Blog assignment 3

I remember one commercial says :" Look me in the eyes. It's ok if you're scare and so am I." Well, people sometimes tend to be bashful while they have eyes contacts with others. Eye contacts is considered to be one kind of nonverbal communication which is defined differently in different countries. Some distinctions exist in it really confuse and even separate foreigners and natives. They should be regarded as crucial as our grades.

As it interprets in textbook, eye contacts cannot be ignored. Making eye contacts might sounds easy to majority, but someone feel bashful to do it as I said in the beginning. But it will express whether you would like to talk with this person or not. Sufficient eye contacts will help people making friends, to let others know that you are friendly and respectful to them. But it owns the limitation. It is not recommended to stare at people, especially for two strangers. People will see this as an unpleasant behavior and turn their noses up at it. Therefore learn to control our eyes in a group, glancing is definitely not going to be acceptable.

As the term itself, nonverbal communications is not easy to observe. Ones have to sense it, taste it and experience it from every different place, different angle. There are actually a lot of arts in a bus. They have tendency to not sit together on the bus here in the U.S. expect they are close friends. That may sounds weird for a foreigners. Since what happen in my country is that you don't have chance to pick where you prefer to sit. It is always crowded and the space is limited and people run for a seat. But, we have a different situation here. I was on a bus one day, a gentle man walked on the bus and seek for a seat. There were some pair seats in the back and each of them was only occupied by one person, however, instead of taking a seat he chose to hold the armrest and stood there. I was curious at that point, but after I experiences it a lot. I understand people needs some bubbles as mentioned in textbook to defend and protect their own personal space. It's a non-constituted rule on the bus. As one part of nonverbal communications, space is an indispensible element for us to be conscious.

We can't blind to gestures, either. It's well-know that gestures express intentions, ideas and meanings. Still, there are many ways to convey them, shows inappropriate ways may cause people unpleasant. Universally, people feel uncomfortable when they are pointed at by others. I experiences this several times. When I was try to describe a certain situation, I either have a habit to point at the partner that I'm talking with, or point to some else I'm talking about. Of course, the responses I received were somewhat outspoken and straight. It's a such a serious problem here. I've been observing people around me and they barely point at each other. Other gestures may as serious as this. They probably contains cultural and historical significances. As foreigners understand the history and culture better, they will be aware of those.

Nonverbal communication is an obscure subjects which requires accumulative understandings for foreigners. It possesses something that culture doesn't. We can learn a culture from books, but for this nonverbal thing, we can only experience it, to involve it.