Fostering Intercultural Communication

The culture in Singapore has been described as a mix between Chinese, Indian, Malay and British culture, which serves as a reflection of our immigration history. However, there can be problems in communication between a Singaporean Chinese and a native Chinese (i.e. immigrants from China).

I am in the midst of preparing for the NUS Chinese Dance production which will be held in 9 days time. This scenario that I will be describing just happened hours ago during our full dress rehearsal. Our multimedia designer is a Singaporean Chinese, who though is a Chinese does not speak Mandarin at all. On the other hand, our resident choreographer is a native Chinese, who does not speak English. So the first problem of communication is the language. This was easily solved as all of the crew present are able to speak both English and Mandarin and could help in the interpretation.

The real problem comes when they got to the concept of propriety in the Pre-Han era. There is one dance item in our production entitled 《礼记》or Books of Rites, which talks about ettiquette being the embodiment of morality while morality forms the basis of ettiquette. Our resident choreographer wanted to depict this concept using education based on Confucius and Lao Tze. However, the multimedia designer interpreted it as scholars obtaining honours in the imperial exams by working hard, having neat handwriting (at that time, the neatness of one's handwriting shows how hard-working you are) and by becoming an officer. As a result, both parties had to sit down with some of the crew to make sure that both parties have communicated effectively.

Reflecting on it now, the difference in value systems of both the individuals played a huge role in the initial interpretation of the concept of propriety in my opinion. For our resident choreographer, her interpretation was largely based on the thought that education is the most important factor in nurturing one to have moral values that are acceptable by the society such as respectfulness. However, the multimedia designer's interpretation was based on the concept that success is more important as the "accepted standards" of behaviours and morals are largely linked to success nowadays. What was lacking in this interaction was understanding of the value systems of the other individual, which in my opinion is shaped from the environment that one grew up in, which is their culture.

Through this, I find it interesting that even two people of the same roots can have a different set of value systems, and also they can speak a different language that the other cannot understand.