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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Descriptive Reflection: Strengths and Challenges in Communicating (Blog post #1) REVISED

Strength and Challenges
As I do not have many qualities in communication, one of the attributes that will excel in my communication is the interest in understanding different worldviews of each individual. Each person holds a certain truth to himself/herself, that perspective is solely his own. It intrigues me how the society and surrounding environment affects one's viewpoint and belief system, together with how he/she was raised as a child. This interest pushes me to desire communication with a variety of individuals, resulting in a urge to communicate and socialize with people. This results with conversations with countless people. Unfortunately, one's desire is also one's weakness. When someone does not fully comprehend the opposition party's viewpoint, or worst, disagrees with each other the tendency to argue and force their own viewpoint onto others is highly likely, and I believe that that is ones constraint. Communication goes downhill when one puts excessive emotion into his argument. No, not passion and inspiration, but anger and sadness. Each exchange of sentence carries an emotion and meaning, negative emotions such as anger will disrupt the flow of communication changing a simple debate to a heavy argument. Although born logical and observant, I cannot seem to control myself to not show and force my perspectives at certain situations. This causes misunderstandings and upsets the people around me, making it difficult for communication to continue smoothly. When I was working once, I did not understand the perspective of my superiors and disrespected their perspective, and that resulted in an argument. 

Two objectives
Two goals in which I would like to achieve by the end of this course is definitely, to open my mind more into understanding the behavior of others, accepting and opening my mind to their actions and communication purposes. Some people do not understand each other's reasons for acting or doing certain things, and talking in certain ways, and this will help me greatly in socializing with my surroundings. Secondly, presentation poses a weakness towards me. This aspect holds great priority in my future work and job. If I could pick up some tips and learn some presentation skills it would be great.