Post 4: Intercultural Conflict

Living in a multi-cultural society like Singapore, one always has to be conscious of his actions/words when he is around people with various cultural backgrounds to ensure harmony. However, one can be only conscious if he is aware of the norms and values of the cultures.

I witnessed an intercultural conflict (or rather I would say a small misunderstanding), which arose from my lack of awareness. When I was in secondary school, afew of my classmates visited my malay friend, Din, for Hari Raya. Din was preparing drinks for us while we were sitting in his room and chatting. When Din returned to his room to give us the drinks, he suddenly burst at us, “ What are you doing? Get off the carpet!!”. We were dumbfounded. We quickly stood up and moved away from the carpet. Little did we realize that the carpet was actually his prayer carpet? I could still remember him angrily saying, “ Do you know how sacred the carpet is?”. All of us felt really guilty and profusely apologized to him. We mistook the prayer carpet for a normal carpet as it was laid near his bed. After awhile he calmed down and accepted that it was an unintentional mistake. He said that he would just buy a new prayer carpet, as this carpet cannot be used again. The prayer carpet must not to be handled by the foot.

Our action might be unintentional but the incident did hurt Din. I felt bad for upsetting our host on his festive day. Though we could not differentiate between a prayer carpet and a normal carpet as both looked similar, I felt that if we had more knowledge about the prayer carpet, we could have prevented the incident. We would have been more conscious in dealing with the carpets in the house. Din also could have prevented this incident if he had placed his prayer carpet in a corner or warned us about the sacredness of the carpet when we went to his room.

Post 3: Critique for business letter

Business Letter.....

Dear Students

In regards to a research project in the area of room ventilation and its impacts on the Tropical population, we would like to solicit participation from NUS undergraduate students. This study focuses on the influences of bedroom air quality on various human responses.

Short-listed participants would be reimbursed for their time at $8.74 per hour (standard University rate). Each participant will be reimbursed for a minimum of twelve (12) and a maximum of twenty (20) hours. The project is envisaged to be conducted in early December 2008 (vacation period).

Participants will be asked to maintain a normal sleeping schedule at night for up to four weeks at home. Throughout the duration of study, participants will be provided a log-book to record their diet and sleep quality. Participants will be asked to complete a series of short survey and computerized tests. In addition, a saliva collection protocol will be administered on weekly basis.
Indoor air quality measurements may also be conducted in selected homes (bedrooms) twice a week for about one hour.

If you are interested, please complete and return the attached Participation Checklist by email to bdgbox1@nus.edu.sg (or reply to this email) latest by Wednesday, 12th November 2008. The checklist will take about 10 minutes to complete. Please add your name initials to the completed file, e.g. for Mr. Tan Boon Leng, the file name will be: Participation Checklist_TBL. Short-listed applicants would be invited for a short interview through email or phone call.Thank you for your attention and interest in this project.Best regardsDr Henry C WillemSchool of Design and EnvironmentNational University of Singapore

Thank you for your attention and interest in this project.

Best regards
Dr Henry C Willem
School of Design and Environment
National University of Singapore


My opinion.......

I feel that this letter requesting for research volunteers was well written with minimal negative points according to the 7Cs.

Courteous: The opening was appropriate with the “ Dear students” and the ending line was polite as it showed gratitude.

Concreteness: Relevant information about the liability of the research was not stated properly as the details of the department doing the research was not stated.

Clarity: The letter could be easily understood as layman words were used and the relational pattern of development was captured.

Conciseness: The writer tried to be concise as much as possible but the length of the letter was long. Certain details could be referred from an attachment. For example, the tasks for the volunteers were quite detailed; this could have been avoided.

Completeness: All aspects of the research (aim, duration, incentive, tasks and administration matters) was covered and conveyed easily to the reader.

Coherence and Cohesion: The structure and organization of the letter is good. The writer starts off with the aim of the research followed by the duration and incentive of the volunteerism, the tasks to be carried out by the volunteers and ends off with the administration matters.

Correctness: The usage of words was correct. There is no error in grammar, spelling and punctuation except for the word “log-book” which should be written as logbook.

A good sample letter that one can refer to when writing a request letter for volunteers. Don’t you think so?

Please feel free to correct my critique if it is wrong.

Cheers,
Rathi

Communicational tips from Obama's speeches...

This video highlights how effective communication skills can be applied to our daily lives.

Post 2:Tell or not to tell??

A, B and you have been best friends for 10 years. Recently, A went overseas to pursue her further education. As such, all three of kept in contact with each other via emails, chats and occasional phone calls. Recently, A and B had an argument and have not been in talking terms. However, you maintained contact with both as usual.

One day, A called you in the wee hours; frantically telling you that her Facebook account had been hacked into. The hacker had made obscene posts on specific friends’ walls. And coincidentally, these people were her close friends including you. Her pictures were also edited. After narrating what had happened, she suddenly started accusing B for the hacking as she was the only one who knows A’s password and that she must have done it to take revenge. She also claimed that B had specifically chosen her close friends to write the posts so as to tarnish her reputation. After listening to her, you told her to report the incident to the Facebook authority to take relevant actions. Though you were angry with A for not trusting B after knowing her for so long, you couldn’t voice your feelings as you did not want her to think that you were siding B when you should be actually sympathizing with her. You tried persuading A that B was not the culprit. However, A was adamant in severing all ties with B and made you promise that you would not tell B about the conversation that both of you had.

Naturally, you do not want things to fall apart between your best friends. If you tell B, you would be breaking your promise to A. If you do not tell, you would not be giving B an opportunity to clear her name.

What would you do to save the friendship?

Post 1: Professional Communication

His speeches to an hour-glass
Do some resemblance show
Because the longer time they run
The shallower they grow.
-Unknown-

Communication is part and parcel of our lives. Thus, it is crucial that we master effective communicational skills to enhance relationships in every aspect of our lives. Even the success in our career strongly depends on our ability to communicate well. Perhaps this could be the reason why almost all jobs advertisements state good communicational skills as a requirement besides the paper qualifications. With the increasing emphasis on effective communicational skills, one should understand how the various forms of communication function to convey messages.

In the written form of communication, one has to be really wary of the usage of words and phrasing of words as the tone can be easily misinterpreted by the readers. For example, the word “ whatever” can imply that the writer is not bothered with what the reader decides to do though, he could have implied that he is perfectly fine with anything. Knowledge of correct usage of grammar is also very essential. Though there are several complex tools to check grammar and spelling, they are not totally reliable.

In the spoken form of communication, both verbal and non-verbal cues contribute to the success in engaging the audience and effectively conveying the message across to them. Since more than 90% of the communication depends on the non-verbal cues, one should pay more attention to body language as even a smallest gesture can send the wrong message across. Not only do the verbal and non-verbal cues help to communicate but also brings out one’s personality. As such these cues certainly help to make a good first impression among people.

Thus, learning these lifelong communications skills will certainly give one an edge over the rest to succeed in life…