背包走天涯之纽约

David

David is my boss and he is a Canadian, stands about 1.90m tall with ruffled brown hair and has a little pot belly. I do not know the difference between a Canadian and an American, perhaps except for the fact that Canadians end their sentences with an "aaa" sound. I don't think westerners can tell a China Chinese from a Taiwanese or a Singaporean from a Hongkonger too. I kind of knew my boss before I arrived in New York, because I searched him up on the internet. On Yahoo he had 300 plus hits, which is not surprising given that he is the corporate webmaster. I guess that makes him sort of a celebrity and these days you know you are famous only if you are able to find your name in Wikipedia.

On my first day at work he took me to the Toastmaster's club in IBM. I have heard about the toastmaster's before and it is a club where you can build your confidence in speaking and acquire presentation skills. These skills are important because when you speak you want to capture your audience's attention and get your points across efficiently though I never felt compelled enough to join one in Singapore when there were so many other things to do-- like learn the guitar. I procrastinated before and I am still doing it now. However, this offers me a fantastic opportunity to get a glimpse into the Toastmasters.

They would appoint two to three persons to present on any topic they wish but they would have to make use of a particular technique. David's topic for the day was "Web 2.0" and he was required to present to a "non-technical" crowd. He presented very fluently with the aid of powerpoint slides and I don't think it was difficult for him given his experience and that English is his first language. After the 3 speakers had spoken there were 3 respective evaluators who sang praises of the presenters. They didn't criticise too much and I think if they had any they might have put it across by passing them in the slip of paper containing their comments. Then there was a person who counted the redundant sounds such as the "ah"s and "eh"s and the unintended pauses and I find those helpful as I tend to speak with unnecessary sounds too. That "ah" counter certainly helps to keep you conscious of your sounds. Finally the president did her evaluation and the whole session lasted one hour during lunch time. There were noticeably more Asian faces than Caucasians. I suppose Asians want to brush up their English speaking skills at the same time whereas Caucasians should already be comfortable presenting in their first language and I wonder whether that is the case for me. Judging from the difficulties I have finding the right words during conversations with Mainland Chinese I certainly don't think I can hold a presentation in Mandarin well at all. That is something I should be ashamed of.

I like the way David engages in intellectual conversations. We were talking about the American reality shows during our first lunch session and he said most of the talk shows had weird characters because in a land as big as America you could really find any type of person. For example in The Jerry Springer Show you could have confessions that include a man admitting that he had married his horse, or a man who had a dedicated fetish for vomiting. I reflected,"In Singapore we do not have such shows."
"Oh, why do you think that is so?" David questioned and it sort of thrown me off guard because I didn't really think about any substantial reason that could attribute to it. I thought by asking that question he was most probably trying to figure out my character and thinking instead of being interested in the real answer. I managed to squeeze out one which sound reasonable to me.
"It's the nature of Singaporeans. We do not have that inquisitive nature and even the paparazzi cease to exist. That is also why a lot of celebrities like to settle in the country."
"That might be true, or it could simply be due to the fact that in a large country like America you could find any sort of people," said David with a straight face. He looks intelligent when he is in such a contemplative mood, and I think he is.

On one of the days on the bus I saw that the bus wasn't operating on Election Day. When I told David that I might have to work remotely in the house he was pretty much surprised that there were going to be no buses. "It all seemed so backwards to me," he lamented. "Buses ought to be operating on Election Day because the masses are going to need them. The only reason I can think of is that the politicians are trying to manipulate the results because the poor who take the buses may prefer the opposing party."

Sometimes we talk about George Bush and the situation in Iraq. David's opinion is that Bush may seem stupid to the masses, but underneath that stupidity is intelligence because Bush knows how to appeal to the people. When he says, "We are going in to uphold justice." or "We are going to stay the course.", these simple messages portray him as a hero and people love simple messages. In David's words, "People do not like politicians like John Kerry who elaborate on sophisticated policies that are not easy for the masses to understand." He found a clip on YouTube which brings across the point and you can find the clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXEb_YpKXU or you can search "Bush Script Writer" on the website.

I pretty much enjoy these conversations because they have depth and David always seems to be able to offer valuable insights.

posted by wayne @ 5:31 PM