NON-VERBAL CUES

You don't always have to say hello or thank you to show that you really are welcoming a person or showing appreciation. Let me show you how people in other countries, such as Japan, the Eskimos and US do it.


IN JAPAN, they greet by bowing.

How the Eskimos greet by rubbing their noses.

How the people in the states greet by kissing. ( This video was a joke, but yeah you get the idea don't you)

Non-verbal cues such as this can often be pretty misleading. The non-verbal cues accepted in one country might not be accepted in another. For instance, if an American were to greet an Asian by 'kissing', the Asian dude would probably be screaimg rape hysterically like a mad hyena!

Don't you agree?

Racial stereotypes in Children's Entertainment

Sterotyping is something that cannot be avoided. We have been exposed to it since young and have created generalisations of certain people, cultures & what not over the past years. Even in disney productions that is catered especially for young children are manipulating the media to create sterotype. Watch the short clip to fully compehend. The link & video is provided.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS3e-n8Mj7I# CLICK THE LINK


Hence you can see that the perpetuation of racial and ethnic stereotypes by the media is an ongoing and real phenomenon that can be witnessed in children's cartoons. The factors that fuels this ongoing sterotypes is the inundation of racial and ethnic scripts presented to toddlers and adolescents at an age when it is difficult to be socially critical of these stereotypes.

When lyrics describes Arab in the first song as a place "where they cut off your ears if they don't like your face", children immediately register it and have a generaized morbid view of Arab which is shaped and influence by the media due to sterotyping.These racial stereotypes will flood the children's learning schema during these delicate and very impressionable years.

Yet, sterotyping might not be that bad. Sterotyping can actually help us to identity specific people such as thugs or good guys. When you were young, remember how your mom will tell you that 'guys in uniform' are good people. Well, thats true.

Eitherways, sterotyping is not wrong. So long as it doesn't hurt anyone, who gives a shit right.

All Talk No Balls.

The recent thing taught in my comms class was Haptics. It means using touch as a way of communicating to another person.

The use of Haptics in our everyday life:
WHEN COMMUNICATING. When we communicate, we do not necessarily need to use words all the time. As we all know, actions speak louder than words. & applying haptics in our communications, it translates a stronger message across to the intended party. For instance, when we are angry at a person, we might slap a person. In this case, slapping is a form of communication through haptics, informing the victim that of our unhappinese. In another scenario, when we feel happy, we tend to hug the other party or give an affection stroke on the arm. It lets the other party know that we are comfortabl with their prescence & in turn they will fee comfortable as well.

WHEN APPLIED IN GAMES. Some low-end haptic devices are already common in the form game controllers, in particular of joyaticks and steering wheels. An example of this feature would be the simulated automobile steering wheels that are programmed to provide a "feel" of the road. As the user makes a turn or accelerates, the steering wheel responds by resisting turns or slipping out of control. The Wii wireless remote uses a simple "bump" for feedback (e.g. moving over an onscreen button). Another concept of force feedback was that of the ability to change the temperature of the controlling device. This would prove especially efficient for prolonged usage of the device.


Hence you can see that haptics play a crucial role be it to express our emotions or to in the form of entertainment.

High Context & Low Context Culture

High context culture is an Asian culture whereby people believe that non-verbal communication is the key. & If you speak incessantly, you are considered rude. Whereas in a low context culture - westernized. They believe that being descriptive being ale to speak -alot- is the way to go, much emphasisis placed on the spoken words and that non-verbal cues are despicable and deceptive.

In an Asian society, not everything is spelled out to us. We have learnt to read non-verbal cues, from the awkard silence to the raising of the eyebrows, and the wide open mouth to express shock. Because of this, we tend to physco-analyse every little action and read too much into it. As such, we often twist the message and a miscommunication might occur. Personally I feel that we Asians should stop beating around the bush, get straight to the point and score.

Whereas in a low context culture like the States. You know how they are always portrayed - holding a glass of wine, standing akimbo and looking as if they have endless stuff to say. They are very descriptive and they have the ability to paint a vivid image of the subject they are discribing. For example, when an Asian describes a tree, he goes "A big tree". When an American describes a tree he goes, "With roots sinked into the earth, the thick wrinkled trunks needs little effort to hold up the decaying leaves of the 100 year old tree."

Hence, proving that westerners are more descriptive and that is why they believe that Asians are deceptive because it seems like we deliberately left out information as to cloud their understanding of a particular subject. In this case, the tree, without further description, one will not be able to identify the specific tree out of say,maybe 3 trees.

