Evaluating Intercultural Behavior ( Blog Post #4)

This scenario occurred while I was doing my final year project at polytechnic with a Singaporean classmate as well as two exchange students from Ireland and Africa. One day, our Singaporean classmate invited us to her family reunion dinner for the Chinese New Year‘s eve celebration.

On that day, when we visited her house, my Singaporean friend introduced us to her family members. I noticed that her father was staring at my Nigerian friend disapprovingly and I realized that it was making my friend a little uncomfortable. I was puzzled as to why this is so since this was our first meeting. Later, I found out that it was actually because my Nigerian friend was wearing a black-coloured dress and it is a Chinese belief that black tend to be associated with mourning and inauspicious and thus should not be worn during joyous occasions such as Chinese New Year. This is a customary belief for the Chinese. However, this belief may not be shared by the Irish or African people and thus, it could be a practice which they may not be aware of. When we were having reunion dinner, I also noticed that my foreign friends had difficulty in using the chopsticks. This is probably due to them being more accustomed to using forks and spoons instead of using chopsticks like Asian people. From this dinner, I became more aware that Chinese traditions and rituals are very carefully observed in everything from food to clothing during the Chinese New Year and various people have different ways of doing things and beliefs under different cultures.

To communicate effectively with different people from different countries, we should always observe and understand different intercultural norms, behaviors and beliefs. Moreover, we can learn and find out the cultural norms from local people and reading the literature. This will help us to avoid misunderstanding each other and to improve our communication skill.

Potential Research Project

Should an extensive network of recycling campaign to set up at NUS to enforce a green environment program island wide? Is there any possible ways for the solution?

Do you know that it would take approximately 4,444 trees to print an issue of the Straits Times for a circulation of about 400,000 each day?

Currently, the environmental problems faced by the world are becoming more extensive and there is an increasing urgency for humanity to view the issue with utmost importance. The fragility of our global climate coupled by our dependence on it further highlights the gravity of the situation and Man should no longer hesitate to act upon this issue. It is a global crisis and it would require a global concerted effort to help mitigate or even solve this problem. Therefore, everyone can help to contribute to save our Earth no matter how insignificant our efforts may seem and there are many ways in which we can do so.

Among them, recycling is a major world-wide program which involves government bodies, large corporations and organizations. Therefore, NUS students, we should all take part in this GREEN PLAN campaign as the environmentalists who love nature and earth.

The objective of this report is to give awareness of the recycling campaign and my target reader will be all NUS staffs and students. From that campaign, all NUS staffs and students will be given an attention or awareness of paper recycling.

In order to raise the awareness of the above issue, an attitudinal survey should be conducted. I realize that we can see the situation from the survey results whether how many people are very active to participate in green plan campaign.

Some of my survey questions will be-

1. Awareness of 3R methods such as Reduce, Reuse and Recycle?

2. Should the system be changed to using E resources instead of printing on papers?

3. Should we provide more extensive network of paper recycling bins in the whole campus?

4.Should we use recycled papers for all text books and writing pads and printing shops?

From the survey results, the data will be reported to Office of Student’s Affair (OSA) for implementation.

The short term and long term benefits from green plan campaign will be such as reduction of air pollution, energy consumption, cutting down the trees or harvesting of the forests and lower costs.