It's what you're not saying

What attracts you most when you first meet someone?

His voice, eyes, skin color, appearance, hair or smile?

Whatever it may be, the body language can tell a lot about the person himself, without even needing to make a sound. Many of the things that you’ve said did not come out of your mouth. That’s what it is all about, the nonverbal communication. It’s just a look and awareness and understanding. It’s also like a discovery, an ability to tell yourself and others who you are, and what you’re capable of, a way to get what you want.

This is also why the phrase ‘action speaks louder than words’ mean so much in this.

Usually, body language and gestures do not tell lies; it’s the mouth that speaks the otherwise. Therefore, observing body language rather than fully paying attention to what a person says can be helpful to determine whether or not the person is lying. In short, it’s the truth versus the lies. Normally, you are able to observe some of the signs that tell us most about that person before someone starts speaking. Also, different positions as well as firmness of hands and legs correspond to what the mind is up to.

I’m sure many of you have ever heard of Supernatural, am I not right? This series has been aired for quite some time already, and now the newest season of Supernatural has started. I’ve just seen the very first episode of its Season 5, and I found out that they used a lot of nonverbal communication to convey very significant and yet discreet information to the viewers.

There was a scene where Nick woke up suddenly from his sleep, after he felt blood all over his body as well as on his bed. When he stood up and turned on his end table lamp, the blood he felt and saw before disappeared. He actually showed us how fearful and anxious he was although he did not say a thing. It was merely his actions and gestures that are telling us that he was very terrified. For example, he breathed heavily and his eyes were very big which almost his eyeballs could pop out in any minute.

Also, there was a scene where Becky received a video call from her idol, Carver Edlund, she was so surprised and excited that she could barely speak. But if she did not speak, how did we know she was happy. That is why nonverbal communication plays such a big role in life. Even when she started speaking, her tone and voice pitch went up and down and a little bit trembling, it shows that she was unable to control her own voice because she was overjoyed.

Eye contact is also one of the most powerful communications. When in hesitations, one’s eyes tend to move left and right, hence, not focusing on something. So from there, we know that this person is uncertain.

To be brief, nonverbal communication is what you are not saying.

Language-based Barriers to Communication

It’s almost a month since the day I came to this place. It is a whole new environment for me. For my last visit to Singapore before this, dates back to the past 10 years. Therefore, everything has changed a lot; the town, shopping centres, lots and houses, a lot more. So, for my experience living in Singapore, I would like to say that I want to start from scratch. I do not know at all how people here communicate; the way they speak, or express themselves. For we are all human, there is always a common way to communicate, that is by using verbal communication. The beauty of language allows us to converse, exchange thoughts and speak up our mind.

Even so, language can also become a barrier and lead to miscommunication. For example, speaking mandarin to Japanese who doesn’t know Chinese can lead to many misunderstandings. Although sometimes we are able to communicate using the same language, misinterpretation can still occur, which is an example of the language-based barriers to communication.

To illustrate, my communication class instructor divided us into groups in the beginning of the semester, each with 5 to 6 persons. And the groups are to be maintained and work together for the rest of the communication course semester. I was grouped with 5 Singaporeans, which made me the odd one out. Our first task was to make a video to introduce ourselves and we were to do it with our assigned group members. While we were holding a meeting to discuss about the theme, one of my group members suggested a Singaporean comedy show. And during then, I was so blur, I didn’t know what they were talking about. Being the international student that I am, I do not know anything about the television shows. Thus, I kept quiet for the whole time the meeting was held.

During the silent moment that I have had, I felt alienated. I was not able to give any comments or opinions; all I knew was just to nod my head and agree to whatever they were saying. After all, keeping quiet is just another form of communication. Thanks to my group members for being so considerate by showing me the video of the show to give me an idea of what they had been discussing about.

Just to give another concrete evidence, my housemate who is also an international student, and I were involved in another grouping incident in ESL 407, an English course. Since we are foreigners, we do not have anything in common to talk about with others; as a result, finding a group was not easy. We ended up doing the project in a group of two. Despite that, we finally did find a group to join, and that was only because our ESL 407 instructor didn’t want the number of groups to exceed 5.

Fat or Skinny?

Over the decades, women have been dying to be thin, or at least what they think is gorgeous. However, in a time long, long ago, where people live without technologies; no television, no game stations, no computers, no nothing, fats are more welcome in women especially in the Chinese culture. The Chinese ancient women think that having more meat and flesh on their bones means they could mother more children, whereas those who are skinny and left only skin and bones are not capable of doing the same. Also, women with more flesh back in the past were mostly born with silver spoons in their mouths. Not forgetting to mention, they are more likely to get married quicker rather than the ones with ‘gorgeous’ figures most of us think nowadays.

But why has the fashion desire changed for the bony ones? Well of course, fashion always changes. For a moment, straight hair was so popular that every female you can find on the streets had been to the saloon and did some hair straightening. The next thing we know, hair perming overtakes in the world of fashion again. Anyways, according to one magazine article I have read online, Fashionable Fat, the author of the article, Shane Watson, mentioned that they’ve been predicting the return of the ‘real figure’ in fashion for months.

Does that mean the fleshy body figure is now becoming more and more popular and fashionable?

Let’s take an example from the article, legs used to be classed as beefy are now the most desirable legs in town. Models are dying to be thin on the catwalk. Consequently, there are already a few cases saying that models collapsed in a catwalk due to insufficient nutrients in their bodies. But why is this so? When they want to look good even in a kids wear, they would be dying to stay thin, and in order to do so, they would go anorexic.

The world has once again changed, for the better or the worse. The article clearly states that fashion world has been overtaken by the ‘fats’. Even so, that doesn't mean people with a not-so-gorgeous body figure wouldn’t be able to live in a society like that. Since fashion always changes, it doesn’t indicate that one must go with the flow. Does look even play a significant role in our life? Well, in one way or another, it’s a yes, but one thing’s for sure; beauty doesn’t follow you throughout your life, especially when you grow older and older, the beauty that once was yours, now covered in wrinkles.

So why care? Good figures do not always mean the prettiest, it is just what people think, their perspective.