing to, and the context you are writing in. Writing for a larger audience does not mean you need to use wordy expressions and jargons. It will be good to avoid extreme formality also, just so you don't distance yourself from your readers.
I also noted a number of language problems (grammar, punctuation, expressions et cetera) - here are some obvious ones:
1) "Effective communication is a situation where the thoughts of the communicators, are expressed and received in an undistorted fashion." --> Can you spot the problem here?
2) "Can you imagine a rather talkative and spontaneous person could suddenly becomeso introverted and friendless?"
3) "The world is yet “flat”"
Can you spot the problems in the second and third sentences above?
Don't get me wrong, Xiao Xing, I am not trying to find fault with your writing. Just an observation, and sharing with you ways you can work on revising your next blog post.
Thanks for the effort!
Hello Xiao Xing!
ReplyDeleteI am quite envious that you are able to see and interact with people of various cultures. I do not have the priviledge to expose myself to such diverse cultures (except through the television and internet) but there was one particular incident in my life that I will like to share on interaction with different cultures.
I was on a trip with my family in China. I cannot remember which province it was but the province is famous for producing "Long Jin Cha (tea)." Before entering the place, I remembered the tour guide informing us that it is rude to address the ladies there as "Xiao Jie." It is preferable to address them as "Gu Niang." This is due to the perception among them concerning the term "Xiao Jie" to refer to a sleaze bar hostess or even a prostitute.
At that time, I thought to myself, "Wow. What happened if a person whose culture used the term "Xiao Jie" as a courteous way to address a female, used the same term here in this province." That person will be misunderstood.
In Singapore for example, it is perfectly alright to address a female "Xiao Jie." Many people here will also not think twice to use this term to address a female here as well.
So I thought to myself, that a simple term of address can greatly affect the friendliness of the other party. Words sometimes can be so powerful.
Hi Xiao Xing,
ReplyDeleteI understand the difficulties you face. It is definitely not easy to leave your home and go to a completely foreign place, a place that is similar, yet so different. I am sure it took a while for you to get used to the environment and culture here. Nevertheless, I would like to encourage you, that despite the challenges you may face, something that always catches the attention of people is an enthusiastic and cheerful spirit. You may not be very confident in English, or know our culture well (I would say I do not exactly know Singapore that well either), but you have an enthusiasm that far outshines all those "barriers" you may be facing.
Keep that spontaneous side of you, because it is something that cannot be groomed, and that will be the part of you that stands out.
Hi Da Yang,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your experience in HK with me. For most of time, when we feel that our communication is unproductive, we tend to give up explaining or stressing our thoughts over again and again. And the disappointment associated with such unproductive communication would unavoidably give us a very bad first-impression of the parties involved in the conversation. However, I do feel that it is precisely due to the confusion and unproductivity that we need to put in more effort in communicating with others. In communications, we can never ever give up. I speak this from my own experiences. I used to give up very easily when people didn't understand what I was talking about; i was merely thinking "oh it's fine, they are just not my type. I'm going to make friends with people who are alike me". This is not going work because we are all different. So in terms of building relationships and conversing effectively, we all need to put in effort and be persevered in whatever we believe.
Hi Ms. Lim,
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for pointing out my mistakes. I'm more than willing to learn from my mistakes. But usually people are too kind to point out my mistakes. After reading your post, I went back to read my original post and realized that my tone was really a bit too formal. This is indeed my problem. Never having managed a blog before and having trained to write formally, I actually have little idea of how to address a larger group of audience in a semi-formal or informal way. As for the sentence structures and grammatical errors, thanks for the feedback. I'll definitely work on it. In fact, I have been working on it for all my life. :) I really fortunate to have you as my instructor this semester. You are such an open-minded person. And I have so much to learn from you and other fellow classmates.
