Ah Long Pte Ltd 《老师嫁老大》is a light-hearted black comedy about the triad world and the money-lending business. Instead of treating the subject of Ah Longs (money-lenders) seriously, the movie takes on a humorous and sarcastic treatment. It depicts how a young lady tries to restructure her money-lending triad into a professional and ‘loving’ triad that stands against the use of violence after she takes over from her triad leader who has retired. Her various restructuring plans (which are no doubt very creative) bring about hilarious results.

Chen Jun (played by Richard Low) is the leader of Shao He Triad. The story opens with him deciding to “retire” from the triad business. Prior to his retirement, he elects Wang Li Hua (played by Fann Wong), a young but tough girl, as his successor.

Li Hua believes that changes need to be made to the current money lending system . Although Li Hua prioritizes the triad’s success, she is very much against the idea of using violent means to collect debts. Therefore, with the help of some professional consultants, Li Hua and several of her subordinates (played by KK and Daniel Tan) start adopting a series of creative tactics to attract money lenders and practice hilarious methods to pressure the money-lenders to repay in a non-violent way. However, Li Hua’s plan of “restructuring” her triad meets with obstacles and opposition from the majority of the conservative elders in both her own triad and rival triad.

At the brighter end of the world, Mr. Fang (played by Mark Lee) is a kind-hearted dance instructor who is slightly sissy in character. Fate has it that Mr. Fang runs into Li Hua on numerous occasions by chance. Since Li Hua’s mother has been pressuring her to get married, Li Hua decides to force Mr. Fang to marry her. Surprisingly, Mr. Fang agrees to it, wanting to prove his masculinity. Though finding it hard to accept the fact that Li Hua is a triad head, Mr. Fang approves of her effort to minimize the use of violence. Subsequently, he offers to help Li Hua out by introducing creative ways to reduce violent methods of debt collection.

I watched this show a few days ago.
Rating: Not too bad.

What i felt…
There was no story line. Most of the movies that we watched nowadays, normally would have a firm story line behind and the directors would act the show out according to the story line. However for this case, the movie do not have a firm story line and i feel that this movie clearly reflects on the life that the Singapore society is having. In the modern Singapore society, slang and jargon are commonly use in our verbal communication, words with short forms are not exceptional too. Therefore, this movie is a very good example of a typical Singapore life.

In what way the movie attracted me?
I strongly agree that a movie without a firm story line do not make a movie a fabulous one. But for this particular movie, “Ah long pte ltd”, is exceptional. Though, not having a story line seriously spoils everything, BUT the lame jokes that they have come up with, the cast that they have used in the movie has made the whole movie categorize under the comedy section.
Thus, the comedic content of the whole movie, is what makes the flim eye-catching.

If you would want to catch a movie for leisure, and not have any expectations, this movie is strongly recommended. On the contrast, if you are looking for a movie, with a standard, this movie might not be the best choice.

What comes into your mind when you watched it the first time?

I was browsing through youtube and i saw this. This is a Toyota advertisement. I thought it was interesting and i started to download it and watched.

For the first time, when i watched it. I thought that the humans inside the cars were for real, but with a second glance when he pulled the head up, i knew the humans inside were faked. Frankly speaking, i was amazed by how they did the human chair.
Apart from the human chair, the hands became the belt, i thought that though it was a creative way to make the belts and it was quite cute. But thinking it twice, for a car’s belt, it wasn’t realistic, because it wouldn’t be safe, as the hands would not be that tightly secured compared to a normal belt.

From then on, all of the functions were all humanly activated, the speaker, the light of the car, the airbags, and the rest of the car. Thinking of it gives me the creeps. Although, it was creative and amusing, but too many humans made the whole advertisement into a quite creepy advertisement.

This time, i watched it the second time. The feeling that i felt wasn’t that creepy. It was an interesting way to make the advertisement. It made focuses mostly on the non-verbal cues to communicate with the audience, which in this case, the non-verbal cues refer to the fake humans inside the car.
The advertiser wants to convey a message to the audience that this car allows people to have a human touch, to make people feel comfortable in the car.

I feel that this is quite a good non-verbal advertisement. Furthermore, i guessed most of the people would prefer non-verbal advertisement compared to a verbal advertisement. Don’t you think so?

How do you see this poster as?
What is your perception?
How this poster communicate with the audience?
What does this poster tells you about?

