The French Connection

Veronique's husband, Veronique and Jennifer

Veronique, Jennifer and their spouses

Look at their body language! "Mirroring"

Me and Jean-Marc

Last Saturday, Jennifer and I were invited to a farewell party by our French neighbour, Veronique and her family. Veronique and her family will be going home to Marseilles after living in Malaysia for five years. While in Malaysia, Veronique, though very French in nature, has experienced what every normal person would have experienced in their lifetime in Malaysia. She has eaten all types of food ranging from nasi lemak, roti canai, nasi kandar to chicken rice, her family and her have been to many exotic places in Malaysia and she can even tell you where in Kuala Lumpur you can get some good bargains! Veronique will surely be missed when her family and her leave for France this July 2012.

The condominium that we are living in is like little France or “mini Paris”. The majority of the residents here are French people. Therefore, it was not a major surprise when we attended the farewell party and found that we were one of the very few Asians in the party. It was very nice seeing the French people enjoying themselves in that party. One of our other neighbour, Jean-Marc came up and had a chat with us. Jean apologized to us if we felt that we were ignored. I replied, “Of course not. Why we would feel that way?” Jean said that the French people are embarrassed because of their command of the English Language, therefore, they felt shy to communicate in that language. Well, like we have said in many of our Mediation classes, communication can be both verbal and non-verbal (eg: body language and facial expression). Therefore, communication should never be an issue if you want to convey your message to another party.

Anyway, it was a very pleasant experience for us, eating new food and meeting new people. So, to Veronique and her family, “Au revoir” and “bonne chance”!