At Last!

In my first post, I talked about learning how to reach out to new people effectively. Looking back at the past 12 weeks of this module, I feel that I have applied this skill relatively well, making many new friends. I feel that I’ve learnt more than what I had expected. Effective communication is more than just verbal communication and interpersonal interactions as I had thought before taking this module. The non-verbals and writings are equally important.

All these blog entries, writings, presentation and interactions had definitely equipped me with the relevant skills to prepare me for the future. The 7Cs and non-verbal communications will be useful in both writings and speech. Not only so, the part on resume, cover letter and job interview had gave me a greater insight and understanding on how to gain myself an advantage when seeking for a job in future. It had also reviewed the reasons for my past interview failure of job interviews.

I had really enjoyed this module, and would like to extend my gratitude to each and every of us and Brad, for making this class so fun and enjoyable. I really have to say that this 1009 bid points is worth it. Thank you, everyone!

ME..

I was born in Hong Kong, a country which majority of its people uses Cantonese. Having stayed there for 7 years before moving over to Singapore, I had mastered the art of the language and that made me trilingual. Or rather it should be quad-lingual now since I am taking Japanese lesson in NUS. I have always believed in learning things beyond one’s field of study and experimenting new things. My journey through the university years has inculcated good planning and time management skills in me. In addition, my cheerful and easy-going characters have allowed me to widen my social circle and made me a good team player. I strongly believed that the skills that I have acquired from all my experiences will be applicable when I enter the workforce, be it research laboratory or office administrative work.

Reflection..

Working as a team is a matter of compromising and contributing, each doing his or her part while learning from others. I have had a great time working with my 2 wonderful teammates- Sea Ming and Baoqing.

Given the tight and busy schedule, coming up with a report in such a short time is not an easy task (same goes for the rest of the groups). In addition, with both my teammates in their final year, busy with their Final Year Project and thesis papers, having meetings outside class is almost impossible. We had to make do with the time given during class and make the best out of it. Tasks were well-distributed among the three of us. Clear roles and job scopes were ensured at the end of each meeting. Thanks to the advanced in IT technology, having this thing called “Email”, communication among the three of us has become much easier, resolving the need to meet outside class. Furthermore, with all the tests and projects for other modules, mutual understandings and compromising were required. At times, help was received from other members in the team, covering the job of one, when that person was too busy meeting other deadlines of other projects.

It was a great experience working with my teammates, learning different skills from them. For example, I have learnt more of the Microsoft words and excel skills from Sea Ming and analytical skills from Baoqing. I guess the only bad experience in this research project was all the never-ending editing and writings in the report. Nevertheless, the report is now ready to be submitted and we can take a short breather after submission.

Really a big, big thank you to you guys (Sea Ming and Baoqing), for all the hard work and patience!

Miss??

It has been a month since the closing of Beijing Olympics 2008. Recently, I met up with my coach, who had been to Beijing to witness the majestic event. As she recounts her experience in Beijing, I began to realize that differences do not occur only among different countries, but also within a country itself.

Having relatives in Southern part of China- Shenzhen and Guangzhou, I often travel there for visiting and shopping during school vacations. Whenever we needed assistance in a shop or restaurant, we have a habit of calling the salesgirl or waitress “美女” (měi nǚ, meaning = beautiful girl) or “小姐” (xiáo jiě, meaning = Miss). I guess this goes the same for any situations in Singapore. In Guangzhou and Shenzhen, we needed to address them “美女”, in order to enjoy better and more efficient services. Sometimes, even when you address them “小姐”, you may not even get the same high quality service.

However, things seemed to be different in Beijing. According to my coach, when she was in a shop, she reached out to a salesgirl, calling her “小姐”. That salesgirl frowned upon hearing that, but quickly put on a professional smile when she approached my coach. What my coach didn’t know was that her way of addressing a salesgirl was rather offending to them. It was only when she was done with her purchase in the shop; the salesgirl approached her again and politely enlightened her of the way to address in Beijing. To the people in Beijing, “小姐” is used to address girls working as hostess in nightclubs. Calling a salesgirl or waitress “小姐” or “美女” is deemed as an insult to them. Hence, their job title is used when one needs to call for assistance, for example “店员” (diàn yuàn, meaning = salesperson), “侍应生” (shì yìng shēng, meaning = waiter or waitress) etc.

From the above incident, it can be seen that even within a country, there can have totally different cultural backgrounds, leading to different views and understanding towards the same issue or words used. If the salesgirl had not been understanding and professional enough, a conflict may have just occurred as a result.

Cars

Do you own a car? Do you want or intend to own one? Have you ever thought of how much would it cost for one to “rent” the roads in Singapore, especially with the never-ending inflation trend?

Parking fees, coupons, ERPs, petrol, etc. All these consumption and maintenance costs will cause a big hole in the wallet. Aside from the money issue, we must not forget about the health of our Mother Earth. The amount of dust, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted are on its hike, with the merciless increase in global car population. Environmental issues such as climate change, global warming, rising sea level are probably the common topics among the people now. As Singaporean, we are equally concerned about this. The issue now is that how can we balance and put both our want-cars and Mother Earth on the same scale.

