Fostering Intercultural Communication

My memory of a most vivid juxtapose of intercultural views took place in my French class last year. The session was on the topic of marriage, and the tutor shared with us his insights on the topic. He described to us that in France, the concept of marriage is not generally popular and most couples sign an agreement called PACS (pacte civil de solidarité). This is an alternative form of union that encompasses all the legal rights of a marriage but less cumbersome to annul. People (who do not want to or cannot get married) register themselves with the local mayor and are then recognised as a couple before the law. This applies to both homo- and heterosexual couples. He added that this has more advantages than a true marriage, where couples may be tied down to a less-than-fulfilling relationship but avoid a divorce as it is socially stigmatised and legally tedious. The PACS allow couples to enjoy the legal benefits of marriage (such as tax benefits enjoyed only by couples and the right to co-own a house) with no life-long commitment.

A Muslim girl then voiced out that the union of a woman and a man has to be recognised by God in Islam. Marriage is also a union solely between a man and a woman and not between homosexuals. Another girl, who is a Catholic, realised that under PACS, couples would be having pre-marital sex, which is a cardinal sin in Christianity. She added that the act of sexual intercourse should be purely for the purposes of procreation, not for lustful gratification and definitely not between gay couples. The two of them stood strongly for the idea of a holy matrimony and pointed out the moral implications of PACS.

Having heard these opinions, the tutor insisted that the idea of marriage is purely religious and that people should be free to pursue relationships without being bonded to religious practices and long-term commitments. He added that staying in a relationship should be a choice and not an obligation. It was then clear to all of us that the tutor was imposing his views on us and was unreceptive to our views, thus the two girls did not argue further. This could also be due to us being Asians brought up with the Confucian values of not rebutting the teacher strongly. On the other hand, it is in the French education culture to argue and state their points of view without any negative feelings and thus the tutor stood for his stand adamantly. Communication in this case was one-way due to the cultural views and caused the teacher to be rather unreceptive and aggressive to our views. In my opinion, this is not a question of whether PACS or marriage should be favoured in either society but rather an exchange of views. Learning a language would require embracing and accepting the particular culture in order to understand the language, although this may sometimes translate into a relaxation of our own cultural norms and values.

Ugly Commuters and Priority Seats

Photo courtesy of stomp.com.sg

The moment the train doors open at the station, all the immaculately-dressed and able-bodied professionals cast all social etiquette aside, jostle their way onto it and snatch up all the available seats. An elderly lady, after bearing several shoves, finally gets onto the train. She hobbles towards the seats and realises that they are all taken up by the young and healthy pretending to be asleep.

More often than not, commuters turn a blind eye to those who need the seats more than themselves. The Prime Minister in his National Day Rally has also encouraged Singaporeans to be more courteous and to move towards a more gracious society. The above scenario is familiar to all who have taken our MRT before, and clearly does not depict the behaviour of Singaporeans as considerate, much less gracious.

In a bid to advocate mindfulness towards the elderly, the pregnant as well as the handicapped, SMRT recently assigned certain seats as priority seats. These priority seats are introduced with the well-being of the needy commuters in mind; to rise the level of awareness of their needs in society and at the same time to urge the other commuters to be more altruistic. These seats are also commonly seen on the London Underground and Japanese trains. A visiting Taiwanese friend once shared that these priority seats in Taipei are only occupied by the needy. Having said that, however, are these priority seats effective in protecting the interests of people in need of seats on our MRT?

To study if such a measure is efficacious, a survey on the opinions of commuters would be appropriate. The survey would find out if commuters themselves actually fulfil the purpose of these priority seats and their general ground observations of other commuters on our MRTs, amongst other things. The survey, if conducted in an unbiased manner, would aid greatly in deducing if the newly-introduced priority seats have served their objective. Such a study would be valuable feedback to the relevant transport authorities and the Singapore Kindness Movement Council, and would surface feasible improvements to the concept of "priority seats".

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

For this blog post, I put forth a hypothetical interpersonal conflict situation involving a project group setting. I would be using the themes cultural differences, gender issues and emotional intelligence in the scenario to illustrate communication problems amongst us.

Peaceful Parry, Bossy Bobby and Fatty Fatimah have been assigned as a project group working on the subject of Nutrition. Bobby, a body-building enthusiast of four years, is well-read on the subject and possesses a chiselled body of envy as proof. Due to his domineering nature, he automatically assumes leadership of the project and expects his good friend of ten years, Parry, and a stranger he barely knows, Fatimah, to follow his orders.

Fatimah, being a headstrong person herself, is also aggressive in the way she pushes for her opinion during group discussion. Parry is the diplomatic group member and often reconciles disputes between the two. Once, Bobby and Fatimah disagreed on whether aerobic or anaerobic exercise is more beneficial for people trying to lose weight. Each of them felt strongly for their case. The argument escalated to a point where Fatimah stormed out of the discussion room in tears, when Bobby demanded what she knew about weight loss after launching a personal attack on her weight. Parry, wanting to maintain amicable ties within the group and feeling that sometimes Bobby may be too pushy and unreceptive of their project group mate, went after her to repair bad feelings on his behalf. After all, Fatimah is but a girl and it would be a win-win situation for him to empathize, be more sensitive and give in to her once in a while.

Through the working of the project, as Fatimah feels unappreciated and that only menial and insignificant job tasks are allocated to her, she becomes increasingly hostile towards Bobby. This has however provoked him into retaliating with snide and racist remarks against her.

With the above situation, one can imagine that Parry is in a great dilemma. Bobby is his good friend and long-time working partner and he trusts in his ideas about the project. However, he also feels that Fatimah has raised valid points and that Bobby should not be so obstinate in his thinking nor should he have been racist in his conflict with her. In one attempt in talking to Fatimah, he also sensed that she feels victimized and that Bobby and himself, being long-term friends, are “in it together” against her.

How should Parry assert himself to ensure that cordial relations are restored within the project group and to complete the project eventually?

Effective Communication Skills

As Lee Iacocca, former president and CEO of automobile giants, Chrysler and Ford, aptly puts, "One can have brilliant ideas, but if he cannot get them across, his ideas would not get him anywhere." I cannot agree more.

Effective communication is the key to the exchange of ideas, and this two-way process is particularly important for me as I would be serving as a teacher, come graduation. Sending and receiving messages are an integral part of teaching. The manner in which these messages are delivered to students can either entice them to partake in discussion, explore, create and stimulate synergy with others or discourage and leave them in confusion and frustration. This is why there is an impetus for me to be clear and effective in my verbal and non-verbal communication, such that I am organized, enthusiastic and sensitive. This is particularly crucial as I am imparting knowledge to students who may not have great understanding of the subject and are likely to have certain cultural differences. My audience would be coming from diverse backgrounds, thus it is important for me to understand the different communication barriers that we may have, and overcome them so that my students would be able to receive my messages and decode them in a desirable manner.

Part of being an effective teacher entails active listening as well. Paraphrasing, perception-checking and clarifying questions would allow me to detect the gaps in my sent messages and to work on them with my students. Developing effective communication skills would also help me avoid the pitfalls of many a teacher. Some teachers simply make communication one-way by dumping heaps of knowledge onto the students and leaving the onus of concept-grasping to them. With the MOE Teach Less, Learn More initiative, it is vital for me to project my ideas coherently so as to make the most out of my classroom time with my students.