I had a quarrel with Mr BF.
He was unhappy because i forgot he had to go somewhere else, and continued using the net.but he remained silent about his feelings no matter how i probe.

Only through his neutral facial expression and hostile tone and exasperated sighs did i know he was unhappy.
This is when i realised, the difference in high and low contexts


In a asian society, how many us really voice out how we feel or think?
We expect the other party to see our displease through our body language, facial expressions or even through silences.

Take Mr BF and my disagreement for one thing.

Being human beings of different gender, we alrdy have so much differences in our way of life and characteristics.
Women and men,are differentiate even before birth by X and Y chromosomes.

while so many differences between men and women are visible, what about asian men and women versus eurasian men and women?

Asians tend to be more high context, they like to have hidden meanings in words, uses silence as a form of conveying feelings - mostly bad ones, does not usually voice out unhappiness. These can be good when they achieve their aim of letting the other party know of their unhappiness without needed to say much.However, the issue of misunderstanding the message being sent is much more prominent.

Eurasians or rather ang mohs, they tend to be of a lower context, they believe the use of words to convey meanings and feelings across is much clearer than the use of non verbal communications. This will come in very handy when they do not want any form of miscommunications.

To make it easier to understand, lets just compare men and women, regardless of their ethnicity. Just one common saying, women means yes when they say no, and yes when they say yes. for men, they means no when they say no, and yes when they say yes.

the difference in context in clearly visible. Women, being of a higher context. =p

4 yells

Santa Clause.
How many of you know he exists, or does not exists? (I know its nowhere near X'mas. but i just remembered this incident.)

I have a story to share.

Last year Christmas 2007,
My lil cousins, both siblings, one older sister(wen) and her younger brother(yao).

Cousin Wen told cousin Yao that santa existed, and that santa was me!!

So,She encouraged him to write a letter to Santa to request for christmas presents.

Cousin Yao verified that santa existed (without telling me what cousin wen told him), and came to ask me to write for him his christmas wishes.

Dear Santa, May i have TWO helicoptors, one red, one blue, 2 remote controls to fight?'

And of course, Santa do not have enough budget to get him 2 copters, considering he was already given ONE for his birthday.

Santa bought him PEPE instead, a toy dog.
Needless to say, cousin yao confronted santa(me), and took a while to accept PEPE into his life. <-- low context =p

End of story.

Many people, not just children. Even adults,me for example.
i always believed in Santa. For i get presents every x'mas.
It might be from my mother, My dearest aunties or uncles, or my current love or ex loves. =x

I never fail to believe they are all my Santa clauses.

Santa clause is already stereotyped to be the cute chubby old man staying at the North or South pole, i forgot.
How many books, convey that Santa clause only gives presents to kids who behaved and that he will always know which present to give which kid?

To me, Santa is just whoever loves me enough to pamper me during X'mas.

Similarly, I am a self-proclaimed santa who will get something nice for my loved ones during X'mas. (if i am financially able to =x)

How many of you have Santas in your life?

2 yells

Pregnant woman- Special people, special mentality

You know, there is always this sign that says to give up your seats to the "people who needs it more than you" on the MRT and Bus. And so, pregnant people happen to fall into one of the categories. I dunno if i will get a lot of flake for writing this, but i feel that these group of people are DIFFERENT from the pregnant woman from the past.

WHY?

Ever read about the article on how this pregnant woman complained about the ah pei on the MRT who occupied 2 seats- One for his backside and one for his plastic bag. In the end, i think she wrote to stomp and even had the picture taken. Then it turned out - someone replied - that the plastic bag did not belong to the ah pei.

The point here i am trying to bring here is not about the ah peh. Rather, the mentality of a pregnant person. Perhaps, education educates the brain but not the soul. Where people are more aware of their rights, they can get more self centered.

I wonder if pregnant people feel that they "rightfully" have access to a seat and if people do not offer or is conveniently asleep, those people should be knocked down by a car or have some form of retribution for being mean.

HOWEVER, i would like to bring a point that, morally; socially; and ethical reasoning are the motion behind giving seats to people who "needs it more than us". Pragmatically speaking, people have NO obligations whatsoever to give up their seats to pregnant woman. Rationally speaking, one sacrifices his luxury to sit when he chooses to give it up. SO, i would think of it as a BONUS, rather than an "deserved" seat.

Not that my butt is glued to my seat 24/7. Whenever i do see them and in time to, i give up my seat. But I FEEL there is something different in these people from the my past encounters- The lack of appreciative attitude. Some don't even look at you in the eye and say thank you. (Maybe the supposedly pregnant lady is not pregnant, just obese, thats why no thank you?) Maybe it is just me.

I had a experience myself. I board the train from jurong once, with a pregnant lady beside me. When the door opened, i walked in, only to have her shove past me to that single empty seat, sat down and gave me a dirty look. Like i was going to snatch her seat if she wasn't fast enough. !!!!! i was furious i tell you, but what can i do or say? if i as much as snort or sniffed at her, it might just as well be compared to a girl screaming molest at a man. in this case, i will be the man, definitely in the wrong.

