Subtle observations on approaching an open discussion with Asians
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After 14 hours of a long-haul flight, I finally landed in Pearson and was ready to go home after a week full of meetings and socializing in Seoul. This was my first business trip to an international conference after 2.5 years of the pandemic. As much as I enjoy my role as a facilitator in these events (and the after-hours), I still struggle with “talking” to these intelligent people in front of me.
Being a facilitator in a conference setting can be funky sometimes, especially when you’re discussing Internet issues for policymaking in a multi-stakeholder model with a bunch of young professionals or students from everywhere in Asia Pacific. This means, that outcomes might not be achieved as expected, but an interactive and fruitful discussion must be presented. Certainly, a good moderator should have the skills and experience to sparkle a conversation. But what if everyone is just too shy to talk?
Radio silence is usually the case.
I am definitely generalizing the situation with my limited experience, but if you’re working with a group of Asians actually grew up in Asia, whether you are trying to host a workshop, lecture, or group discussion, it usually takes some time for the audience to warm up. Eventually, the Asians in my community usually appear to be quieter in a supposedly equal discussion environment.
It is reflected sometimes that people with greater English proficiency have an unfair advantage over people who only speak English as their second or even third language. Some may even “blame” those who are more comfortable with this discussion model for dominating the floor. But is it the real problem? Why are Asians always perceived as more reserved than those with influence from a more westernized environment?
As a kid, I asked lots of questions.
To an extent, my mother constantly felt frustrated not knowing how to answer them. Sometimes later, she “appointed” teachers from school to fulfill my endless curiosity about too many things, and basically, directed all my questions to them instead. It probably didn’t take long until all the teachers lost their patience with me and my questions.
Not sure why, but I used to believe teachers were my only reliable source of knowledge. Until they didn’t answer a question about whether the moon rotates on its axis while the Earth rotates once in about 24 hours from my 6-years-old self. Either my question was a bit too challenging, or it was a bit unexpected, but a simple answer to the question could be a “yes and no.”
With no surprise at all, the teacher from this typical Hong Kong local primary school told me this question is irrelevant to our revision for the upcoming exam, and I shouldn’t think about it. Apparently, I didn’t have access to the Internet like nowadays back 20 years ago, so I couldn’t google it right away. Honestly, I think baby Jenna was smart enough to ask that question, but the not-so-smart part was that I took the advice on not thinking about it. So, I didn’t even go to the library to find my own answer.
I think that was my last memory of me questioning new things as a kid. The rest of my time in a traditional classroom setting was spent listening to the teaching.
So, the moon does rotate…
Finally, I googled it, the moon does rotate. It took me about 10 minutes to get this simple conclusion (thanks Internet) from an article written by an 8th grader, Olivia, from Pennsylvania in 2004. The source seems reliable so I guess this is my answer. I’m amazed how I actually left this question unanswered for 20 years. Isn’t it supposed to be solved by myself when I was in grade 8 too?
Sure, an environment that encourages discipline guarantees obedience and harmony in society. Perhaps we were exposed to certain ideologies for an extended period of time, we start to lose the ability to criticize the way we are like how a caged bird believes flying is an illness. Sometimes we don’t know we’re supposed to do what we aren’t expected to do, simply because we forget our ability to be curious.
Your question can be someone’s inspiration, I’m being serious.
Coming from Hong Kong, we usually keep all questions to the Q&A session later. An interactive conversation that goes back and forth is usually not the case. In the worst case, no one raised any questions even during this designated period of time that was supposed to fulfill everyone’s curiosity. Sometimes your audience may even keep their questions until the class is finished and ask you privately.
If that’s the case, they are missing out on a satisfying discussion. Simply because our brains are pretty limited. Sometimes we are fooled by our own thoughts of believing about how intelligent we are, and forgot the beauty of feeding insights to our brains. In fact, we are often surprised by a simple question just raised by the person sitting next to us, and they are not even Einstein.
In certain ways, certain “standards”
Sure, being more vocal guarantees us more airtime, and this is perhaps the first step to getting our voice heard. But who’s supposed to hear our voice? Everyone or to a certain authority?
I do agree that there are things in Asia that have to be been done to meet the universal standards, for instance, democracy and human rights. But when we are told to function in certain ways to catch up with how the world is running now; we might have been told to work hard enough to close the “gap”, but what is the relativity? Who are we benchmarking to? Is there another way to approach the same things with a different “standard” but still sounds about “right” to most people?
By the way, a relationship is built after 5 days…
The meeting in Seoul wrapped up after 5 days. Some may find it unnecessary to connect with people we meet at conferences, as you know, people come and go. But this is usually not the case, at least not to me. Eventually, with some after-hour drinking, these shy folks who barely utter a word on the first are now my lifetime work friends. And they probably are one of those chattiest people I have ever known. Interesting.
Reference
Olivia, Grade 8, Pennsylvania - 2004 YNA Winner. Afpectus Lunae: Does the Moon Rotate on Its Axis?. American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved from https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/young-naturalist-awards/winning-essays/2004/afpectus-lunae-does-the-moon-rotate-on-its-axis.
Taylor Tillman, N. (June 17, 2021). Does the moon rotate?. Space.com. Retrieved from https://www.space.com/24871-does-the-moon-rotate.html.