The increasing of global businesses with partners throughout the world make it necessary for the organizations to learn on intercultural communication. By learning and understanding others culture will ensure the success of the partnership / relationship. For example, rescheduling a meeting last minute or organize a meeting without specific agenda might be accepted by certain culture but not of others culture. People from low-context culture such as North America and Western Europe are direct in their communication whereas high-context culture such as Middle East, Asia and Africa are indirect in their communication hence can cause misunderstanding. Another aspect that we must observe is nonverbal communication such as hand gesture, body language, emotion, and face expression. Pointing a finger to someone’s face is consider rude in high-context culture. Knowing dos and don’ts of certain culture will be useful when dealing with them. In learning new cultures, we must be mindful of people and their surroundings, respecting others regardless of their culture, avoid ethnocentrism, generalizing with fact and be objective especially when there is a conflict with a people from other culture. As for me that always dealing with partners abroad and international students, I will try my best to have an open mind so that I can learn from them, treat them with courtesy and at the same time hold on to the good values and principles of my cultures. By learning Intercultural Communication, I hope to be able to communicate effectively with people from different race and culture by attaining global mindset as told by Pellegrino Riccardi during Ted Talk on Cross-cultural Communication. 

 

I had the opportunity to visit China for a working visit few years ago. Other than facing difficulties in conversing with Chinese people, I was shocked to see that spitting in public was a common view there compared in Malaysia where mostly are done in private. I also happen to watch a movie of Japanese bathed together and completely naked either in family’s bathtub (ofuro), communal neighborhood bathhouses (sentō) or hot springs (onsen). While there might be reasons for this practice in Japan, we as Malaysian do not bath naked with others and me for one do not wish to experience it. Nevertheless, this won’t deter me from learning Japanese culture because every culture has their own uniqueness. As the outsider, I must learn to respect their culture by keeping an open mind. 

 

My husband had this habit of arranging the dishes (lauk-pauk) that are on the table to his liking before he starts eating. I guess that he arranged the dishes to his preferable position so that the dishes that he wants are in front of him and reachable. Another person in our family with peculiar habit is my son. Before he eats, he will smell it first. If the smell is up to his liking, then only he will take and eat it. This is as found by Morquecho-Campos, P., de Graaf, K., & Boesveldt, S. (2020) that food odour exposure enhanced appetite for food products with similar properties: sensory-specific appetite. 

 

I valued my extended family above everything, and I am proud to say that we are close to each other. Every Friday, our siblings will gather at my mum's house, and we will play Chinese card game called "Four Colours Card" (please refer here for card detail https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tnt/rules.html). All of us including my mom can’t read Chinese words because we are Malay educated. Nevertheless, it didn’t deter us from learning the card by memorizing the word so that we can play it with my mom because she likes to play it. She used to play this game with her friends at one of the host houses, but they stopped organizing it. This game become a ritual for us on every Friday. It is rare to see people playing this game nowadays and I am proud to keep it alive. Playing Four Colours Card becomes our tradition whenever we get together, and this makes our family unique! 

During childhood, we first learned to speak mother tongue or native language from our family. Later we learned official language such as standard Malay Language, English Language, Mandarin Language and Tamil Language at school. It is sad to see the current scenario where parents prefer to speak with their children using the official language instead of their native language hence the children do not know how to speak the native language and will face difficulties in socializing with the community. Native language is part of the culture and therefore it need to be preserved and keep alive. Speaking the same language as the community will create a sense of belonging and acceptance. This is supported by Lebreton, M. (2011) finding that language developed sense of belonging among Third Culture Kids in international school.

 

Family also taught us on how to behave in the community. I was taught to eat using right hand not the left one because this is what is expected from the society other than for hygiene reason. I need to bend down the body when I walked in front of people, greet others especially those older than us, do not interrupt while people are talking, being honest and many more that I found useful. Family has shaped me to become a good and responsible person to the family and community.    

 

Malaysia is high power distance nation because it’s scored 100 and the acceptance of inequality among the members are high. The measurement is based on hierarchical order / the seniority / position. Calling people by names especially those with position/title such as Datuk/Dato’, Professor, Associate Professor, Dr, mother/father, grandfather/grandmother, sister/brother are prohibited. In term of working, subordinate is expecting the superior to tell them what to do. During a meeting, argument with the boss in front of others is unrespectful, hence it always made in private. Malaysia scored 26 on individualistic, hence it is a collectivism nation where people feel they belong to larger in-groups or collectives which care for them in exchange for loyalty—and vice versa (cited from Darwish, D. A. F., & Huber, G., 2003). It emphasizes on community, collaboration, shared interests, harmony, tradition, the public good, and maintaining face. This can be seen in the family where extended families are common, children will stay with the parents even after married, prioritizing the elderly and guest (mendahulukan yang tua dan tetamu) are the customs that has been practised and taught in Islam (Ibrahim, Yusof, & Hasan, 2018). In education system, it will be teacher-centered where teacher will give instruction and students follow. Next is on masculinity/ femininity where we scored equally. Roy, C. et al. (2016) defined masculinity as the extent to which the dominant values in a society are male oriented and femininity when emotional gender roles overlap. The role of woman and men is seen equal and might be the factor that contributed to this score. Uncertainty avoidance is low in Malaysia (36) shown that our society embraced uncertainty with calm. Riots and protests are rare and if there is any, it will be done in peace. Next in on long/short term orientation where Malaysia is considered as short-term orientation where tradition is valued highly, and changes is unpreferable. Malaysia scored high on indulgence (57) indicates that Malaysian do as what they desire by enjoying life and allocate their time for fun (Abdul Rahman, N. A., & Ramli, R., 2018). 

