gosh two posts in one day!i must be going bonkers
ok so my mum came home from work and was telling me about her colleague leaving the school over dinner. brief background information, my mum is a teacher at an international school, thus her colleague is also a teacher. let's call her Mdm B (she's french), since i'm not going to name names here. now Mdm B is rather well liked in the school so naturally people are quite sad that she is leaving. one of the other teachers, Mr H, decided to have a little farewell piano recital for her. the students would play some songs. when it ended, Mdm B was touched and she personally thanked one of the students, S. S is a 7 year-old Japanese girl. her response to her teacher's appreciation was going up to Mdm B and poking her nose, while saying "you have a long nose!" for god know's what reason. if you weren't close to someone and they made such a remark to you, i'm sure you would have been insulted. however, i digress, i was rather taken aback by her lack of politeness around her teacher, and the fact that she was just so direct. perhaps she's kid, thus explaining the nature of her behaviour. but she's also a Japanese, and aren't Japanese suppose to be of a high context culture? while her behaviour seemed to lean on being a characteristic of low context culture.
low context culture has great importance on the spoken word, while high context culture has subtle cues as part of their communication. high context culture sees explicit communication style as rude and insensitive, while low context culture sees indirect communication style as tricky and deceptive.
is this an indicaiton that the new generation is going to revolutionize our world and make the majority of the population be of low context culture? but then again, perhaps kids are just being kids, you can't change who they are. at least not yet.
5 comments:
why would the girl say long nose? lol. i think since she's a japanese, she might not have such a good command of english and might had meant something else, we never know.
and also, "but she's also a Japanese, and aren't Japanese suppose to be of a high context culture?"
you're stereotyping!! ahaha. i applied another concept too. teehee.
JX
hahas yes i admit to stereotyping.i have no idea why the girl said that but maybe mbm b does really have a long nose?
hahahahhaa. ok first thought was taht the girls quite cute. i guess we could blame her 'rudeness' to age.. but she IS 7 whole years of age and thats p1.. i think theyre kinda old enough to know how to say 'welcome'.. so maybe it is true that the newer generation are of a lower context culture. theyre more outright frank to the point of rude, and dont see the bad point of it or why it should be called rude.
thats what i feel la. i mean the newer generations are picking up vulgarities like normal grammar words and its really worrying!
well,in my opinion, children have always been more frank and direct. they need not worry about saying things that may offend for adults will just brush them off as 'oh he/she is still young' kind of remarks. maybe that's why they seem to be of low context culture?
yup i guess so. kids are innocent angels at first. but oh well lets just say things may not always turn out the right way. whatever that may be. just hope that society doesn't de-grade any further!!
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