Technology

I was late to school on many occasions because I had to turn back home to retrive my mobile and my laptop. Not a good excuse for being late but I can't survive a day without these items. My social life and whatever other life depends on it. I believe there are plenty out there like me. We have became so reliant on technology, we treat it as if it was drugs.

As we all know, drugs is bad & since technology to us is somewhat like a drug. Technology has its cons as well. The internet for example. With applications such as Facebook & Friendster, whereby your particular preferences - food you like, music you listen to, books you read, interests etc. are shown outrightly to the world. People can 'study' you & actually know all about you even before a first date. Because of this, technology has replaced the genuine, curious, feeling so dating a person.

On the up side, technology has proven to be useful in other ways. With the interenet, we are exposed to a plethora of unlimite knowedge! Just type -anything- in the search engine and you will get an answer within a matter of seconds. You can even try Googling yourself, amazing isn't it! There is also MSN, which is widely used to communicate to people through the computer. Be it your pen-pal or next door neighbour,it is not even a second for your message to be shown on the message screen. Thus technology exceeds time & space.

As for our mobile phones, if it actually goes flat while we're outdoors. Most of us would panic & not know how to even search for a pubic phone. We have became so reliant on this tool, we are a slave for it. It has taken away our inependence & yet, it has proven to be so helpful in times of crisis! For example, remember the time you forgot to bring your notes to school or to work, just a push of a button, your dad answers the phone & you get him to bring your notes down.

Hence this proves that technology goes beyond space & time, it has proven to be an indispensable tool in our lives.

Roaming Nightingales

A prominent news magazine once said that Singapore was a fine city, and then went on to explain that you could be fined for almost anything in Singapore.
-Jaywalking can become a blot on your police record.
-The mosquito patrol can enter your home without a warrant and check your flower pots for standing water, which constitutes an offence in the Lion City.
-Not flushing a public toilet is an infraction punishable by a fine.
-Urinating in an elevator would get your picture in the paper in the early 1990's (along with a fine of about S$800).
-Even feeding the city's wild pigeons was illegal.

But in this squeakiest of squeaky clean cities, prostitution is legal -- and relatively well regulated. Ironic isn't it.

There are a total of about 400 brothels in Singapore with an estimated 10 to 20 prostitutes each. That's about 6000 prostitutes in the city!

Majority (excluding me) condemn prostitution because they have a wrong perception of it. They cite certain reasons:
No matter how much money it may make from taxes we have to remember that it may also lead to an increase in the amount of health and social care demanded. Let's face it, if prostitution were legalised then it increases the chances of spreading STD's and pregnancy, even if those who are soliciting are trying to do it safe, these things happen. These two circumstances would be most felt in the NHS during health checks and they could lead to a big demand on NHS funding. HIV alone is a very expensive condition to treat, and should we really be letting ourselves as a society increase the risk of it spreading?

Prostitution also increases rampant commodification of women. Regulating prostitution as a legitimate job in Singapore labels us as a loose country with no upright morals. With such laid back regulations, no tourists would be attracted to do business in Singapore. There is no human rights in prostitution. Prostitution jeopardizes marriages if the husband were to visit the easily available brothels.

Those beliefs are true to a certain extent but the benefits of legalising prostitution does indeed outweigh the cons. & I must say I advocate legalization of prostitution. You see, prostitution protects us Singaporean women. Look at it this way, for a country that practises strict censorship and bans pornography, there must be an outlet for the sexual energies of men - plus it really keeps the number of molest and rapes to a minimum. Wouldn't our Sigaporean mums, wives and girlfriends all feel safer?

Secondly, Prostitution increases a country's GDP or income in layman terms. You see, if prostitution is legalised, it would mean that prostitution is a job that can be taxed upon. The Singapore government can then use the money to cover many other lucrative activities.

Next, legalising prostitution lowers the unemployment rate for women, prostitution has been one of the oldest job for a women. Besides in today's male dominated world, it is not easy for women to find a well-earning job. Prostitution can actually allow a women to earn up to $500-1000 a night. Within 30 days in a month, that's $30 000!

Lastly, legalising prostitution in Singapore gives us a stake in the 'sex economy'. This way, more tourists would choose to visit Singapore for its red-light districts and this fuels our economy. Especially since Singapore is a small country without much space to build aplenty of entertaining places.

