LOST IN TRANSLATION

It’s a rare occasion that finds me perched in front of the idiot box before 5 o’clock in the morning, but since I’d been awake since 2am and my innards were telling me it had been a long time since dinner, figured I might as well get up and obey.

Armed with a piece of toast and lemon and ginger herbal tea, turned on the telly only to be greeted with the choice of a never ending Zumba infomercial on one channel (who coined that annoying word?), a never ending handyman tools infomercial on another, Rage, and the SBS worldwide weather report. Without the luxury of digital TV my choices are limited, so stuck around until 5am when what was on offer broadened to Power Rangers, more Rage, an American charismatic preacher at full volume, and the Polish News broadcast.

Hmm, what to choose? Opted for the Polish News, which at first I thought might have been Russian News seeing as I’m not exactly a linguist and hadn’t looked at the TV guide, until the cameras focused on a hospital in Warsaw following a motorcycle crash, so at least I knew what country we were in.

I’m not averse to watching an SBS movie with subtitles, but watching the news in a foreign language without subtitles is quite strange. Knowing what’s going on is obviously out of the question, watching what I assume are politicians strutting about doing the sort of thing politicians do the world over, sports reports featuring local heroes I’ve never seen before, redevelopment of places I’ve never heard of, human interest stories, your usual news broadcast fare. Making up my own commentary, trying to piece the stories together from what little clues I could pick up was an interesting exercise. Finally dragged myself back to bed for another couple of hours sleep.

I have a great poster on the wall next to my desk at work.

I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but, I am not sure you realise that what you heard is not what I meant.

Not a bad excuse for those times when maybe my level of communication isn’t that clear. We don’t have to be watching the news in a foreign language to misunderstand what’s going on. Without any trouble at all we can hear without listening, look without seeing, speak without conveying what we mean. It’s one thing to deal with the nuts and bolts of what may be taking place in any given moment, in a conversation, argument, discussion, or whatever, but to recognize the underlying process that is taking place at the same time can be a whole other kettle of fish.

We see the world through our own filters, and they colour how we receive data and process it. Reading the signals as well as taking in the information can tell us whether or not we are accepted, trusted, respected, disliked, being manipulated or a myriad other things. Many a misunderstanding has been based on our perception of the intention of the other person, rather than their actual intention, so listening, really listening, and reading the signals correctly, that’s the challenge.