2026 Eleen's Blog

 Coming from a country that is multicultural, we tend to mix our languages when talking to each other. For example, I am of Chinese descent so naturally my mother tongue is Mandarin but my country's national language is Malay (Bahasa Melayu), and English is the primary language used in most subjects taught in Brunei along with business. And then there is the different dialects in Chinese, my family on both my mother's and father's side speak a dialect called Hakka, unfortunately, I was never taught the Hakka dialect so I am unable to speak or understand it, only certain words in Hakka I can understand. When talking to people we first meet, there are just some topics then humans tend to avoid like politics or personal information like life goals or dreams; these are topics that need to be eased into and you have to know the other person for sometime to be able to talk about these things. People avoid these topics may be due to fear of conflict or to avoid awkwardness. Based ...

I believe between Brunei and Japan, inviting guests is quite similar, both tend to invite people out to meet at a restaurant or a cafe rather than to the homes of the other. But there is also the fact of the generational gap, some generations may prefer one or the other; or a difference in personality because I do know people who loves inviting people to their houses. For example, because I live with my parents and siblings, when I or my siblings invite friends to our home, my parents rule to my siblings and I is that we have to clean the house. I've also notice in Western households, people can just show up unannounced to someone's house and it would be fine, whereas in some, if not all, Asian countries it may be considered rude. Even in my family usually when relatives want to visit, they usually call or text ahead of time, to make sure we are at home first. The only time that I can think of when people show up unannounced is to drop something off like right before Chinese Ne...

Cultural Awareness A simple example can be that when talking to people from different culture, they have very different ways to convey something like if they were to disagree on something, some cultures will be very direct with it while others will have show through their body language rather than saying it outright. The concept of cultural awareness is the ability to recognize, understand, and respect the similarities and differences between cultures, including one's own. Having cultural awareness is extremely important to communicate with people, it can reduce prejudice between different cultures and societies. Cultural Perspective Cultural perspective is basically how we see the world, it is shaped by the unique environment, history, and upbringing we experience. For both Brunei and Japan, both cultures values the group harmony over personal desires and/or decisions. Both cultures much rather agree to something they don't actually agree with than to disagree and "disrup...