Biodata

My name is Aurisinkala Appadoo Yuvraj. I’m a final year student from the National University of Singapore, majoring in Bachelor of Engineering Mechanical Engineering. I will be graduating in May 2009. Last year, in January till July, I went on Student Exchange Programme (SEP) in France at the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon (INSA Lyon) where I was in the Mechanical Engineering Development Department. The modules that I took in NUS and INSA Lyon has developed my technical skills in this field of study and helped me acquire critical way of thinking.

Besides the heavy workload at NUS, I was actively involved in curricular activities. I was one of the founding members of the Mauritian Students’ Group at NUS (MSG NUS). Furthermore, I held the position of Vice-Chairperson which equipped me with organisational and leadership skills. Moreover, I was the Project Director of events organised by the MSG NUS, where I had to look for sponsors and liaised with Mauritian Consulate in Singapore. This precious experience has helped me acquired negotiation skills as well as interaction with people. Due to my background, I am fluent in written and spoken French. I can also speak Creole, a dialect in Mauritius and understand Hindi. In addition to this, I did an Internship in an Engineering firm in Mauritius and worked in the Hotel Industry where I dealt with a lot of people. This enhanced my interpersonal and communication skills.
I enjoy travelling as I have been to various regions in France, London and around South-East Asia. I have wide range of interests which include soccer, swimming, playing table-tennis, fishing and reading magazines.

Italians - Non-Verbal Communication

The non-verbal communication is one of the aspects of communication that has always intrigued me. It is fascinating to note that each culture has a special meaning to the appearance, body gestures, face and eye contact. Hand signals are used in various fields, for instance commodities brokers on the floor of the stock exchange have a highly codified set of hand signals to communicate. In sports, referees, players, and managers all have their own non-verbal way of talking to each other, whether it's signalling a penalty in soccer, motioning to a teammate, or repositioning a player.
From the comedy show of Russell Peters, I found out that the Italians are the people who use their hands the most in communicating. If you speak Italian without using your hands, no matter how good your Italian is, they will think it lacks sense. It is claimed that most of them even express themselves with the hands when speaking on the phone. This is indeed hilarious. Italians use body language and hand gestures to punctuate an expression and give it shading that the word or phrase itself lacks. There is one video from ‘YouTube’ that I found out was really fun and would like to share with you.
There is one hand motion in Italian that means, ‘what the f**k’ and the same one in the Indian culture means, ‘I’m hungry’. Now imagine you are in Italy and one hungry Indian guy enters an Italian restaurant and demonstrate this hand motion. How would you deal with this situation?

Post 4: Evaluating Intercultural Behaviour

This incident took place during my Student Exchange Programme (SEP) in France, last February. I must say since I studied French in my high school back in Mauritius, I did not have a lot of trouble interacting with the locals. Furthermore, I had some friends from NUS who came with me, they went for an immersion programme beforehand to familiarise themselves and improve their French. When I came later, they helped me a lot and we went to visit around together. I met some other Singaporeans and some Chinese students who were from NTU. From the time they came, they were always hanging out among themselves. Sometimes I joined them for dinner but I was quite bored as most of the time they talk in Chinese and I never understood what was happening. I discontinued to eat with them and preferred to hang out with my other friends from Brazil and Mexico who were also on SEP. Then one day, one of the Singaporean guys from NTU approached me and told me that I had changed a lot and become more ‘french’. Like the way I greet them with a handshake or even that I do not speak in English with them and rather talk in French to show off. I was very pissed off at that moment but preferred to remain silent and walked away. I made as if nothing happened and continued to enjoy my stay. Later I related it to a very good Singaporean friend of mine who was also with me on SEP and he told me that he also did not like the attitude of that guy.
Sometimes I wonder, I have stayed in Singapore for 3 years and yet not encountered such a problem. It was maybe to the way I adapted myself here but back in France I was behaving differently due to the more familiar language and culture.