I was once at a rather large gathering organized by a group from a single nationality. It was one of those casual events where the members mingled around and played catch up with each other.
So there I was, together with a bunch of close friends, ploughing through the field of old acquaintances and striking up conversations here and there.
A while later, the attention of the entire group were gathered and we were introduced to three new people. Exchange of greetings between our group and with each of the three new friends ensued. Through observing them, I assumed that they were of a different nationality.
A moment neither too soon nor too late passed, and I caught a glimpse of the new friends again, hanging at the edges of a larger group of people talking animatedly. I decided it was the right time to get acquainted with them.
Ploughing through the field of people again, and with my close friends tagging along, we introduced ourselves personally. I find them to be warm, friendly and polite. Yet, it wasn’t enough to stave off what was coming next.
We started off with the stock questions frequently used when getting acquainted with strangers. I noticed everyone began feeling uncomfortable during the moment of silence, which increases as we ran out of topics. There was hardly anything which we had a common interest in. When either of us talked about our home country, each of us could only nod out of friendly respect, as neither of us had been to the other’s country.
Then we shifted to a last common, everyday topic. By then, I realized there were both cultural and language barrier presented within our conversation. Most of the jokes made by us require a degree of proficiency in some of our dialects, as its hilarity lies in its interpretation ambiguity. Besides, we ourselves had difficulty to understand certain words which our new friends said due to their accent. I am sure that they too were experiencing the same problem as there had been a few times they requested us to repeat our sentences. Furthermore, as we knew at least three different languages and tend to mix the words from these languages around in the sentence, our three new friends were sometimes left in a state of utter confusion.
It wasn’t long before I noticed that our three friends began drifting away from the conversation, as we subconsciously reverted back to our old casual speech style.
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Hi Wai Chii. This is one common problem faced when people of different cultural origin meet each other during an event or function.
ReplyDeleteI guess the issue of being culturally sensitive comes into the picture. Even though someone might not be aware of the cultural norms and behaviours of another person from another country, he or she should try to be more careful during conversations.
For the above scenario described by you, the possible solution may be to beware of using "Singlish" during a conversation. In order to do so, it might be possible if you could advise your friends to break up and approach people whom they might not know. This might naturally create a situation where one would be extra careful with his tone and expression during a conversation.
This seems to be a simple case of intercultural differences, but I think it's much more complex and is also related to group dynamics as well. Still, at the very least it is not so serious to constitute as a "conflict" yet. I don't think I can offer much useful suggestions on what you can do to improve on this situation since I am often misunderstood myself anyways. Maybe you can try the building rapport skills from NLP's sensory-mode matching as I believe that people from a clique tend to adopt a common set of behaviour. And as what Meng Wee has mentioned, breaking up into smaller groups or conversing one-on-one helps build intimacy and rapport easier then meeting as 2 distinct groups.
ReplyDeleteDear nwchii,
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to comment that what you described above looks like chicken and ducks trying to communicate.
Nevertheless, I still applaud all of their efforts in trying though in the end, the situation became very weird for all.
Yes, it is easier to get on with people like yourself which is why 'birds of a feather flock together.' These barriers may not just be between different races or nationalities but even between social classes or people of different upbringing.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it is a useful skill to be able to 'gel'with all types of people. This gives you a clear advantage in the workplace and is helpful socially too.
Mrs Richardson