Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Small talk, intellectual conversations & personal interests
This was the development of my relationship with this guy I was recently working with. The monotonous job of sticking labels to leaflets contributed greatly to this progression. I shall explain:
Day 1: Small talk
When you meet someone for the first time, things are slightly awkward. You don't know where you stand with them and the unknown is always a scary thing. Initial questions always include what is you name, what do you do and where are you from. Now the platform on which you can develop your impression and understanding of the other person, allows further probing in the form of generalised topics. Student? Studies? Summer? New Year plans? One particularly observant question on my behalf was, "Do you play an instrument? I noticed you are left-handed and more left-handed people are arty and creative" to which he answered no. But he did say that if he were to play and instrument he would play the piano. Note taken. He scored double points when he asked me if I was Malaysian. I was rather taken back, how did he know?! Was it just a very lucky guess? He answered, he did know (?) and he did guess. Interestingly, he had been on an exchange to Malaysia a few years ago and travelled around the place for a year. A very educated guess I suppose, then. The conversation moved on to family, general studies and tentative future plans.
End of day one.
Day 2: Intellectual Conversations
Fortunately for us, there was a weekend inbetween these days. God only knows that we wouldn't have been able to keep going with the labelling for that long! Our talk started politely, how was your weekend. Which I mentioned I found a friend ("Maria, I just met a girl named Maria") , went to church and did some gardening. He picked up on the church and mentioned his friend used to go to Elim and that he infact had gone along once before. Interesting. However, the conversation did not continue this path. During some rather long periods of silence with just the sound of sticking and opening of leaflets, other issues were raised: the importance of historical events (he is a history major) and how the records and accounts from those periods affect our perception of those times, family lines and generational backgrounds, more politically- the political instability of Iraq and their "democracy" (incidentally at the same time, the radio news reported terrorists gunning down some of the official electorates), the role of America as a superpower, the rising presence of China in the global community... and so on. Those POLS papers helped me out there. An interesting analogy he made was in referral to the US power and how they were like a 30-year old man playing with 5-year olds. If they played with someone their own size, what would the outcome be? Maybe like the wars in Korea and Vietnam.
Religion, politics... a few of the taboo subjects at the dinner table.
Day 3: Personal interests
The last day. He opened the conversation for today incredibly politely - did you sleep well last nite? This quickly moved on to his passion for cooking, as he made a meal the previous nite of steak marinated in red wine, asparagus and mixed vegetables, and stuffed potatoes (tomato, curry powder and something else tasty) grilled with cheese. Sounds pretty good to me. By this time we were very bored of sticking and were becoming anxious about finishing. We can do it! Thus the conversation was light and topics featured were to do with film (Team America), travel (our desire for it, mainly Europe, Asia and big cities), cultures (European), languages (his French, mine Chinese and Spanish), education (his a private international boys school in the hutt, mine an ESF international school in HK) and holiday plans. Occasionally the opinions rose, especially concerning the transportation system in Auckland, harbourside development in Wellington and the general appeal of NZ.
Finally, 4:45pm. We have completed all the sticking required of us! Yeah, I don’t think we could have come back another day. What would we talk about? Sadly, we only get paid after the newyear.
All in all it was an interesting few days, with thought provoking ideas and discussion outbursts. I probably will never see this guy again, although as we parted, there was no goodbye, only a see you around. And so, with great humbling, I take back my melon comment from the previous blog. No to melons. I have learnt that you must allow for at least three days, doing some monotonous laborious, mind-numbing job to be able to get to know someone.
Sticky labels anyone?
Day 1: Small talk
When you meet someone for the first time, things are slightly awkward. You don't know where you stand with them and the unknown is always a scary thing. Initial questions always include what is you name, what do you do and where are you from. Now the platform on which you can develop your impression and understanding of the other person, allows further probing in the form of generalised topics. Student? Studies? Summer? New Year plans? One particularly observant question on my behalf was, "Do you play an instrument? I noticed you are left-handed and more left-handed people are arty and creative" to which he answered no. But he did say that if he were to play and instrument he would play the piano. Note taken. He scored double points when he asked me if I was Malaysian. I was rather taken back, how did he know?! Was it just a very lucky guess? He answered, he did know (?) and he did guess. Interestingly, he had been on an exchange to Malaysia a few years ago and travelled around the place for a year. A very educated guess I suppose, then. The conversation moved on to family, general studies and tentative future plans.
End of day one.
Day 2: Intellectual Conversations
Fortunately for us, there was a weekend inbetween these days. God only knows that we wouldn't have been able to keep going with the labelling for that long! Our talk started politely, how was your weekend. Which I mentioned I found a friend ("Maria, I just met a girl named Maria") , went to church and did some gardening. He picked up on the church and mentioned his friend used to go to Elim and that he infact had gone along once before. Interesting. However, the conversation did not continue this path. During some rather long periods of silence with just the sound of sticking and opening of leaflets, other issues were raised: the importance of historical events (he is a history major) and how the records and accounts from those periods affect our perception of those times, family lines and generational backgrounds, more politically- the political instability of Iraq and their "democracy" (incidentally at the same time, the radio news reported terrorists gunning down some of the official electorates), the role of America as a superpower, the rising presence of China in the global community... and so on. Those POLS papers helped me out there. An interesting analogy he made was in referral to the US power and how they were like a 30-year old man playing with 5-year olds. If they played with someone their own size, what would the outcome be? Maybe like the wars in Korea and Vietnam.
Religion, politics... a few of the taboo subjects at the dinner table.
Day 3: Personal interests
The last day. He opened the conversation for today incredibly politely - did you sleep well last nite? This quickly moved on to his passion for cooking, as he made a meal the previous nite of steak marinated in red wine, asparagus and mixed vegetables, and stuffed potatoes (tomato, curry powder and something else tasty) grilled with cheese. Sounds pretty good to me. By this time we were very bored of sticking and were becoming anxious about finishing. We can do it! Thus the conversation was light and topics featured were to do with film (Team America), travel (our desire for it, mainly Europe, Asia and big cities), cultures (European), languages (his French, mine Chinese and Spanish), education (his a private international boys school in the hutt, mine an ESF international school in HK) and holiday plans. Occasionally the opinions rose, especially concerning the transportation system in Auckland, harbourside development in Wellington and the general appeal of NZ.
Finally, 4:45pm. We have completed all the sticking required of us! Yeah, I don’t think we could have come back another day. What would we talk about? Sadly, we only get paid after the newyear.
All in all it was an interesting few days, with thought provoking ideas and discussion outbursts. I probably will never see this guy again, although as we parted, there was no goodbye, only a see you around. And so, with great humbling, I take back my melon comment from the previous blog. No to melons. I have learnt that you must allow for at least three days, doing some monotonous laborious, mind-numbing job to be able to get to know someone.
Sticky labels anyone?
# posted by kristy : 12:50 pm
