When I conducted group fitness classes in PGP last Saturday, I found the way how my students arranged themselves pretty predictable: Westerners stood in the first row, closest to me, and would demand me to repeat my moves if they did not manage to catch up; Singaporeans stood at a not-so-conspicuous yet very convenient position for him/her, and mostly only stayed for the sessions they preferred; Indians stood at flanks, and would move back and forth depending on their interest in the particular dance type that I was teaching; Vietnamese stayed at the back, from the beginning to the end; Chinese, well, they M.I.A.ed.
During the short break, I managed to talk to a few and make a few interesting observations: Westerners approached me to help them improve on their dance, which I expected as I believed they were taught to be more open-minded and more eager to present his/herself; neither was I surprised when I only received moderate and mild feedbacks from Vietnamese. I suppose obedience is somewhat in the vein of the nation; also since I was expecting Indians to be hyper as a result of the elan that a rapidly industrializing country usually possessed, I was prepared for some light banter with them that would make all of us happy, in a loud manner; many Singaporeans left halfway so I didn’t manage to talk to them. Sad case despite understandable, multi-tuskers engendered in pragmatism and elitism tend to be busier; and lastly, Chinese, well my fellow countrymen all somehow managed to find some last-minute urgent work to cater to. Guess people were all getting busier nowadays =[
Behavior is a complex mechanism that primarily derives from personal experience, of which cultural background plays a vital part. As such, in order to understand behavior and facilitate inter-cultural communication, one must first be able to empathize, namely to admit, understand and to appreciate the differences, preferably via active listening and role reversal. As it did in my case, different students needs to be treated differently to promote communication and to maximize efficiency: a 30-minutes rotation of position needs to be proposed to encourage those passive people to stand in the front; a clearer schedule should be posted up to save the time of busy people and better cater to the mass public; a follow-up web-link should be provided for those argent learners or fitness enthusiast, and a reminder ‘NO LAST MINUTE BAILING’ should be put up as MOTD for the fickle o_O
