Blog Post 2 Revised(Situational analysis)

Occasionally, there are situations that non-verbal communication can cause people to act rashly. In my instance, this interaction put my friends and I in quite a dangerous situation. The scene was at a China illegal gambling den which was behind a very old arcade. I was with 2 other friends, Joey, who was American, and David, who was Korean. David was playing at a video game table with multiple player sits which was empty, and joey and I were sharing another table. The goal of the game was to ‘catch fishes’ to gain points, with each fish giving a certain amount of points. Certain number of points will then be transferred to real time money.

While intrigued in playing the game, a middle-aged Chinese man strolled into the room, taking a sit at the same table as my friend David. He soon requested my friend while raising his voice to move to another table, since he wanted the table to himself. My friend refuse to move, which made the man quite upset, he stood up and taunted David. In the start of an intense argument, the man pulled out a knife from his pocket and threatened David, and just in that instance David grabbed the man’s arm immobilizing him. Me and Joey quickly stood up and came to his aid. The frustrated man realized he was outnumbered and dropped his knife and left.[ZBL1] 

In this case, I will be evaluating the man on non-verbal communication of culture. It was obvious that people in that country shouted a lot, but in this case, this middle-aged man looked like a regular in this gambling den, and this most likely gave him a feeling on superior as a regular. The man’s posture and actions of standing up and taunting will be a sign of aggression, so will be his tone of speech. I could tell that, even with the known fact that the locals there that talked loudly, that he was trying to start a fight. Also, not everyone will carry a knife around, with the fact that he had a knife showed that he might have had background of being in a rough society. On the other hand, David had no idea on how to deal with the situation, and from observation, his pride could have gotten in the way. David was proud to be Korean, and he was well respected as a foreigner in China, this might have blurred his judgement of the situation instead of accommodating with the man’s wants.

In conclusion, I learn from this situation that non-verbal communication like tone of voice and stance can be affected culture, like seen with the middle-aged man. I believe that we can, with better understanding of their background, tackle this situation in a well-mannered and civilized approach. 

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