Posted by Sim Nueng on May 22, 2005 at 21:53:12:
I love travelling. In my career, I visited many places within Sarawak, Sabah, West Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, and Singapore. In these places, I met many different people with different cultures from my own (Bidayuh). I feel that in order to be accepted by the people whom I am visiting, I need to learn something about them. When I know something about them, it become the platform to move to the next level of friendship. I feel the single most important cultural value I need to know about any people group is how to show respect among them. How to show respect to the elderly, people of opposite gender, same-age, young people and children. One way to know how certain people show respect is by reading about their culture in the book or asking other people who have come into contact with these people.
Secondly, I try to learn their language or dialect. I believe by knowing some words--such as how to say "thank you", "eat", "drink" or "how much" when you want to buy something, is one way to create the atmosphere of friendship. An advantage for business, when you know just a little bit of their language, they will not charge you too high for any merchandise!
Thirdly, by knowing the people language, you know a lot about their values and culture. The words in a language conveys a lot of the cultural meanings. It will enrich your life experience! Knowing others' values and culture helps me to appreciate people differentness or uniqueness. This uniqueness make people, people. This add colors to our existence. Maybe for this reason God allows diverse cultures and people exist on planet earth.
Lastly, when I come to certain places, I come not only to share other people values and cultures but I bring my own uniqueness to them. They too will learn something of my values and cultures. They will be enriched too in their interaction with me. Thus why, I will always be careful of my negative influence on them. Though, not to become hyprocrite, I do my best to portray the good values I hold among them.
So the the next time you plan to visit people groups, be mindful of our good bidayuh values and cultures. Share it with them and learn from them too. Let us learn to get along in harmony with other people different from us in Bumi Kenyalang.
Happy Gawai 2005.
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