This term has flown by. Yet, I think I can safely say that I have learnt a lot from this course.
I think that the most important thing I've learnt from this course is really not to take cultural differences at face value. It's easy to make generalizations like "Japanese are polite" or Americans are boisterous". Yet to be able to see past these appearances to try and understand the intentions behind these gestures is a different ball game altogether.
That is really what I think we have been doing in the past 13 weeks. By analyzing language and discourse not just to analyze the differences in cultures, but to understand why these differences are and what they mean.
I think my own project is a true reflection of this. Before the project, I was quick to make many assumptions, like American teachers are liberal but Chinese teachers are more authoritative. Perhaps that's true. But I've come to realize, these impressions have much deeper underlying reasons behind them, sometimes amounting to a cultural heritage of factors such as education, tradition, and simply differences in perceptions.
It's easy to judge other cultures based on the norms of one's own culture. But to be able to do that using the norms of the other culture is more difficult. It's like trading your pair of eyes with someone else's. Yet I think I've learnt a bit about that in this course and I'm much more aware of the sensitivities when conversing with people from different cultures.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Presentations
The presentations in the past two weeks have been enjoyable. Some seemed dry to me only because the nature of the presentations were serious topics, often requiring prerequisite information to fully understand the presentation. Those presentations which stuck with me focused on the most common of topics and the most mundane happenings of everyday life. Basically things that we take for granted.
One of the more memorable ones was presented 2 fridays ago, about wet market transactions by Ghaff's group. They found that there was a noticeable trend that most wet market transactions occurred without any greeting. This comes without any surprise to me, because I guess it really is becoming part of the Singapore culture.
It so happened that I followed my mom down to Ghim Moh market last weekend. It had been a long while since I had been to a wet market, and I needed a break from practicing anyway. I walked round the stalls, rather aimlessly, and found that it really was true, that people more or less communicated very brusquely.
What caught my attention was this. At a fruit stall, all the "Singaporean aunties" were pushing around picking fruits, when the fruit seller raised his voice and said "Hello!" almost all too amiably to a caucasian lady, probably expatriate. The fruit seller started tending to her, introducing all the fruits in the stall, suggesting what was good and what was bad. I thought, maybe she is a regular customer hence the special treatment.
The conversation then turned.
"First time here? First time here maybe give you a bit of discount," said the fruit seller. Well maybe not the exact words because I wasn't taking notes, just merely eavesdropping and trying to recall now. But something along that line, you get the gist.
So... Wet market transactions normally go without greetings. I definitely agree, maybe with an added criteria: If buyer is local.
Perhaps the experience above was an exception. But I tend not to think so. Somehow I think this mentality of "foreign and white, probably better and richer" is not an uncommon perception.
One of the more memorable ones was presented 2 fridays ago, about wet market transactions by Ghaff's group. They found that there was a noticeable trend that most wet market transactions occurred without any greeting. This comes without any surprise to me, because I guess it really is becoming part of the Singapore culture.
It so happened that I followed my mom down to Ghim Moh market last weekend. It had been a long while since I had been to a wet market, and I needed a break from practicing anyway. I walked round the stalls, rather aimlessly, and found that it really was true, that people more or less communicated very brusquely.
What caught my attention was this. At a fruit stall, all the "Singaporean aunties" were pushing around picking fruits, when the fruit seller raised his voice and said "Hello!" almost all too amiably to a caucasian lady, probably expatriate. The fruit seller started tending to her, introducing all the fruits in the stall, suggesting what was good and what was bad. I thought, maybe she is a regular customer hence the special treatment.
The conversation then turned.
"First time here? First time here maybe give you a bit of discount," said the fruit seller. Well maybe not the exact words because I wasn't taking notes, just merely eavesdropping and trying to recall now. But something along that line, you get the gist.
So... Wet market transactions normally go without greetings. I definitely agree, maybe with an added criteria: If buyer is local.
Perhaps the experience above was an exception. But I tend not to think so. Somehow I think this mentality of "foreign and white, probably better and richer" is not an uncommon perception.
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