You say they have difficult standing. And so, it seems the weighty tummy proves no hurdle for a heavily pregnanted woman to rush from the bus enterance to an empty seat. I am truely amazed. Is society wallowing in self pitance or it is perspectives at work?


Not that this is something to yada about, but i just find this phenomenum socially disturbing, whatever you call it.

Old folks whom i come across APPEAR to be more independent and much more appreciative of your efforts. They thank you and smile at you throughout your bus ride. and I wonder why.

Yes yes, i understand the inconveniences faced by the pregnant people, the stress put on their crevix for standing too long, their vein-y legs, and how danderous it is for them if the train brakes suddenly etc.. I am not saying that it is wrong for them to sit or for people to give up their seats.

What i mean is, little actions count. If people were not appreciative of each other and take things for granted, we will all be experiencing winter in our hearts very very soon. A Thank You might melt alot of the 'frost', you know? =D

6 yells

Alas.

Its week 4. Blog blog~

I went around many different com101 blogs.
and then i spoke to some of my classmates, shall not name names.
and i discovered much to my surprise-not, that many if not all of them, are actually racking their minds to blog every week. And, also frantically promoting their blogs to friends to comment.

All these sums up to a very big question mark in my head.
WHY? Why do we need to do this?

then, *big lightbulb appears*
Answer : most likely be to improve our interpersonal relationships with our fellow classmates, No??

just nice.. i need a blog entry this week.

i was pestering Bon on msn for the stuff she taught about this week 5 mins ago so that i can try to smoke blog on something for this week.

He only remembered interpersonal relationships. <-- not paying attention in class.

so my answer and bon's ignorance knowledge of whatever she was teaching in class this week, allowed me to blog about Interpersonal Relationships.

Interpersonal relationships, can range from friendships to partnerships to more intimate ones like boy-girl relationships. As long as there is more than one party involved. Interpersonal relationships are formed quite easily, but ain't easy to maintain. You will need trust, understanding, maybe common interests, topics and most importantly, there mustn't be any form of dislike in the relationship, else it will turn into another type of interpersonal relationship.. like enemies?

So people,
Take note of how i did not censor bon's name in this entry, now everyone including the teacher will know how much attention he paid in class.

SO!! my point is, how will he react to this week's entry ? and his reaction to me and his interpersonal relationship, which is our friendship in this case?



post note: there should be more answers to my question on why are we doing this blog as a weekly homework. however, i wanted to blog on interpersonal relationships. so.. yea.

and post post note: for bringing bon into the entry does not mean i am GAY too. i am happy but not gay. yea, u get me. :P

3 yells

4 yells

For my ESL journal topic this week, we had to choose a color that best represents us.

i noticed there were alot of people picking out red to represent themselves.
Red stands for passion, energy, anger, bold, adventurous, impulsive and yea, you get my point. All these are shown through examples of their own character and actions.

Like human beings, colors have also been stereotyped to one or more specific qualities, good or bad. How many of you guys agree with the above characteristics of red that i've picked out?

Lets think of it this way. Red is the color of blood, a symbol of violence. I have an extreme disrelish to the color red, simply because it denotes gore in the many films i've watched and reality shows i've heard of.

Take the Sichuan earthquake for example, the death toll increases almost everyday and the countless images of 'red' shown. Red in this instance, will mean pain and agony to both the victims and their families, not mentioning people from all over the world.

Will red mean anything near being adventurous or passionate now?





My condolences to the victims and families of the Sichuan earthquake.
And, kudos to the humanitarian relief team.


1 yells

Its not in english though..

all these thought(s) came into my mind.. before i saw this website where the first picture originated from.

Endangered Polar Bears.

Look at the picture again, do you still see a cute or endangered polar bear now? Well, actually i see both.Its always interesting to see how, you perceive a picture and the immediate reactions, feelings or responses you get.

As i went through the website, my perception of the picture changes almost completely. i feel for those poor polar bears so far up in the north.

The above picture was also taken from the site. This picture shows the sun rays shining unto the polar bears and one young bear hiding in the shelter of its parent body. The sun rays reminds us of the ozone layer hole and greenhouse effect which will cause ice caps in the north to melt. The young bear trying to shield itself from the sun will gain sympathy from most readers too.

A lone polar bear

The clever choice of these pictures actually gets to most of us before we read the captions, giving us various mixed feelings to go from "wa so cute" to " wa poor thing".

After i went through the entire site, i felt guilty. I switched off my air-con, prepared to brave the heat rather than indirectly adding on to the greenhouse effect in the ozone layer which in turn will cause the ice caps to melt and blah blah killing the polar bears..

Then! i realised, my air conditioner is CFC free.

Before i get out of point here, my main point is to prove, how different first impressions and feelings after getting to the source of the picture is. Of course, and to remind everyone to save the earth!

SAVE THE WORLD PEOPLE!!

6 yells