Reaction to "Perception Of Self" by Fisher

 In his essay, Fisher looks at "perception" from many different angles. According to him, perception requires a minimum of three elements: a perceiving person, an object of perception, and an inferred interpretation or meaning that is the outcome of the perceptual act. People's perception is based on their past experience, belief, attitude, and value, and therefore no perception is objective. Furthermore, information for interpreting an object at one time is limited, and perception tries to fill in the blank of the information missing: all of them make our perception inaccurate. 

 It was interesting to me to know that perception is very personal. I could find the link between "perception" and "intercultural communication". People from different cultures have different background, past experience, and therefore beliefs, attitudes and value. All of these elements make us different, sometimes causing conflicts. As I read off both "Stumbling Blocks" by Barna and This essay, they reminded me of the importance that we mustn't take anything for granted, and keep us open-minded. 

Reaction to "Stumbling Blocks in INtercultural Communication" by Barna

 In his essay, Barna mainly looks at why and how we feel frustrated or fraught when we communicate with people from other cultures. He raises six stumbling blocks to illustrate how they become a problem, giving some examples in each section. 

 

For the first stumbling block he talks about "Assumption of Similarities", in which people assume that they are all alike simply as being human and having common requirements of food, shelter, security and so on.  This can make you feel frustrated because what you think other people are would be different from what they actually are. 

 He next takes "Language Differences" as the second stumbling block. This is when people cling to just one meaning of a word when they learn languages. This could lead to problems because one word can have more than one meaning, nuance and sense. 

 For the third one he raises "Nonverbal Misinterpretations". People tend to interpret any meaning of things such as gesture, postures and other body movements through the frame of reference of their own culture. This can misunderstand the utterances or actions of people from other culture, leading to problems. 

 "Preconceptions and Stereotypes" also can be a problem, he says. They roots in people's mind because people want to reduce the threat of the unknown by making the world predictable. Unfortunately, people actually feel more frustrated when their stereotypes collapse. 

 The fifth Stumbling Block is, he mentions, "Tendency to Evaluate". People tend to evaluate other cultures as whether it is good or bad, believing their own culture is the most natural. This can lead to conflicts between people from other cultures. 

 Finally, he raises the last stumbling block, "High Anxiety". This is linked to the other stumbling blocks as high extent of anxiety requires some form of relief and defense, which appears in the form of stereotyping or evaluation, for example.

 As I read through his essay, I found it helpful. I had an experience in England for a year, his essay looked to me more real and made it easier for me to understand the text. I thought that it is really important to keep us open-minded, as is often told in ICU. I didn't know how we should open our mind. This "open-mindedness" could also be dangerous to the people who come to the middle of nowhere what to believe. But I learned that nothing is natural, and there may be things that are more meaningful than what I believe now, so it is important to know other concepts of way of life, or of doing things. 

Summer Reading

 In my summer I read an English novel of which the title is "the giver" written by Lois Lowry.
 I chose this book because many of my friends recommended me this novel to read. I heard a bit of the story from my friends, and it seemed interesting to me.
 The story is about a community, which Jonas, the main character, lives. Jonas is 11 years-old (but close to become 12) and has a sister Lily, and his parents. In his community, everything is decided by The Chief of Elder, the top position of his community, and the examples are their jobs and even their family unit. There are age groups in his community from the Ones to the Twelves. When one becomes the Twelve, he or she is assigned their jobs by the Chief of Elder.

My Summer Vacation

 Hi, I am telling you about my summer vacation.
 There were more than 2 months of summer vacation in our university, ICU. I spent first 1 month working on Mt, Fuji. I stayed the workshop during the period, and it was 3,100 m high, so my first 3 days were awful having terrible headache. I guess it was because of lack of oxygen in that hight. The life on Mt. Fuji made me exhausted everyday, the workers there so strict. I fell asleep as soon as I finished working. But the experience there gave me much confidence in my life for sure. I'm proud that I could work there with brilliant,  strict workers.
 After working there, I spent the rest of my summer vacation in Kyoto, my hometown. I went out and played with my high school friends everyday, which reminded me of the great days of my high school. It was really fun to be with them. I also spent some days there with my family, who I haven't seen for nearly 5 months. I was really impressed and moved by the meals my parents cook for me because I have had to cock for myself since I started to live alone. Actually I am not good at cocking, so my parents are great.
 This is all I did in my summer vacation, and I will tell you my goals of ARW this year.
 My main goal for this term is learning new ways of doing things, comparing them with the ways I am, and choosing the better. Also, I am keen to train my ways of doing things, such as reading and writing, and always make them better. This would improve my skills significantly, and the hope is that I can have  confidence with myself.