According to Hall’s Identity Categories, identity is separated into three categories which are personal, relational and communal. Personal identity is your uniqueness or trademark that separate you from others. Your name, talents, special characteristics of your face / body or even your ability to play certain sports or music. Next is on relational identity that is your relationship with others. I am a daughter of my parents, a wife to my husband, a mother to three kids, a sister to my siblings, a daughter in-law to my mother-in-law, an aunt for my nieces / nephews and an employee for my organisation. Your identity will change accordingly to which roles you are playing. Lastly is communal identity that refer to your identity in a larger scale of organisation / community. I am proud to say that I am Chinese of hokkien ethnic), a woman (gender), Malaysian (nationality) and Buddhist (religion). When dealing with people that is from different cultures, be careful with your words and actions because it does not only represent your identity but your cultures as well. 

 

According to Ting-Toomey, identities is developed through our interaction with people from the cultural group (cited from Roy, C. et al., 2016) which are the family members, schools and organisation. Gradually your identity will change when you get older. 

 

For example, in Buddhism, we believed that there is cycle of life which are illness, old and death (sakit, tua dan mati). After death, you will have to face your karma, the consequences of your actions during your life. Karma is the law of actions and reactions (Roy, C., Samovar, L., McDaniel, E., & Porter, R., 2016).). If you have done enough good deed, you will go to nirvana (heaven) afterlife. Otherwise, you will have to face your karma which is series of punishment for bad action that you have committed in your life. Then you will be reborn (reincarnation) and undergo the life cycle again. Although Islam belief in afterlife, reincarnation is found to be incompatible with Islam teaching as found by Bulğen, Mehmet. (2018). 

 

In conclusion, we as human being need something to hold into that serve as a guidance including on life and death. We are doing good deed now because we know that we need it for afterlife that will determine whether we go to the top (heaven) or bottom (hell). In Buddhism, it is believed that there is no God, as in Confucianism. However due to mixture of Buddhism and Chinese customs, Chinese people do believe the existence of God. Regardless of life and death perspectives, death is certain, and we must embrace it. There is a quote that says “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time”. 

 

Why are parents putting too much effort to ensure their children can speak English Language but not the native language? Is it because English is the lingua franca or world’s business language? A survey by Statista shown that English Language is the most spoken language worldwide in 2021 (1,348 millions) followed by Mandarin (1,120 millions) and Hindi (600 millions). For intercultural communication to happen, there must be one language that understood by everyone, and English Language is the way. Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia has imposed that all international students that wish to study in Malaysia must proof their English Language proficiency as the entry requirement. Although there are some difficulties in understanding the words uttered by the speakers, I believed that intercultural communication could happen if both speakers had the same level of understanding. Nevertheless, the higher education institutions must teach their international student on native language so that they will be able to socialize with the community. David Ogilvy once said that “If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language in which they think”. To encourage the community to talk to you, then you should approach them with their language.

 

In one of the tasks, I had chosen to study on stereotypes of Egyptian culture as I have zero knowledge on Egyptian culture. The common stereotypes of Egypt / Egyptians are it is in Arab continent, they are muslim (because most of their people speak Arabic), lived in desert, not friendly, ride camel to work and houses shapes like pyramid. The truth is Egypt located in Africa continent; muslims only makes 90% of the population and 10% are Christian / others religion; although 90% of Egypt land is desert, 95% of the population live on the remaining land and on completed desert reclamation works; when it comes to hospitality, the Egyptian scored 100% because it is their culture to treat guest warmly; they use transportation like us and rarely see camels unless at the tourist area; and their houses are just like us. 

 

The fact that stereotypes represent an oversimplified, exaggerated, and overgeneralized of a group of people that is untruth and unfounded has make intercultural communication unsuccessful. Learning intercultural communication has broaden my perspective on other cultures. For successful intercultural communication, I will need to have an open mind, mindful that we are different, avoid ethnocentrism and most importantly avoid supporting stereotypes.

 

Health beliefs as defined by Misra, R., & Kaster, E. C. (2012) is what people believe about their health, what they think constitutes their health, what they consider the cause of their illness, and ways to overcome an illness. My perspective on healthcare belief systems gradually changed because of modernization and accessibility to the modern healthcare systems. Traditional medicine is forgotten and replaced by modern medicine that can buy even from the pharmacy. In Chinese community, deities and monk are still referred whenever we had unexplained illness, but we will still seek for scientific/biomedical perspective by going to the hospital or clinic for medicine. We are greatly influenced by our culture on healthcare beliefs system. As for me, regardless of whichever healthcare beliefs system that we are using, as long as it does not further harm our bodies, I am okay with it. Having said that, I believed that investing in holistic healthcare system such as ayurveda, acupunctures, tai chi and yoga are a good approach for total well-being. After all healthy life comes from healthy mind.