Hey Xiaoxing,
ReplyDeleteFrom the very first lesson, I was impressed by your priest speech. I bet you are a very rational gal. =D
Thanks to your past tough experiences so I can meet the cheerful and courageous xiaoxing now! Just to share with you: if something is rubbing so hard against you, you can be sure it's working on you!
Jia you, pretty gal! But do remember to lose yourself a bit as I can tell you have great ambition. Don't be overloaded!
Hey Berwyn,
ReplyDeleteIt took me some time to realize who "Finalfa" is. I think other classmates may have the same problem figuring out who you are. Just a suggestion, you may want to consider changing your profile name. Thanks for sharing your personal experience with me. The province you went to is "Zhe Jiang" I think. I do believe that cultures can differ a lot in different communities. And interestingly, certain values and traditions change with time. In the past, “Xiaojie” was a polite term to address a young lady in China. A new understanding of “xiaojie” was brought in about two decades ago. In a proper corporate setting, people still address ladies as “xiaojie”; and people are not offended if they are called so. It also depends on the tone you use when you address somebody “xiaojie”. A frivolous tone will definitely leave a depreciating attitude to the listener. I must admit that you’re a very nice and approachable guy. It’s a pleasure to work with you in this module. Hope to know you better in the future.
Hey Berwyn,
It took me some time to realize who "Finalfa" is. I think other classmates may have the same problem figuring out who you are. Just a suggestion, you may want to consider changing your profile name. Thanks for sharing your personal experience with me. The province you went to is "Zhe Jiang" I think. I do believe that cultures can differ a lot in different communities. And interestingly, certain values and traditions change with time. In the past, “Xiaojie” was a polite term to address a young lady in China. A new understanding of “xiaojie” was brought in about two decades ago. In a proper corporate setting, people still address ladies as “xiaojie”; and people are not offended if they are called so. It also depends on the tone you use when you address somebody “xiaojie”. A frivolous tone will definitely leave a depreciating attitude to the listener. I must admit that you’re a very nice and approachable guy. It’s a pleasure to work with you in this module. Hope to know you better in the future.
Hey Berwyn,
It took me some time to realize who "Finalfa" is. I think other classmates may have the same problem figuring out who you are. Just a suggestion, you may want to consider changing your profile name. Thanks for sharing your personal experience with me. The province you went to is "Zhe Jiang" I think. I do believe that cultures can differ a lot in different communities. And interestingly, certain values and traditions change with time. In the past, “Xiaojie” was a polite term to address a young lady in China. A new understanding of “xiaojie” was brought in about two decades ago. In a proper corporate setting, people still address ladies as “xiaojie”; and people are not offended if they are called so. It also depends on the tone you use when you address somebody “xiaojie”. A frivolous tone will definitely leave a depreciating attitude to the listener. I must admit that you’re a very nice and approachable guy. It’s a pleasure to work with you in this module. Hope to know you better in the future. :)
Hi Hu Xuan,
ReplyDeleteIt's nice knowing about you-such a bubbly gal. And thank you for being concerned about me. Yes, i've been really working very hard recently. There're piles of work waiting to be cleared every day. I will consider cutting down my workload and free myself for a while. :)
Hey Xiaoxing,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your personal experiences of how effective communication is important to you from a foreigner's point of view. Effective communication plays an essential role in many situations that we encounter in our lives, be it at an inter-personal level or other group of audience. The main idea of effective communication is to get our message across and hope that the receiver fully understand our message. From what I can tell, there were some barriers that initially prevented you from communicating as effective as you were back in your country. I can understand where you are coming from as I have also studied and stayed in a foreign country for a while. The differences in culture and interests that we have from the locals impede us from getting to establishing deeper friendship and also prevent us from 'being who we truly are'. I guess if one is to stay in a foreign country long enough and to adapt to the environment, this differences and barriers encountered will be lesser. From here, better relationship at a more personal level can be made. From what you have written, i supposed the communication barriers that you once had are lesser ! (:
Cheers,
Joanna.