Stuffed Your Mailboxes

The cultural shock from living in a foreign land, getting accustomed, to how people relate to one another that is different to how we do it, translated…

not my picture…

For Everything, There’s, an E-Mail

“the Accidents, the Thoughts of the Community”, “Outstanding & Excellent Plumbing and Driver Recommendations”, “Calling on All Cyclers”, “Rethinking of the Security Plans of the Community”, “The Discussions of the Lantern Hanging During Festivities”………one, right after the next, the e-mails, overflowed my box, and, they’re all, from my neighbors.

not my comic either…

As a reporter, there are, mostly, the Indian International Affairs Department texts, but, the majority of my e-mails came from the community I live in.  Every single day, I’d received mail from my neighbors, some had stated the answers, the cures for the problems that that community was faced with; some were supportive calls such as “I agree!”  “Stand by you!”, and, there were, just, the plus ones (+1); some were on the most miniscule of all matters that made me laugh, made me wonder, must we all, share every single detail with the world via a screen?  Like “my child was hit by a ball in a game in the community”, or, “the play area wasn’t open today”, etc., etc., etc., whether they are big or small, all of those involved took a serious tone of discussion, and, they’d even, used “Urgent!”, “Take Immediate Actions”, “Intolerable”, along with other, rash words, it’d made me smile, how much people are involved, especially for someone who came from India, who’d been, estranged from the neighbors, I’d often wondered, “Do you need to, take things, so seriously?”

To tell the truth, at first, I’d treated these as jokes, and every now and then when the pressures from work escalated, I’d opened one or two, and laugh about it, seeing how the people can get on each other’s nerves, or how they can, get so angered at one another, over something so miniscule, completely, it’d made me, feel, de-stressed.  But, slowly, I’d found, that this, is a great way, that the Indians can, share their information, enlarging the connections in their social networks.

Increased Connections

From before I’d thumbed across an article, discussing how the Indians overseas can be so very connected, whether it be in business, entrepreneurship, or finding employment, the Indians always have a huge connected network, the most famous would be the hi-tech technicians in Silicon Valley that took up a-third of those who worked in Silicon Valley, looking up higher on the spectrum, there are, an assortment of Indian CEOs of all the international major companies of the world too.  Other than the language abilities brought on by the colonization in the past, the Indians focused on sharing the culture, the information, they’d loved discussions, and living in communities, are the causes of their success that can’t be overlooked, and, I’d gotten a firsthand experience from the group e-mail from my community.

not  my photo here…

I’d observed the assortments of letters that came and went in the community, although, there were, over a dozen of them a day, that’s become, really annoying, but, inside the e-mails, there were, information that needed to be shared.  Compared to how I’d placed myself outside of the things, my Indian neighbors are really, into and participated, in ALL the community’s goings-on, apparently, to them, sharing this information, is an important thing to them.  On top of that, whether if the members are for or against some issues, they’d all, stated it so clearly, this is also why, they’d often, gotten into, harsh arguments, and debates, causing the e-mails, to cram up their mailboxes.  Other than that, whether it be for or against, everybody stated her/his opinions on the matters, this is also, why they’d often, gotten into, fierce arguments with one another, to the point they’d started, calling each other bad names like “Foolish”, “Lowlife”, “Pompous”, “Selfish”, along with other, insulting terms are used, and, it’d not, affected the end result—after everybody voiced her/his opinions, they’d needed to, engage in discussions, to sort through the matter, to reach a decision, that they can all, live with.

I think, in the views of the Taiwanese culture, there would often be the thought of, “letting someone off easy”, “I really shouldn’t say…”, and “just forget it”, these sorts of mindsets, but, afterwards, people still can’t, help, but complain about it, in the end, it’d, caused more misunderstandings, to the point of tearing a relationship apart; looking back at how Indians’ interacted, although they may all have a different opinion to one another, but everybody is speaking up on one’s own behalf, they’d engaged in communications, arguments, but, they always managed to communicate with one another through the chaos, to find a middle ground, to really, resolve their differences.  And maybe, this, is why the Indians are able to, cross the international borders and became CEOs.

The alert started sounding off on my computer again, clicking it open, it was, once again, from the community that I live in.

And so, from this, you can see, how different the two cultures would engage in debate or discussion, the Indians would fight on the issues, but, they’d always be able to, reach a common ground after they’d discussed the matters, fought about it, and this, is usually, very different from Asian cultures, because we’re taught, NOT to voice our opinions at all as we were growing up.