For the past weeks during internship, i always end up having to deal with many stakeholders and farmers that owns and work at the field of the palm oil plantations, its not easy because of the language barrier i faced. This is one of the hardships i'm facing, trying to understand what they are saying or asking. But fortunately everyone here already got used to the languages that has been spoken here and so i seek some help from them and soon enough i'm able to understand some of the language and be able to converse with the stakeholders and farmers properly.
On the other hand, i am now given the role of handling the paperwork of the license registration at the counter and the reason being is that my supervisor wants me to converse more with the stakeholders and farmers to learn the language they speak. I learned a lot everyday and i'm thankful for being able to serve in MPOB.
2 comments:
I completely understand where you're coming about the language barrier. I experienced the same thing when I had to call the PETIPUN grant/scholarship students, as most of them only knew their own Penan dialects. It was a very interesting experience trying to communicate through the language barrier over the phone, but eventually we found common ground in the Sarawakian language.
Hi Jonathan,
I completely understand your situation. As a foreign student in Malaysia for three years, I was having a difficult time on communication too. In a global business, we all have to deal with different people from other backgrounds and other languages. Seeking for help from colleagues is one important way to quickly adjust into the environment. And another thing I want to share is - smile. Nothing is greater than be friendly and sincere in communication. Just like one weekend we visit the indigenous people in Borneo,we could not even "talk" to each other. But we "communicate" very well and happily.Being a PR person is not always dealing with business people. Local community is always one of the most important stakeholders too.Hope you enjoy yourself in PR career!
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