Take it as my journal for this holiday. Or use it as another means to gain a set of new perspective on love and life. I shall do my best to document what I learnt about people, relationships, love and life while I am on this trip. 
Henceforth, I created this series A Tale Of Two Cities.
Part 1 begins right from here …
I’ve come to a different world where people here lead a lifestyle that varies from us.
Yesterday I saw three children kicking soccer in the open field while one sat at the side reading a book. I saw eight old ladies playing mahjong and one old gentleman below their apartments at a common area in a private condominium residential area. In Singapore, you could be captured and put behind bars for gambling at a public venue if you’re using real cash as the winnings. I saw two ladies playing badminton along a walkway, and two others in a court.
The whole string of events I saw today gave me a much relaxed feeling than I was back home. Or maybe it’s psychological, since one tends to be in an off mode when we are on a holiday.
Even the music also has its own native flavour from their local band.
This trip is indeed an eye-opener and a culture exchange for me. Even though we speak the same language, but we are at the same time also speaking a different language! How can that be?
Yes it can be and it has happened too many times. Did we (meaning me and my friend who’s a local here) get angry at each other? Luckily we didn’t. Why not?
Because we have been very upfront with each other that we do recognise how a word can have a totally different meaning when used in different countries due to the variance in culture, social background, values and education. Therefore, whenever we say something to describe a certain situation or to express how we feel towards an issue, if some eyebrows were raised, we knew we hit jackpot!
It’s time to be happy! Because it’s time to share and learn about each other’s culture and way of speaking again!
If not for these raising eyebrows moments, those can’t-help-to-stop-laughing incidents, how will we gain so much more insights and experiences? It’s really a tale of two cities.
While learning about the differences, we also recognise the similarities.
The result of your communication is the response you get.
Our exchanges are real life proofs to how true this statement is. But what I’d like to emphasise here is this – we were able to reconcile those differences merely because of one thing. That is, we recognise there will be misunderstandings and we understand there are differences. We don’t compell ourselves to accept what the other party saying as the right thing, because it’s not about who’s right. It’s about how much we understand what he/she is conveying.
I wonder if couples know how to use this type of attitude towards their relationship, how much better would their communication be? Instead of getting upset over your partner, thinking that he/she doesn’t understand you, why not ask what he/she has understood?
Test this strategy out and see if it makes any difference to your love life, and your social life too.
That’s all for this post. More to come, I promise!
[tags]Lifestyle,Two cities,Culture exchange,Communication,Differences,Relationships,Words, Misunderstandings[/tags]
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