*Special Entry*

TERVEISIÄ! (Greetings in Finnish)

Hey our lovely readers! Okay, straight to the point. Here’s the thing. We, Afina will make special entries for you! Yayyyy *clap hands

However, we are still not sure though when will we update them. Just wait, yeah? =)

So for this week, our special entry is….. *drums roll

PORTRAIT AND POEM!!

Yup, we are going to show you our drawings and poems about ourselves. Just promise us, you will NOT laugh!  We are not very artistic girls. So just bear with us okay? Hehe.  Ready??? Here we goooo…

Aminah's portrait

Aminah’s Poem

I am not short, and I am not tall,

Tun Aminah is what I’m called.

My voice is bad, but I love to sing,

I have a cat, and I have fair skin.

I like to eat and I like to sleep,

That’s what my family said every time we meet.

This is me, this is who I want to be,

This is me, come and let’s be friend with me.

Alright, you've seen Aminah's potrait of herself, Now, me (Afiqah) gonna reveal mine....... Huhuhu

OH MI GOD, As you can see, I don't have talent in drawing! *silently cries in the 

corner* 

Dr. Afiza told us to make a potrait of ourselves and this is how I portray myself -_-

I've tried to make it look a bit more abstract but nothing worked out.

Aminah's is way better than mine, obviously.................

Huahuahuahua.

Let's move on to the poem part >_<

I AM.........

I am Afiqah binti Ahmad,

Most of my friends know me as Pqunk,

Don't get mistaken me as fussy, complicated or even mad, 

I'm just a person whom sometimes a crack. (HAHA)

I am the eldest in my family,

Thus, my family’s matters are my responsibility,

It was never simple and easy,

But I’m sure I can get through this eventually

Sorry you have to see and read this. We've tried but it's up to your judgement how 'good' we are in writing poems. Duh -_-  haha. 

Stereotypes?!

S̄WạS̄DĪ!

Annyeong, dear readers!

So this week, we’re going to unravel a bit of stereotype!

A stereotype can be defined as a widely held but set an oversimplified image or idea about a particular type of person or objective. Stereotyping takes place because we see common patterns in certain categories of people. For example, one might say that all Frenchmen are proud. These kinds of ideas are not actually based on that person’s experience or knowledge but rather from the beliefs that already exist in the society.

  

 Now, do you even remember the last time you had this kind of attitude towards someone? For example, in our society, when someone commits bad things and he happens to be a Kelantanese, our community is quick to judge that people from Kelantan are mostly rude and rough. 

Nahhhh, regardless of where we’re coming from, human beings are inclined to do mistakes. We’re not perfect, deal with it.

So, hmm.. … From my experience, (Afiqah) I’ve never been in a worst situation where people discriminate me for what I’m wearing and who I am naturally. But, during my secondary school years, things were tough and rebellious. 

I went to a religious school from the age of 13 to 15, and it was never my decision to go there (but now I’m beyond grateful for this, thanks mom!) I was never the kind of person who would follow the rules and I wouldn’t blame my friends for this because my heart was not there initially. If the school wants me to wear long-and-covered-my-butt hijab, I’ll do it the other way around. 

Gosh, I hope my kids don’t follow my foolish steps. Umm, this happened 7 years ago, and people might have changed :D

Eeeeekkkkk, back to my story.  

My group of friends, what makes us so close to each other is because of our carefree attitude. We’re loud, confident and chirpy. Proud is not the right word to describe this but our friendship really meant so much to me. Some of the teachers in our school had that ‘look’ to us whenever we walked pass the canteen or the office.

 Everything that we do need to be inspected by the discipline panels from the shape of our school hijab to our body gestures. Honestly, I was super uncomfortable by this discrimination where people perceive us as ‘bad’ or ‘rude’ all the time.

BUT!!!!!

Things were slowly changing when I moved to another school. I went to an ordinary school, that is completely different to my previous school. In the religious school, I didn’t have Chinese and Indian friends around me. Nevertheless, my multicultural friends never look down on me or talk bad about me. We accept each other’s differences and live with it peacefully.

ALRIGHT, enough about Afiqah. Let’s talk about Aminah! Haha, sorry Afiqah, no offense. Okkaaayyy. We will start with two questions. What is my stereotype towards others and what people has stereotype towards me. First thing first, don’t judge me please? I have changed, seriously.

Okay, before I entered IIUM, I have this kind of stereotype where I always thought that people who live in cities such as Kuala Lumpur always people who tend to mingle ad socialize and they have a bad influence. But after I entered IIUM, I discovered that not all them are like that. In fact, there are some of them who are so pious and guarded. Yeah, I know. I am not an open minded person BEFORE. Huhu. IIUM has changed me. Fufufufu…

Right, moving on my experience on people’s stereotyping me. Same as Afiqah, I went to religious schools, but I have been since I was 5 years old until today, IIUM. So when people know that I have been learning religious subject for so long, people tend to think that I am a pious person and I know everything about religion. And guess what? I DON’T. Seriously guys, just because people go to religious school, it doesn’t mean that they know everything about that particular religion.

Oh yeahh, another thing. I want to share about me, stereotyping myself. Every time lecturers want somebody to volunteer in class to share some things, I always remained silent or say something so slow that only I can hear myself. This is because that I think that I should not speak aloud because my English is not good. So I should just shut up and let others talk as they are better than me. And yeah, it still happens till now. Shame on me. I really should do something about that.

The greatest lessons we’ve learned: Learn to accept each other's flaws and do not be quick to judge. We have so much of negativity already, we need to replace them with positivity.

So yeahh, that is it. Thank you for reading this, we appreciated every single one of you. =)

-SHUKRIYA-

-pictures credit to Deviant Art, Quiet Revolution, Invite to Islam tumblr, Vv Magazine, Hey!, and many more.

