http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x2WwIFrKAs
Do you aspire to be a Formula One driver?
Are you low in spirits?
Watch this clip then!
Compliments are always treasured and makes one feel happy. In this case, the student female driver, appears to be nervous in the beginning. I recall the times when I was learning driving. The amount of anxiety I felt when I first laid my hands onto the steering wheel. The amount of pressure is on me when my instructor took his seat in the car and asked me to drive off. Fear was in my eyes.
Are female drivers really that bad? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to start a debate. Compliments help to de-stress a person. She is definitely enjoying her drive after the initial phase of feeling nervous. Confidence has been built up during the drive when the driving instructor has been “complimenting” her. The smile on her face coupled with a little swaying of her body says it all.
“Your skill is amazing. You would be a perfect Formula One driver.” I remember my driving instructor saying to me, “You are going to be a hell drvier – F1 driver.” Its humorous as the producer comes up with the use of sarcasm. The expressions of the driving instructor is well suited to the words he says. It is clear that he is frustrated which is shown through his hand signals. As the saying goes “actions speak louder than words”. I do not beg to differ.
How do we further confirm that the driver is a student? No seasoned driver would brake so hard unnecessarily unless he/she has bribed the tester (I do wonder if it was by wearing hot pants or a sum from the $10m TOTO draw). The jerks as portrayed by the shaking of the camera shot gives viewers the visual effect. More than that, the universally understood ‘L’ sign appears at the rear of the car. If that is not obvious enough, how do you explaining the knocking of the cones?
Minor details have been used meticulously by the producer to dress up the driving instructor such as having a name tag, a Basic Theory book, being older than the lady, wearing spectacles. This is how typically a driving instructor looks like in Singapore. Mind you, they are very cautious in their teaching.
Contrast is interestingly used. Observation is of utmost importance here. It is a classic example of how our speech is betrayed by our actual thoughts and feelings. The eyes and eyebrows don’t lie.
The next time you see your driving instructor complimenting about your driving, think twice about your skills. Is he a jolly good fellow, or a super sarcastic fellow?
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andy said
In our high context culture, we tend not to speak of unpleasantness unless required. Our non-verbal communication makes more of an impact and impression and thus it is correct to say how ‘actions speak louder than words’. The video you have chosen is a marketing strategy placing emphasis on ‘only hear the good things’ which the main motive of this radio station advertisement, and yes sarcasm makes communication so much more ambiguous.
iuhiq said
i do agree with andy. It’s in out culture where we tend to give unpleasant comments. If you see the western country, they usually encourage the person even he/she is not doing the things perfectly. We don’t usually express our love to one another. We don’t tell our parents we love them which we do. Expectation aren’t always met, when a student score A, parents will never say well done or good job. However, they would say that’s not god enough you should get A*.
Zhezhang said
i really enjoy your youtube clip. Interestingly thats all instructors look like that. I believe that it is perfectly fine not to offer compliment if one really feels like there is nothing nice to tell the other. However, one should not offer criticism, especially commenting about people’s driving. This is true regardless if the driver is a male or female. I’m sure male will find it even more frustrating if a female passenger made a bad comment on a his driving. (their MCP theory that man are better drivers are being challenged). Yet, women too dislike men to criticize them on their driving. (their idea that man being mcp) And women seldom compliment man on their driving, because it is quite evident on the roads that not all male drivers are good drivers as well.
in conclusion, both suffer the same fate when being criticized. Hence, both should either just SHUT UP or give compliments. In fact, complimenting a female’s driving tend to make her feel happy. (in my opinion)
Eva said
Haha…nice example of selective listening. Is life easier if we only select to listen to the stuff we want to hear? Well, it certainly gives you a good feeling about yourself. But for me, the truth is more important, I would rather know the truth than to deceive myself.
Zachary said
Encouragement is always effective regardless of the intention. However, when learning driving, correcting is also just as important. I certainly wouldn’t want a driving instructor to always sing my praises and I end up failing my test.
KS said
It’s not nice to always only hear compliments. If that is so, how would a person improve on his/her errors? However, there has to be a balance between complimenting and pointing out of individual mistakes as too much of one could lead to worse circumstances.
Nettie Tan said
I would think that women are generally less of a driver than men. Of course, credits have to be given to those wonderful women who can navigate across a foreign country. That said, it is important to give criticism when necessary because if it can be constructive then you end up helping the other person. If not, then i’d rather the individual keep it to himself because it will only serve to discourage and demoralise the person.
Bindi said
Hmmm…ya i do wonder why there ain’t any female drivers on F1 but do correct me if I’m wrong, that racing is one of the sports that just do not have a female’s division. Maybe we should initiate a first all women’s race right here in Singapore while the hype of F1 is still growing after yester-year’s achievement of being the first night race. This can surely put off stereotypical mindset that women are bad drivers which the advertisement had failed to do so.
Elaine said
it is an interesting video to start off. I would say not everyone view sarcastism as something negative. Well… we are given 2 ears and 1 mouth, aint we suppose to hear more than we speak? Whether it is compliment or sarcastim, we should interpret those words to see if they are true. However, we should not be too badly affected by these remarks but we should continue to improve ourselves if we receive too much of these similar comments.
mds said
Man, it is so difficult to zuo4 ren2 sometimes don’t you think. One must take upsetting comments into your stride or else you are being petty. Then you also need to be humble and willing to be corrected and improve yourself. Sometimes for the sake of your good nature you need to endure when spoken to by a twerp who has nothing good to say.