Week 6 - 7 and I-friend reflections.

What do you often misunderstand in expressing non-verbal expressions to friends of different cultures?

It sometimes happen as UIAM is a diverse community. Some words may carry bad impression but not in other countries. 

Is it hard to verbally communicate with people from different culture using alien language from your own?

It is hard for those who do not speak English and I faced this outside of university.

Culturally speaking, people in your culture speak in high volume with each other, why so?

It is not our culture, in the first place. it is a bad habit. This high volume is spoken to only our close friends, and it exists in any culture, not only in Arabic culture.

Week 5 lectures, and I-friend reflections.

What is your understanding on cultural identity?

Cultural identity is determined by experience of it's citizens.

What is the impact of new media (Facebook, Twitter) on different aspects of intercultural communications.

These media facilitate us to understand other countries and cultures.

Our I-friend.

Introducing to you, our I-friend, El Fadl Boudaia, from Algeria. Adam met him while they were playing futsal together. 

1. What do you like about Malaysia?

- Everything is perfect, the environment, the people, infrastructure and so on.

2. What is your favourite food?

- Nasi goreng USA

3. What interesting places you want to visit in Malaysia if you have the chance?

- Langkawi Islan, Perhentian Island.

4. What is the best memory you have experience in Malaysia?

- Kindness of people, sometimes he felt embarrassed with the kindness of Malaysians.

5. What are the differences in culture aspects between your country and Malaysia?

- Malaysia has a lot of culture since it consists of three races, and religions too. It is like the gathering place of Asian culture.

#TrivialTuesday; Reflecting on Week 4 Lectures.

Therapeutic at times. Find the translations online and read it.

HE WAS BAPTISE!

This week's lectures reminded us of the former Indonesian President, Abdurrahman Wahid or Gus Dur. 

Why?

We were talking about cultural ethnocentrism and outgroup or ingroup bias. Humans have put themselves under the possessions of groups, clubs, parties and other forms of gathering where people of the same interest assemble together for a purpose or two. It is hard to accept and practice 'universal love' as shown by Gus Dur, transcending religion, culture and ethnicity. Gud Dur is an ultimate example of people embracing 'universal love', some might say excessively embrace, but above all, his approach to love and understanding is nothing new. Islam teaches us to love all we can, assume the best as often as we can, without jeopardising our Tawhid. One needs to know his/her worldview and hold dear to it. 

Here are some of then net's most controversial videos on Gus Dur (because the internet culture is an amazing culture, you can find anything here and judge others freely). And some note before you proceed to the videos, know and correct your freaking worldview and don't be a Salafi and judge bluntly. Thanks.

So enjoy everyone. 

#TrivialTuesday; Reflecting on Week 3 Lectures.

Sang Kiai, 2013

Commenting on this week's lectures regarding Values, Beliefs and Norms in societies, we would like to comment on what had been mentioned in class as 'hierarchal' values of Malaysian society or in other words, Malaysians are of a high power distance culture. Social hierarchy is widely accepted and practice in the Malay Archipelago, even before the introduction of Islam to its people. Pre-Islamic era of the archipelago witnessed blind allegiance to priest and Sultans or Rajas in exchange for salvation and security. Those who have the money and power were respected because of money and power and those who are on top, were respected because they were on the above social pyramid structure. When Islam came to the archipelago, it brought with it reasons and logic to make sense of the cultural values of the people in the archipelago back then. 

We view the high power distance culture in this region as the manifestation of justice, or al-Adl, which, have been elaborated further by S.M.N al-Attas in his works, as putting something in its proper place. If a person, or a group of person should be treated above others, and not equal, due to his/her stature in the society, then be it. The Sultan was or still treated with respect, due to their perceived roles as a khalifah, or a leader of the society. With such roles, gives out massive responsibilities, hence, he should be put above others, but below Allah (as the ultimate sovereign), where he belongs.

Whatever it is, we're totally against cultural relativism, because the present is dead, the past is very much alive. Do we have this type of thinking 100 years ago? We'll leave you with this movie, and think about high-low context culture and power distance while watching this. 

Reflecting on my culture.

by: Abdullah Afiq

I was intrigue with the statements made by Mr. Ricaldi on being curious and always asking questions when it comes to culture. In the perspective of Mr. Ricaldi, I think it is interesting for him to get the opportunity to travel the globe and experience all sorts of culture and human behaviour, which at the same time will made it easy for him to do all the thinking and asking. Narrowing the scope down a little bit, as a Malay man living in an urban, mostly urban area, the pop/ hipster culture and Westernisation has really, really taken its toll on the youth and me in particular. It is hard nowadays to find a piece of an existing real 'Malay' settlement in urban areas, even in kampungs, as waves of modernity has swept everything stretching beyond the lines of our suburbs.

With that in perspective, we should find who we are.  What we made from and how we can know ourselves. If we're curious enough on ourselves, and prepare to hear things we might not want to hear about us, we will ultimately know ourselves.

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by: Adam Khairi

Living in Malaysia that consists of multiracial people could create lots of perception among us. Not enough with that, we also joined by the newcomers such as Indonesian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani that leads us more towards negative perceptions such as stereotyping and ethnocentrism. It is not easy to avoid yourself from perception as you always create one when you observe something that unaccepted and unfamiliar with you. Some of the Malaysian often misperceive that the Indonesian are only work as laborers because they come to our country and work as one. It is happen because like Mr Pellegrino Ricardi said, people see what they want to see but they don’t always see what you see. It is all about mindset. Because most Malaysian is too familiar with the display of Indonesian working as a labourer, they misperceive that all Indonesian are labourer. It is because this is the scenery that familiar with most Malaysian. There is once, I have been described as a Chinese look man by an aunt. Am so confused like I feel like to blow my own head. I see in myself as a man who look like Javanese people as I have Javanese blood in me. Plus, I am chocolate coloured skin. How is that possible?. I did not know what that aunt see in me but I refer back to what have been mentioned by Mr Pellegrino Ricardi, people see what they want to see but they don’t always see what you see. Our assumption is not the same with other because people think differently. In order to get rid of that, we must create mutual understanding by finding the equality between us so that we can globally understand each other and communicate without thinking the nationality or culture.

#TrivialTuesday

For the first post on #TrivialTuesday, I'll be posting on random materials related directly or indirectly to my culture or the culture of others. You get the picture, so let's get started.

For this week's post, I'd like to focus on the most prominent Malay-Muslim scholar, still alive and residing in Malaysia, Tan Sri Prof Dr. Syed Naquib al-Attas. He has explained and expanded the origins of Islam in the context of Malay culture and practices in one of his book. He is, overall, the epitome of a Malay-Muslim intellectual, putting together the mysticism of the Malay culture and Islam, and had proved both subject are in need of each other. As mentioned by Professor Syed Naquib al-Attas in this video, "Tress do not grow without roots". It reflects our culture. We are, bunch of huge trees, with roots. Find our roots, we'll know who we are.