I was approached by a guy wearing an FBI cap, asking me to buy lottery tickets.
It’s hot in Vietnam this time of the year. Almost everyone wears some sorts of caps with USA on them, helmets with the Nike vectors or a hybrid version: helmets shaped like caps.
From top to toe, we send out signals and messages. Call it Non-Verbal language.
2/3 of our communication are not verbal (in Without You, there is a line “you always smile, but in your eyes, your sorrow shows, yes it shows”).
Yet few of us were schooled, trained or able to detect these hidden codes: I am cool. I don’t give a damn. I am somebody. I am everybody. I am nobody. Try me…..
Conversely, people receive unintended messages we did not know we send.
I’ve got money. I don’ t respect you enough (clothing mismatched). I am carefree. I am careful. Don’t mess with me (tatoo and black T’s).
In the States, cars make statements. Here, it’s the scooters.
A guitar as backpack (musician) a rolled-up mat (yoga) a cone hat (urban migrant) a kid with balloon (mom has a night out and spends guilt money).
Every stripe and strand co-exist and negotiate limited space.
The upper crust has already left town to exclusive and elite resorts, leaving behind the “mass who live in quiet desperation” in the tourist district, where people lean against fake trees and work up a fake smile for photo ops.
If you stood and watched people, you are not sure between background and foreground, which one is more on display.
Wait until 4-G is here.
Then we will have completed our evolutionary cycle (self-expression with a cost).
When those sport cars came out, they were intended to say: I own this toy, reserved for me and my girlfriend (parents and entourage are not welcome).
So will it be with the I’s family of products (unless you share the listening device with one significant other). The I-pod Shuffle was meant for one, jogger preferably.
Not the boombox that blasts out Christmas music for the whole neighborhood.
Yes, in our technological society, the clear message (which happens to be the medium, according to McLuhan) is that, I finally am. Arrived. Leave me alone. Leave your old world behind (communal and village-bound). I am OK, you are OK or not, it’s irrelevant. When the playing field is leveled (by us duck-sitting as advertising headcounts), they will upgrade to some other games which will require premium fees.
So we celebrate the upcoming New Year, with ” a will to try” so as not to be left out or behind.
My New Year resolution is to read people better, however subtle the intended messages might be. Often times, it’s mixed message. After all, the world is our non-verbal bookstore. Just hope I don’t run into a real FBI agent, undercover as a lottery-ticket pusher.
Thang Nguyen 555 