During interpersonal interactions, subconsciously we are emitting non-verbal signals and reading them. All these non-verbal behavior such as our body movement, posture of our arms, eye contact and actions can send a strong message across. Staying silent can also be a powerful non-verbal behavior. One of such occasion that I observe would be the conflict between my two friends. Sum and Sam. Sam has the tendency to be very outgoing and sometimes slightly over the top, which might end up as a disturbance to Sum. How Sum would react most of the time is to get angry and yell if applicable or to keep quiet and walk away. There is one specific occasion which I felt that there were a multitude of non-verbal skills and actions that occurred in this specific example.
It happened during Chinese New Year, where all my friends got together for a steamboat reunion. This time, it was slightly different as we were invited by Sum’s mother. While we were enjoying the steamboat, Sam tried to match make Sum with one of the friend in the presence of Sum’s mother. Sum then stared at Sam with a frown and subtly shake his head in disapproval of this subject. Sam, not catching the non-verbal signs, decided to carry on. Due to Sam’s tendencies to not listen when Sum ask to stop, the only way to stop Sam would to be to yell at him. However, as Sam was a guest, it wouldn’t be appropriate to do so and would be deemed as very rude. Following that, Sum’s usual self-changed from being chatty to being quiet as it can be seen that he was uncomfortable with the topic.
Sum then tried to get them to change the topic by circling the chopstick around the steamboat, signalling to start eating..However instead of noticing these non-verbal Que,more people joined in the fun. Sum body tilted to face another direction so as to avoid everyone. When Questioned, Sum would avoid the question, forcing a smile and refusing to take part in the conversation,with the chat still ongoing, Sum left halfway, non-verbally stating that he had enough.
Due to Sum’s Family culture of being the more traditional type, words are not to be spoken without caution as it will bring up a multitude of questions which might end up very ugly if answered wrongly. So therefore, most of the time Sum will remind us before entering to not ask too much questions or keep away from certain subjects. At the same time ,i can only feel that age play a very big part in shaping their behavior, young people has the tendency of doing stuff without thinking about the consequences because when you are young everything . Just like this scene where Sam did not spare a thought for Sum even though countless non-verbal skills is displayed.
