Body-language and nonverbal communication

Archive
nonverbal communication

 China Kurs für Manager

this is a good example to show how difficult it is to get used to the very different Chinese culture. Even if you are informed about the specific habits it is another chapter to experience the differences in real life in contrast to a role play in a workshop. A role play does not lead to certain important consequences. It is and stays to be a role play. To experience this in real life when you are for example in China always confronts you with certain real consequences. Maybe you work for a contract, maybe you are interested in getting some specific help andsoon. Facing those cultural differences produces stress in the relationship and in yourself.

Stress in this case is of course not a good advisor or consultant. Because stress mostly opens up your own, old patterns of behaviour. That means those patterns of behaviour which you ave learnt ihn your life to be the best to help to survive.

BUT……………………….

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Definition of gesture

gesture is a main topic of body language. it tells us stories about the person himeslf AND at the same time is the beginning of nonverbal communication. More about the definition of gesture…………..see the following definition via the link

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gesture

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On Chinese Body Thinking

when you are hungry you eat. when you are tired you sleep. ….what

does you astonish about this perspective? 😉

This book uses Western philosophical tradition to make a case for a form of thinking properly associated with ancient China. The book’s thesis is that Chinese thinking is concrete rather than formal and abstract, and this is gathered in a variety of ways under the symbol “body thinking”. The root of the metaphor is that the human body has a kind of intelligence in its most basic functions. When hungry the body gets food and eats, when tired it sleeps, when amused it laughs. In free people these things happen instinctively but not automatically.
The metaphor of body thinking is extended far …
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The Power of Emotion

there is an interesting talkshow today on tv. The issue “The power of emotions” is discussed from different points of view. My part is to illustrate the issue related to emotions in politics. The talkshow can be seen via th following link for about another week.

click on West ART talkshow

http://www.wdr.de/tv/westart/sonntag/sendungsbeitraege/2012/0617/uebersicht.jsp?sdatum=2012-6-17

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Fotografic body-language

 

 

 

 

 

 

At least in Germany body-language is a very popular issue. People often think that you can analyse someone very quickly in order to know what to do and how to behave. Or in order to be prepared about the others acting and behaving.

But there is a big misunderstanding about body-language and body-reading. Far too often body-language is regarded to be useful under the photographic perspective.

This means:

If you look at someone, see his actual gesture that this gesture always has the same meaning and when you can identify this gesture and the meaning that you know what it’s all about.

But this can be true but it has not have to be true. This photographic kind of body reading seems to be popular because it misleads to a, I will call it, instant body-reading.

Body-language has to be of course regarded, and I hope you will agree to this, under various perspectives. At least it is always as I told you about some weeks ago, expression of the other and my own impression as observer. And of course result of the specific culture.

http://www.tagesspiegel.de/weltspiegel/clinton-foto-ich-sehe-das-was-du-nicht-siehst/4147906.html

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Chinese as a compulsory foreign language in all schools

 This is an interesting and inspiring message. The more China moves towards the western countries, the more Chinese engage in western business and culture, the more western countries need to open up to the language.

Thus these means also to open up to a completely different way of nonverbal communication and body expression.  A way which we are not familar with at all. Just think of one fact: western are used to look at the other´s mouth when talking while Chinese are used to look at the other´s eyes while talking. 

Looking at the mouth makes it very difficult to get an impression of the facial expression. ……………………….

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More to familism

again I address to the lectures at the DCAP Heidelberg Congress on “body and soul” in East and West. Well family in China is related to relatives and the state. You could say: ” the family is identical to a small state and a state is identical to a family”. Therefore you could focus it to the following three rules:……………………

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Collective Emotions

The common parlance is convinced that you experience the world in the way, in the mood you’re.  It is also convinced that you look at the world in your very personal way and you react to it the same.

Meanwhile scientific research confirms this. I will pick out two main branches of science to illustrate this. The one is the concept of affect-logic based on…………

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Another field of bridging between cultures

Yesterday I talked about the obvious fields of transference and bridging. There’s another powerful field of transference namely: The very personal experience of each us, which all of us experience as western and eastern people. I think of one´s own experience in childhood and in the here and now. Besides cultural and social influences there is a very personal development of each person in his family. It is the very specific way someone is related to his mother, to his father, his brothers and sisters. To all his family.

By that experience the cultural and social influences are so to say broken down………………….

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Speechless between two cultures….

……That’s what I experience when writing this blog. Of course I know what and how to do, when trying to figure out some western point of view or some eastern point of view. Of course I can put it into words and if you understand English you ought to understand what I mean.

But it’s not that easy. I think you know what I mean: Trying to put some experience or opinion into German words, translate it to English can of course lead to some different interpretation or misunderstanding. Trying to make someone from the eastern side of the hemisphere, who speaks and understands English, understand, makes it even more difficult. Because English is not my mother tongue and English is not his or her mother tongue.

So there are five obvious fields of transmission………………….

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