As a child’s perception, they would tend to perceive this poster as a promotion for the Ferris wheel. Kids are still young, they have not gone through the tertiary education that is needed for their growth. Therefore they would not have a deeper understanding for the poster. They would make out things as what they seems to be like.
Children always have an innocent mind.

From a teenager’s viewpoint, how would they view the poster? Looking at the teenagers nowadays in the modern world. Despite having the tertiary education that has been given to them, their thinking has yet to reach a maturity stage. With the childish disposition of theirs, the probability of them thinking at the same level as the adults would be very low. Hence, though such things have been included in their education, but they might be playing a fool with such stuffs. In another words, they might make fun of the poster.

According to an adult’s recognition for the poster, adults are old enough to know what are these and they are old enough to have used it as well as experience it. Looking at a poster that helps to promote the usage of condom is a normal thing to them. In another words, having a second glance on the poster itself, its a normal thing. Therefore, this poster is just like the other normal poster to them. This poster does not even bother them.

Though everyone is looking at the same thing physically, but different people that comes along with different ages do matters. Different ages, tells us the level of maturity. The differences in level of maturity helps to bring in the different perception that they have for the same poster, same thing.

I feel that, as a publisher of the poster, we must stand in many people’s point of view and have a target audience, before publishing the poster. Otherwise, the poster might not be able to bring out the content, and as a result, the whole poster would not be a success.

As long as something, in terms of poster or any non-verbal cues is trying to convey you a message, it is a process of communication. Communication is always around us. It is always in the environment. It is always there. It’s essential to our lives.

P.S: Bring out the best communication skills we can, people around you would love it. =)

Based on a novella by acclaimed writer Catherine Lim, the story is about Li-Ann, a young Singaporean girl who meets her ’special someone’ on 29 February. She decides to base her intuition on an Irish leap year tradition that no man will refuse any request of a lady and invites him out for a date. Together, they embark on a romantic journey that spans over 12 years, meeting only thrice in 12 years, on the leap year.

The leap years.! I went to watch this show a few days ago. Trust me, its really a good show.

The once every four years. If you don’t catch it now, i am afraid the only chance you can catch it, is the next four years and by then, you would seriously regretted.

As it was mentioned above, Li-Ann and her ’special someone’, have decided to make a promise to meet every February 29th at the same place, at the same time.

I watched the movie, i cried badly. Tears went streaming down my face profusely.
The songs that they used, were emotional. It suited some parts of the movie. The whole movie went well. The coordination between the songs, the movie and the actors were perfect.! Initally i was wondering on how did Qi Yi Wu actually took a role in the movie, because most of the actors were from channel five and were english-speaking actors and actresses. But i only realised in the later part of the movie that he was suppose to act as a guy who is not as educated as the rest and he’s poor.

“A saint once decreed that a man must agree to a woman’s proposal today”. This is the tradition of February 29th.
“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves”. This is coated from William Shakespears, from the leap years.
“Its better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all

I find this movie a very meaningful movie. Majority of the touching movies, they touched people’s heart by most of it are non-verbal cues, by the things that they do.

But “The leap years” is different from the other touching movies, in the sense that, not only the non-verbal cues have made people touched, the verbal cues as well. They have lots of words, quotations, that made the whole movie a meaningful one.

This movie is a true communication example. We don’t have to face each other everyday or talk to each other everyday to communicate. Look at how Li-ann and her ’special someone’ communicate thrice only in twelve years..

P.S: Go catch the movie!

There..there…Here comes my favourite topic.

UNIT 3!!
What i love best about unit 3 was the Knapp Model of Relational Development, which is the most influential models of relationship by Mark Knapp.
This describes the progression and development of relationships as a series of 10 stages in two phrases.

In a relationship, there’s always stages of coming together and coming apart. There are 10 stages.

The following stages in sequences:
COMING TOGETHER:
1)Intitating
2)Experimenting
3)Intensifying
4)Integrating
5)Bonding
COMING APART:
6)Differentiating
7)Circumscribing
8)Stagnation
9)Avoiding
10)Terminating

I feel that these ten steps are very useful in a relationship. In a relationship, communication is a very important factor, regardless of verbal and non-verbal. Without communication, nothing will spark out of a relationship.

