Evaluating intercultural communications

The success of every relationship depends on how effective one can communicate with another person. This is more evident in Singapore today where people from different parts of the world come together to live, work and interact with one another. This phenomenon puts a test on a person's sensitivity of other cultures and his/her ability to communicate effectively beyond the scope of his/her own culture. Intercultural communications emerges as a skill which allows people from different cultural backgrounds communicate in similar and/or different ways among themselves and how they endeavor to enrich the communication process.

Living in Singapore allows me to interact with people from different cultural backgrounds where i have unwittingly developed some form of cultural sensitivity and intercultural communication skills. Furthermore, my national service days had also strengthen my views on how important intercultural skills can be.

During December last year, i went for an overseas community program in Kalimantan, Indonesia. That was the first overseas community program that i have participated, it was a totally different experience from going for an holiday trip. That program trip really broaden my horizons because i got to live and interact with the locals. That really gave me the first-hand experience of how people from other places actually live and communicate.

Even though i had only stayed there for around 3 weeks, i had learnt to appreciate how different their cultures are compared to mine. The differing lifestyles and values further shaped my opinion on why such a contrast exist.

Coupled by the poor command of local language, Bahadsa Indonesia. I have to rely on facial expressions and body language to roughly make out what the locals are trying to tell me and i realised that the locals are extremely friendly people whom do not display any sort of displeasure on their faces. Furthermore, they are so hospitable that people like me who hail from urban places would sometimes be overwhelmed by their generosity.

Nonetheless, i realised that despite the differences of our cultures, the gap between communicating across a different culture can be overcome by being more sensitive to what others might think and say, being more aware of different meanings regarding certain matters and what i feel as the most important of all, developing a open mind when communicating with others.