Hydrogen fueled car is one of the solutions to the problem. Companies such as Honda, BMW, Chevrolet etc, are now supplying hydrogen fuel cell-powered cars, though not in mass production in the recent few years. The Singapore government had seen a value and market in this area and had invested in five BMW Hydrogen 7 Series cars just this year. Preparations had already started a few years back, where BP Singapore participated and will develop and supply hydrogen refueling infrastructure. Although the number of hydrogen refueling stations is very limited, the effort could be seen.

Definitely, I’m proud that Singapore is tagged as one of the greenest cities in Asia. But there is a burning question in my mind as well- Are Singaporeans willing to accept this change? After all, it is a new technology and the cost incur now is definitely going to be high. However, as more efforts in improvement and innovation are put in, reduction and mass production are just a matter of time. Maybe ten years down the road, hydrogen fuelled cars will be a common sight. However, this gives rise to another issue. Will this be sufficient to save the Earth? Or is that a need to transform all our petrol driven cars to hydrogen fuelled cars? Thus, a research can be done to see the attitude of NUS students towards replacing the usage of petrol-driven cars with hydrogen-fueled ones, in the next ten years. NUS students will be used as samples as they will be largely the ones buying cars in the near future and hence, are more relevant to the research.

Hypothesis: Singaporeans are willing to buy or change their cars to hydrogen fueled ones in the next decade, leading to a reduction in greenhouse gases emitted.

Problem Statement: The objective of the study is to find out whether Singaporeans are willing to replace their existing cars with hydrogen fueled ones if the cost to own one is the same as that to own a petrol-fueled car.

Purpose Statement: The objective of the report is to find out the acceptance level of hydrogen fuelled cars among Singaporeans and how it will affect the companies’ marketing strategies before the actual lunching of the cars in Singapore.

Guilt

Well, I am not really sure if this can be considered a conflict, but it is definitely not a good experience for me.

This incident happened on a boring Saturday afternoon when my friend, A, and I met up for lunch. As it was still early to return home, we decided to play something childish- “Truth or Dare”, in which none of us can choose Truth. In other words, it was a game of dare. When it was my turn, I had to make this person (who happened to call me within the next 20min) believed that while hanging out with A, A abandoned me at the spot and I was not able to reach him. Besides, my bag was in A’s car and I had to retrieve it for I had an important appointment in half an hours’ time.

It happened in the 19^th minute, my friend, B called. Not being a wet blanket, I decided to play the prank on him. B fell for it and was very concerned and worried about me. B helped, by contacting A for me and of course, A did not pick up. B even had the intention of taking a cab down, hoping to help me out. My conscience pricked, and I apologized immediately and told him the truth. I thought the worst scenario was to get a scolding from him. But it was far more than that. He got very angry and hurt, and said, “I know I am very silly and stupid, and I trust people easily. I know anyone could lie to me, but I thought you will be different- someone whom I can really trust and talk to. But it proves that I’m wrong, utterly wrong. It just shows that I am even more stupid than I thought I am.” I was shocked when I heard that.

I tried apologizing and explaining to B, but he could not accept them all. His refusal to pick up my call and talk to me made me feel really guilty. After much effort, B finally accepted my apologies and forgave me. However, there are still times where I could sense we are no longer as close as we used to be. B even told me that his heart aches, whenever he recalled about the incident.

Previously, I thought it was simply a prank and one could let it go easily after some buffer time. But I was too naïve; to think that the harm inflicted can be easily amended by apologizing. Now then I realized that relationship be it friendship, love or sisterhood can be very fragile. What was done cannot be undone. I felt really guilty and I didn’t know how to face B when we mentioned about this issue. What should I do? Should I sit back and do nothing, and simply allow time to wash those unhappy memories away? Or I should be more proactive and do something to salvage this friendship?

New faces, New friends

Heard of this saying “No man is an island on its own”? Well, I guess most people do. It is inevitable that everywhere you go and whatever you do, you’ll bound to meet someone, something. Often, we see new faces, we meet new friends. But how often do we reach out to them, or taking the initiative to communicate with them, getting them into your conversation?

I remember in the first week of my last vacation job, I knew no one in the office (well, except my manager). I could hardly find anyone to talk to or clear my doubts, as everyone seemed to be in a bad mood, pulling long faces or in stern expression. I dare not even ask questions that were faced in my work. During lunch time, I had lunch with my department staffs, and they too, talked about things and topics that I do not understand at all – work-related and work-related-people. I was not sure if it was me being over-sensitive or they are just being who they are - unfriendly and fierce. Their actions hurt me (well, only for the first week). I felt left out and unwanted as I could not clique in to their conversation. If it was not for the contract that I had signed, I guess I would have quit the job.

Anyway, that was only for the first week of the job. As I get to know my colleagues better, I realized that they are really nice people and are not as unfriendly as they seemed to be. They just do not know how to express themselves to new faces and how to get them involve into their conversation without feeling awkward. If they had treated me better and nicer right from the first day of my work, I guess I would not have this wrong impression of them, or even have the thought of quitting the job. From this incident, I told myself that I would not want to be like any of them – giving people this unfriendly and fierce impression to new friends.

I guess effective communication is what I need to master- learning how to reach out to different people in different occasions and situations, and how to establish a rapport with someone new. Nevertheless, said is always easier than done. Just hope that by the end of the semester I could grab hold of the gist of effective communication, and not turn out to be one of them.