Personally, i feel that this is a common problem that appears in most of the relationship. Assuming is part of a communication. Many of us tend to assume so much that it leads to disastrous consequences. This is when the coming apart processes comes in.

Seriously, i feel that having communication as one of my modules has helped me quite an amount. As long as it involves communication, it helps in my life!
It helps me to improve the communication between me and my partner and it teaches me on how a couple should communicate effectively with each other so as to bring out the best in a relationship.
It allows me to know on how to communicate with different types of people. Like groups or individuals.

 P.S: It benefits.!

We have different perceptions.! We have different thinking.! We have different routes. Lets just go our own way.

These few sentences, tend to appear in our lives most of the time.

Just what is different?
What is perception?
Whose is right and whose is wrong?
Who to follow who?

Perception is how we perceive our surroundings differently, experiencing different things and communicating differently. Different people have their each individual mindset.

Though we might be looking at the same thing physically, but disputes still happens. Why is this so? Many of us might have wondered.
All of us have a similarity, do we actually realise?
We only take in what we want to take in.
We listen to things we want to hear.

There are many things that affect our perception.
Factors influencing our perceptions:
-Individual characteristics.
-Mass media
-Social Network
-Psychological state
-Environment

The lecturer recently has shown us a video clip on ice age, whereby there are two elephants.
They have the same body size.
They have the same foot prints.
They have the same features.
But the female elephant still refuses to believe that she belongs to the elephant category. This is because she has been brought up in a mouse family and she has adapted to the mouse culture, to the mouse lifestyle.
 This is when all the influences starts to take place.
Growing up in a mouse family, believing in the mouse culture, prevents her from believing that she is an elephant.
All the friends are just the two mouse brothers, that’s her social network.
She do what the two mouse brothers do, that’s her environment that she has been brought up.

 Perception always helps in misjudging people, which leads to serious consequences. Never judge a book by its cover. On the contrast, many of us did. We judge people normally by its book.

P.S: We can change our each individual perception as long as we want to.

Well… I know that i haven’t been blogging for the past few weeks. Hmmm.~ Here i am blogging my blog now.

In the very first lesson of communications, we were taught the first chapter of communications. Frankly speaking, i didn’t find it very interesting though, until, we came to the part whereby all the properties of the communication came by.

Properties of communication:
Communication is……
1)a process
2)continuous
3)symbolic
4)irreversible
5)systemic
6)transactional
7)inclusive

All the properties mentioned above are all the common properties. What’s so special about it? What i seriously would want to emphasis is that communication is irreversible.

Why would i want to emphasis on that?

Many of us, that includes me, would tend to be too straight forward, or say things in a fit of anger. Everything has their pros and cons, this is not an exceptional. Being too straight forward, allows our friends around us to know what we are really thinking, what we are really going through. Nevertheless, saying whatever we want without even going through the process of thinking, always allows us to hurt our friend’s feelings.

Not sparing a thought of….
their feelings…
how they would react to whatever we said…
how badly we would hurt them…

For an example, being in a relationship, we will always go through quarrel processes. Couples, flaring at each other, quarrelling over trivial stuffs. Emotions always tend to play a part in these processes. Infuriation starts to come into the picture.

Most of the time, emotions tend to take over our mind for a period of time.
When this happens, we would blurt out our true feelings accidentally that would hurt our partners, which would eventually contribute to the unstability of the relationship.

Things that women would normally say:
“I am sick and tired of everything.”
“Quarrels.! I just hope i can be single so that i don’t have to face this problem.”
“I just want to be alone.!”

When both parties have cooled down, and when they were about to patch, some guys would not be as forgiving, and this is when all the consequences starts to come in. Guys would take whatever the woman have said to heart, and they would mention a break-up to a woman.

When this happens, the woman would regret remorsefully whatever she has said and she would want very much to take back her words. But, pratically, it is an impossible thing to take back whatever she have said. Just like one of the properties in communication, it is irreversible.

Therefore, in all circumstances, we must learn to speak without regrets and speak with a clear mind, for when we starts to regret, things would be too late by then.

 P.S: Speak without regrets.!

Okays! Apparently, i am welcoming myself to this new website of blog.! WELCOME CHARLENE!

Everytime i want to blog. But i forget.ARGH! Irritated by it. Nevertheless, i still must blog. Perhaps, i will blogged it the weekends. I have whole lot of time.

 Stay tuned to Charlene’s blog!

Haha!