"May those who love us, love us;
And those that don't love use,
May God turn their hearts;
And if He doesn't turn their hearts
May He turn their ankles,
So we'll know them by their limping."

Apparently, this is an old Irish toast..i didn't know that..yep, learnt that from "Do's and Taboos of Humour Around the World" quite an entertaining read i must say.

some interesting facts about communications from that book:
-we speak at a rate of 100 to 110 words a minute
-hear at a rate of about 400 words a minute
-think at a rate of about 800 words a minute

so while we are listening to people talk, we are busy thinking of other things too and hence that is why many people have not acquired good listening skills.

another interesting bit is that Japanese society has "high context" communication, that is, a lot of communication is not verbalised, meanings are implied and one has to rely on intuition when communicating. whereas, "low context" communication that the Americans have has everything clearly and detailedly stated with a lot of words.

guess that's part of the reason why japanese dramas are so interesting? cos a lot of stuff is not said out, so you gotta think and guess what is being implied. the beauty of it is that you never know if you are actually right or wrong, it all depends on your interpretation. or perhaps because my understanding of japanese implications is not deep enough. and that brings me to the next point that it will be a difficult language to learn properly. how?