communicating

What make it so hard for us to talk to each other?

1. Mentality.
One of the biggest barriers in expressing ourselves and in communicating is our perception on spilling our emotions towards someone or even on talking to someone. Some of us may have the fear to express themselves in words. They may think if they talked, nobody is going to care, or maybe they are afraid they might hurt some people’s feeling if they started to talk with those people. This is what happened in the compelling story titled ‘A Thousand Years of Prayers’. In the story, Yilan (daughter) had tried to have as little conversation as possible with Mr Shi (father). She had a conflict with his father, but at the same time, refuses to treat him badly. So, she tried to minimize her conversation with him to prevent from hurting his father.

2. Precedent conflict.
This might be common. Two people having conflicts or arguments or even misconceptions might feel very uncomfortable to talk to each other. Hatred may take over the conversation if they do so. Thus, they stop talking with each other. This is what happened again, between Yilan and Mr Shi. Yilan, since she was small, had the mindset of his father cheating on her and her late mother though it is not true. Since then, she refuses to talk to her father because all of her hatred towards her father. Somehow, by being resilient, she is showing signals to her father that she is rebelling.

3. Age difference.
In other words, generation gap. This is one of the reason we had ‘Persatuan Rakan Sebaya’ in schools – where a group of students were trained to be a counselor for their peers. Research had been made, stating that people are more comfortable to talk amongst their peers rather than talking with those who are from different generation with them. This maybe due to different lifestyle, and past experience. Taking an example in the story ‘A Thousand Years of Prayers’ , Mr Shi talked more with Madame, an Iranian women though they speak different language, compared to her daughter. There’s a scene when Mr Shi told Yilan about the communist. But, Yilan seems uninterested with the conversation. In contrast, when Mr Shi talked about it with Madame, she participate herself fully in that topic.

How do we break the emotional war?

One person need to give in and spill over their feelings to clear things out. They need to be crystal clear. However, that person needs to talk calmly, without blaming anyone and with the right time, place and tone. This would trigger the other side to open up and do the same thing and hopefully, the conflict could be solved ;)