My trip to Kuala Lumpur-part 1 The eye contact event
Part 1: The eye contact event
In September last year I took a trip to Kuala Lumpur (KL), that was such a great experience for me. KL is a spectacular city and much more modern compared to Ho Chi Minh city. My “tour guide” is Tan Tong Sheng a Chinese Malaysian dude. We have met each other in our internship program in Bangkok and be best friends since then. Actually at the end of 2016 Tan have traveled to Vietnam and visited me in Ho Chi Minh city.
Experience about my trip to KL and Tan’s trip to Ho Chi Minh city I am going to share with you in some next stories. For this post I would like to share about the “eye contact event” in KL that I had chance to join in.
Tan Tong Sheng loves this event
Have you ever wondered why some people seem easier to make friend? Why people often maintain success relationship with others? The answer is effective eye contact which makes a difference! I knew this secret when I was involving myself in the biggest Eye Contact experiment held during 23rd September, 2017 in Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. It was a simple game where participants looked into other’s person eyes within 2 minutes.
Afterwards would be sharing the feeling or free interaction however you wanted. It was the first time to experience it by ‘staring’ other people eyes. I felt nervous and trying not to eye-balling around as the other participants are looking into your eyes simultaneously. However it was a good experience for me and I try to find out how effective eye contact could make a difference in social.
People often say that eye is a ‘window’ of the soul. It provides social information and feelings to the person you are talking and listening to. It is one of the important communication tools to connect people.
Study shows good eye contact creates better relationship and enhance negotiation skills. Socially confident people makes eye contact much more often compared to socially awkward people. Friendly eye contact in negotiation makes people feel your trust and sincerity.
However, eye contact do not taught well in school or from family. Some people do avoid eye contact because lack of confidence, social anxiety or shy. When people are nervous, it is difficult to look into their eyes. Come to the worst, they would feel panic and heartbeat faster. People who often avoid eye contact would make other person to feel that you are not interested in what are they talking, or they simply do not like you.
Relatively consistent eye contact shows you are caring, respect and paying attention to others. Sad to say that people nowadays are keep staring their phone all day long, being addicted to social media, games and video whenever we go, taking a meal and sleep.
It makes people do not share their eye contact and alert what is happening surrounding us. It is essential to acquire this skill, to build a caring society.
Eye contact has to be done in natural and comfortable way. Prolonged and aggressive eye contact would make people feel uncomfortable. People would think that you are staring or judging him/her deliberately. Persistent eye contact can be viewed as challenge or anger to someone. Obviously, it takes time to practice eye contact.
Absolute agree with Tan!.
That was the first time I join in an event like this, I don’t have problem in talking with strangers. In fact, I am a good icebreaker.
But it was harder than I thought. I paired with a local girl, she was Muslim, with a scarf or HiJab covers all her head an neck. She had hazel eyes, with straight eyebrows, she wore long sleeves shirt with a jean. At first we looked at each other quite easy, I was not feel anything, But after that lots of thoughts jumped into my mind
What is she thinking?
Her eyes suddenly looks mysterious!, I feel uncomfortable now!!!
I believe that she had similar feeling like me, I can know that by her eyes. After one minute I blinked some times to get back my confidence. After two minutes we had a short talk to know some basic things from each one, I shared to her about my Vietnam, my city. She recommended some places, foods to try when staying in KL.
Yeah, it was nice experience for us!.
How about you? have you ever try any strange event like this before?.
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