Getting to know Intercultural Communication......

Hi guys!

We meet again after our recent entry about the video of Prof. Riccardi, don’t we? ;)

In this given space, I’d like to share with you about what intercultural communication is all about and how it circulates in the society all over the world. 

Intercultural communication is not about communication that happened between cultures in several countries, but any groups of people that live up to their own beliefs and values. To make this communication between cultures works, we need to be more understanding, accepting and tolerating. Even when we are with our group of friends, the friendship will become less intimate and boring if we do not have the sense of understanding of their needs. The thought of being considerate to each other despite of our different social backgrounds reflects our inner persona.

 I’m sure all of us have encountered many situations whereas we have to choose ourselves first or the other party. It’s sure hard, but try to put ourselves in their shoes. Try to be more accepting than pushing them away.

Other than that, in wider context, we can look into intercultural interaction that happened in Malaysia.

  

MALAYSIA BOLEH!

Malay, Chinese and Indian have been living together in this land for half decade and there has never been any critical moment that can break this unity apart. However, challenges and trials would always rise in every day situation and we need to be smart in handling them. So, have you ever been in a situation where people called that you as “that Malay”, “that Chinese” or “that Indian”? The indication of saying up their race probably shows that Malaysian still failed to escape from racial stereotyping. Malaysians, we need to change this attitude! As I have said this before,

MALAYSIA BOLEH!

-Je vous remercie­-

(In case you need some motivation to study, here’s bundle of cute bunnies to accompany you!)

Review on a video entitled Cross cultural communication by Pellegrino Riccardi

ANNYEONG HASEYO!

Right! Straight to the point shall we? Okay this entry is our first official task from our beloved lecturer, Dr Fiza. Basically, what we have to do is to watch a video by Pellegrino Riccardi on Youtube which is entitled “Cross Cultural Communication”, and to comment about it.

Serious talk, we enjoyed watching the video because it has a lot of information but in the same time, it is not boring. The speaker, Pellegrino was very good in delivering his speech. So, what are you waiting for? Go and watch the video!

Okay, according to Pellegrino, culture is a system of behavior that helps us to act in an accepted or familiar way. The keyword is accepted and familiar. What is accepted and familiar in one culture is not necessarily normal in other cultures. We’ve got different ideas of accepted and familiar. Different cultures have different ideas of doing something.

For example, in Aminah’s family culture, it is normal to use ‘aku’ and ‘mu’(since she is from Terengganu) with her siblings . However, in other families’ culture, they assume that we are very rude toward each other.

The problem or challenge when working with other nationalities or people who are different from our culture is that people see what they want to see, and they don’t always see what you see.

Here’s the thing, before you judge a culture, you have to dig deeper and ask yourself, “Why are they acting in that particular way?” There must be a reason behind their action. Don’t randomly judge them, it’s not nice and it is not fair to them as well. You have to find out the underlying values of a culture. That is how you know how to communicate with people. Always look at the positive side. Through this way, you can avoid miscommunication between different cultures.

Once again, take the example of the use of ‘aku’ and ‘mu’ in Aminah’s family. Apparently, the use of ‘aku’ and ‘mu’ indicate that she is very close with her family. So that is why her family is more comfortable to use that kind of pronoun. Maybe from other cultures’ perspective, it is rude. But from their culture, it is normal. It is accepted and familiar.

Finally, you must learn to fit in yourself if you are living in a culture other than yours. You have to learn how to adapt and socialize with people by respecting their culture.

For now, that is all from us, we hope you can gain something beneficial from this entry and InsyaAllah we will see you again in the next entry. Till then, Assalamualaikum!

P/s: don’t forget to watch the video! =)

-XIÈXIÈ-

Why Culture?

ASSALAMUALAIKUM!

   So... Why culture?

You must be wondering why we chose culture to be the theme for this blog. Well of course the first reason is because this is our course assessment and we have to write about culture whether we like it or not. But seriously, don’t you think that culture is very interesting? 

Every each of us has our own cultures.  Every country has their own cultures, every society has their own cultures and even every family have their own cultures, and it is called sub cultures. For example, we, Afiqah and Aminah have our own cultures. Afiqah is from Seremban, Negeri Sembilan and Aminah is from Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu. We are all different in the aspect of culture, but that difference that makes us to know each other better and be closer.  

The aspect of culture is very wide. Communication, values and beliefs, norms and customs, rules and codes and many more are included in the culture. Food, clothes, festival, celebrations, you name it, they are all under culture.  Isn’t that so exciting??

So, other than the reason of the course assessment, we want to do this blog because of our interests and the adventure that we will discover! Okay, that sounds so cliché. Haha. Anyway, we cannot wait to start the journey! Yes, our very own journey, Afina’s Journey! Yay!

 Furthermore, we are more excited when we know that we have to collaborate with one international student from IIUM to share experience and knowledge about his or her culture with our culture, Malaysia! All of the sharing information and experience we will then write them down in Afina’s Journey and that is why this blog is called Afina’s Journey on Cultural Diversity. Hehe, we are so thrilled to find the international student on our own. We hope there will be no problem with finding one. Pray for us!

-SYUKRAN-

Afina? Blog?

Ohayou Gozaimasu!

Alright! a little introduction about us and this new born blog, it is run by two students from IIUM, Afiqah and Aminah. We are currently studying Intercultural Communication this semester and the two of us are required to create a blog on our experiences on this subject and cultures!

 ‘AFIQAH’

 ‘AMINAH’

 We are the authors of the Afina’s Journey on Cultural Diversity. Afina is the combination of Afiqah and Aminah who were chosen to be paired by fate (eheh :p). Lastly, we hope that the readers can gain something valuable and beneficial from our entries. Enjoy!

-MERCI-