Evaluating Intercultural Communication

In a cosmopolitan country like Singapore, it is important to be aware of the differences in communication style and behavioral norms across different cultures. In fact, gaining such an understanding can help to avoid potential conflicts and improve relationship building skills with people of different cultural backgrounds.

I was at a pubcrawl held recently on a Friday evening.  There was a group of Brazilian guys who were very friendly and rowdy. One of the guys, Thiago, was particular dashing and charming with the ladies. While the Singaporean guys would hold their drinks and talk in a gentlemanly fashion with the ladies, he would jump about in an excited manner and drag them to dance with him. Social barriers and personal space was virtually non-existent to him. I could see that the European ladies were particularly entertained by him. However, the same cannot be said of this Singaporean lady. He went up to her to strike up a conversation. As I was standing a distance away, I could not hear their conversation over the loud bar music. The lady was giggling shortly after. As a new song came on, Thiago got so excited that he kissed the girl behind the ear, dragged her to the dance floor and … ( I am aware that the blog post calls for detailed description of the process but I think some details here are best left to the imagination J )

The Singaporean lady was taken aback by this sudden advance and she pushed herself away from Thiago and went back to the safety of her lady friends.

After talking to some of the Brazilian guys, I got to understand that the Brazilians are particularly passionate. It is in their nature, even normal, to party at night and be physically intimate with girls they just met. To them, it is just their way of socializing. However, to the Singaporean ladies, they prefer physical distance and getting to know the other party better before being comfortable with more physical intimacy. Even so, that same behaviour is welcomed and loved by the European ladies who enjoyed their night out. A French lady told me the difference between Asian and European men is that Asian guys are too shy.

This small incident taught me the different expectations that ladies of different nationalities have of men, particularly how different cultures show their love and passion for each other. It is an interesting lesson in making friends from different borders. J

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

Interpersonal conflicts are part and parcel of everyday life. As long as we continue to live in a interconnected and interdependent world, our actions or inactions will always have an impact on others. Sometimes, the way we handle a situation without due consideration, albeit unintentionally, may give rise to tensions or sore points in our personal relationships with others. Thus, it is necessary to understand how to resolve such interpersonal conflicts.

During the Chinese New Year festive season, something happened to me which keep me wondering how I could have handled the situation better. I was attending a Chinese New Year ‘Lou Hei’ dinner with many of our friends. As I turned up late for the dinner, I had not paid the organizer the money for the dinner yet and was thinking of doing it after the dinner, since everyone is already enjoying his or her dinner.  In the middle of my second course, I was shocked to hear someone yell my name, “ who is Tan Si Kai? Owe money pay money!” I quickly ran up to make payment to the organizer but the damage had been done. Imagine how embarrassing it is to have your name called out for all 114 people present at the restaurant to hear, especially the way I was singled out. At the end of the dinner, the person who yelled my name came over sheepishly to apologize to me while I was talking with a group of people. He explained that he was just helping the organizer to call out those people who had not paid. I was not ready to react to what he had to say, but not wanting to spoil the festive mode of the season and for him to take this incident to heart, I graciously accepted his apology and joked that I thought he wanted to call me out to perform and entertain the crowd.

Hence, from this incident, we can understand that sometimes, we may end up on the receiving end of certain social missteps, and we have to react in the best way possible in the heat of the moment. If given a chance to react to the situation again, I think I might have given a few witty rejoinders in response to him yelling out my name so as to turn an embarrassing scenario for the both of us into a rather entertaining and comical act so as to dissolve the tension. If you were in my shoes, how would you react? If you were the guy who did not handle the situation in the best way possible, what would you do to salvage the situation?