So the question is, should we agree to a 21st century mindset, wake up to human nature and accept prostitution? Or should we condemn prostitution because it is immoral and it increases STD's?

Sign language

The question is who decides? Just the other day, my parents had to speak to my brother's teacher about his delinquent behavior. My brother was caught 'giving the finger' to his tutor. The surprising thing was, he wasn't sorry about it, in fact he said " it was just the 3rd finger, would it matter if I showed the 2Nd one or the 4Th finger."

This goes to show that a sign can actually mean so much, so much can be read into it. Like what it means, who decides what it means, our perception of a sign. I'll go on to explain it.

Jesus, that boy's a genius. He's right, why is it that our 3rd finger refers to something vulgar, who gets to decide that it can't be the 2Nd finger? Even better, who gets to choose that saying or doing something vulgar is wrong?

The problem with this world is that Men, set these selfish rules and pass down silly ideologies for the pure sake of evil desire to morph the world into what they can call 'mine'. Just who invented right or wrong? Benjamin Franklin probably could not even tell that it was a bright spark above their head when it was invented.

Due to the rules of what is right or wrong, we have to conform to certain mainstream expectations. How to speak, how to dress, not to steal, not to burp, it is a list so long it could even touch the grounds of a bottomless pit.

It is so tiring to live up to society's expectations, with the fact that no one can actually prove that this is how we should be living, I have a proposal. We should all stop complaining and start contributing to society. Show the world that we can create change, stop giving the stink eye to the girl with the purple hair and stop judging her and other people. For it is because of the fear of judgement, that the society rules of right and wrong are so greatly reinforced.

Easier said than done I would say, easier said than done.

Communication 101

Verbal Communications is very important in order to bring the specific messages across. But living in a country like Singapore, with our singlish jargon, it is not easy to communication to certain people such as westerners. Even the media, not only us makes the slightest mistakes in our everyday speech. Let me go on to show you how.

Not everything in print is definitely accurate. From signboards to newspapers, advertisements and websites, they are all prone to the use of bad English. However, because most of us are under the false impression that every generated word in the media industry is perfect, we are often misled and hence we carry on the use of bad English. One example would be the NUS ( National University Of Singapore ) website.
Note the 'I am a visitor to NUS, how could I...' . Misuse of 'could'. It should be 'how may I', 'how might I' or even 'how do I'.

In a multi-racial country like Singapore, the English language provides a platform and common ground for people of different mother tongues to communicate. Therefore we should find it imperative that we Singaporeans should speak perfect English.

However, we Singaporeans actually find it easier to forge and facilitate interpersonal relationships through Singlish ( Singapore English ). Masses were embracing and promoting this new local jargon. Due to this, the Singapore's Government was faced with a weighty issue. With Ahs and Lahs punctuating our every sentence, we were starting to speak like we were having sex!

In order to rectify this problem, the Government introduced the ' Speak Good English Movement' campaign in hope to encourage Singaporeans to denounce Singlish and grasp the flair of standard English. This is so that we can be understood by the people around the globe and facilitate better with them. Albeit why change who we are? Let us embrace our roots and be a proud erotically speaking nation. In fact, if the British can make the world accept 'blimey' as a word, I am sure we can make 'wahlao' happen.

Going back to my topic sentence, singlish should not be not our biggest worry. The problem lies with the English language itself. Just that day, my friend was telling me this,
"Clarissa, I need to locate the ATM, I need to draw money."
Draw money? What did he have, a magic paint brush or something? I sure wished I own one, we just don't draw money, we withdraw money. Can you imagine drawing endless amounts of legal cash, I can't, but maybe Mr. Super Pen can.

Then there is this one sentence I've heard umpteen times, and it never fails to tickle me. Many a time aboard a bus, I would hear a stranger behind me telling his or her friend over the phone that he or she was 'on the bus'. Upon hearing that, I would then turn around expecting to see Jackie Chan all ready to swing himself onto an oncoming traffic light, but that is never the case. After a while, it just seemed like I was in India. Where else would you find people on buses?

Singlish pales in comparison to the above mentioned mistakes. At least fellow countrymen will be able to understand Singlish, whereas the latter would make you either a superhero or a superstar. To those whose English I've corrected, I'm sorry if I seem a tad too harsh. I just don't want you guys to turn out to be another Jackie Chan.

*Photos accredited to http://poblemengrish.blogspot.com/.