About Me: A Third Party Perspective

Lam Chee Kiang is currently pursuing a pharmacy degree at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He plans to specialize in oncology or ambulatory care management within the next 5 years upon graduation, and also obtain a masters in business administration or health management. Among the career prospects Chee Kiang plans to venture include hospital healthcare, government enforcement, clinical research, pharmaceutical marketing, and pharmacy profession development.

Born and bred in Malaysia, Chee Kiang has been living in Singapore for almost 5 years now. He is well adapted to the Singapore lifestyle, and has no qualms about living independently abroad.

Chee Kiang believes that dreams are only achievable if you act on it. This is evident from the non-pharmacy related activities he has been participating in thus far. His interest in radio presenting has motivated him to join the NUS campus radio station Radio Pulze. To push himself further, he even obtained a part-time internship with local radio station Lush 99.5, a position usually given to communications and media students.

Chee Kiang also believes that success is not only defined by paper qualifications. This is especially important in the pharmacy career, where soft skills such as inter-personal communication, patient empathy, ethical considerations and human resource management are crucial.  This is well in accordance to his belief that such skills are best acquired through involving oneself in a multitude of activities out of the classroom and a practical, realistic environment such as co-curricular activities and internships.

 

 

 

Emo Online

With the advent of internet technology, online addiction has become rampant, especially among the younger generation. I admit that I’m an internet addict, but not one that plays online computer games, or meet random acquaintances through the internet.

I am an emoticon addict.

“An emoticon is a short sequence of keyboard letters and symbols that signifies a facial expression or emotion.”

I am a hardcore emoticon user, especially when it comes to chatting online. A random check on my Windows Live Messenger (or rather known fondly as “msn”) list revealed that I have about 240 emoticons saved in the program!

I love to use emoticons as they accentuate the emotions in the conversations you make online. Just like the non-verbal cues when conversing in real life, emoticons carry an emotional aspect and can give different interpretations to sentences. It also makes the conversation more informal, relaxed, and jovial! I tend to feel uneasy when some of my friends converse with me using full sentences and well structured messages.

However, I do feel that emoticons are best left out of formal correspondences. You can say that it’s almost equal to me not calling my superiors by their given name! Therefore, when I correspond with lecturers or business correspondences via e-mail, I always try to refrain from using smileys at the end of every sentence.

But how long can formal e-mail correspondences last? With the informal setting of msn and e-mail, attempting to structure your sentences so formally all the time can be rather impossible! We are so used to emoticons that it is only a matter of time before we would put that smiley face at the end of the sentence!

I am currently working on a research project with a clinical pharmacist at the Singapore General Hospital. Our e-mail correspondences were so formal that I take more than 10 minutes just to draft out a reply! It was only recently that we got more acquainted, and smileys and “hahas” started appearing in our sentences.

I also find it hard to interpret what the writer is feeling without the use of emoticons. At times, I thought that I have offended or disappointed them in some way, only to find out otherwise when I meet them in person. As a part time intern at a local radio station, I correspond with the station manager mainly through e-mails. His responses always sound condescending and sarcastic e.g. “I’m very busy now, ask someone else”. However, whenever I talk to him in person, he is very friendly and flamboyant!

So what do you think about emoticons? Do you think they’re necessary for online communications? Or has the gratuitous use of emoticons eroded the emotional aspect it brings to online communication?

Also, should they be used in formal settings? Or should they just be left for friends? 

Whatever Happens in Romania Stays in Romania

Have you ever noticed that people in movies or television series never take their shoes off unless in a situation requiring them to do so? And when they are in their bedrooms, they lie on their beds with their shoes still on?

Living on campus with students coming from various parts of the world, the way to distinguish an Asian room from an “Ang Moh” room would be the presence of shoes outside their rooms. The Asians would leave theirs outside, while the westerners would not. There are exceptions of course, but it is true most of the time. 

"Ang Moh" is a colloquial term in Singapore/Malaysia for describing "Caucasians". Literally translated as "Red Hair", it may be interpreted as discriminatory among the Caucasian population in this region. However, to many locals it is just a term used interchangeably and affectionally with "Caucasians" in Singlish/Manglish (Singapore/Malaysian English). For the purpose of this article, the term is used for a local Singapore appeal. [Edited 08 March 2009]

My inter-cultural experience brings me back to Romania last summer, where my classmates and I represented NUS in an international pharmacy students’ conference. 

Falling asleep while voting for a motion

On the second night, we decided to have a “Noodle Party” among the Asia Pacific delegates. Of course, we were not the only ones playing host to parties that night – there were the wild Slovenians, the drunken Australians, and who can forget the Canadians!

Arguably the most innocent party that night, we were happily slurping our Asian noodles when a Danish friend of ours, Greg, dropped by with some Polish delegates.

The moment they entered the room, the whole room went silent. Not because they were half drunk, loud, and white, but because THEY HAD THEIR SHOES ON.

“Why is this party so quiet?” asked our fair-skinned Danish friend Greg.

“Why are there so many shoes outside? You’re not wearing your shoes! You’re dirty!” said one of the Polish delegate.

Somehow this got me annoyed. I stood up and asked them to take their shoes off. Greg obliged, while the Polish went on murmuring something in their own language.

“Hey, is this the nude party!?” said a topless Slovenian who was standing outside our door. Apparently, word got out that we Asians were having a “Nude Party”. They must be quite drunk or sexually motivated to mistake “Noodle” for “Nude”!

“Nope, they’re all clothed!” replied the Polish delegates while leaving the room.

Spot Greg the Ang Moh

The next day, I was having lunch with Greg when he asked if I was offended by the shoe incident. I told him that we were not offended by what they did, although taking off your shoes is a sign of respect to the host in many Asian societies.

“Then why did you all quieten down when we entered?”

I could not explain that, neither could I explain my annoyance when the Polish commented on us not wearing shoes. In my heart I was trying to convince myself that I was open minded in intercultural situations like this, and that I would understand if a westerner walked into my room without taking his shoes off. However, this situation clearly showed that we were not ready for such a revolution!

“I guess it could be hygiene?" I replied eventually. "Since we don’t wear our footwear in, you might have brought in whatever dirt that you all have stepped on before.”

We may think that learning about intercultural communication will make us more understanding towards others, but the fact is that we will never know how we will react until that situation happens. I still think that I was never offended by their actions, but after writing this, I think I am very much Asian with strong cultural traditions after all!