Cycling, growing tomatoes, China and social skills

Hi guys, I'd like to share with you something that happened and use it as an example of how important social skills are in our relationships. I fell off my bike today, stupid mistake and this happened when I pulled up to a red light. Directly in front of me was a car and a motorbike was to the left of the car, so I thought I'd squeeze into the gap between the car and the motorbike whilst waiting for the lights to change. However, as I approached that gap, I second guessed myself, thought that the gap was too small for me to squeeze through and changed my mind. I tried to brake but I lost my balance and fell off my bike. I didn't hit the car but I brushed against the motorbike as I fell. The motorcyclist immediately berated me for my impatience, he shouted at me, "why did you try to squeeze through that tiny gap? Even if you could get through, how many seconds did you think you were going to save?" The car driver didn't care if I was hurt, he was more concerned if I had scratched his car. A pedestrian who saw me fall over helped me to the pavement where I stood for a brief moment with my bike before continuing on my journey - I wasn't injured but allow me to point out that I had already chastised myself for the error I made. Yes the fall did hurt, it was painful and I paid the price for my mistake. I am going to remember that accident and the next time I encounter a similar situation, I would not try to squeeze into any more small gaps like that - I will err on the side of caution to avoid an accident. I am sensible enough to have learnt my lesson. When I told my husband about what happened, he told me that it could have happened to any cyclist because we see a gap whilst we're cycling: we have a split second to make a decision about whether or not that gap is big enough to go through. Given how quickly we have to make that decision, sometimes we might misjudge the distance and that is called human error.  He also said there was an element of pure bad luck as well - if I had set out a few minutes earlier or later, that accident wouldn't have happened. This happens to all of us and he told me that as long as I was not badly hurt when I fell and that is the most important thing - as he knows that I will handle similar situations in the future a lot more wisely. 

Now if I told my family about that same accident, I know they would 'scold' me for being so careless or stupid when I was cycling and that's their way of showing that they care about me. I don't respond well to that as I don't think any kind of 'scolding' is warranted in this case - I have already learnt my lesson and thus I take it as an insult if they think I deserve a scolding as if I was a dumb child who wouldn't have learnt my lesson without some element of punishment on their part. I do recall an accident I had when I was about 7 years old, I lost control of my bicycle and crashed into a drain. Of course, my parents scolded me when they found out about it as they didn't want a repeat of that accident. But here's the thing, I'm now 47 years old and I think my parents don't know how to respond otherwise - they simply don't have the social skills to know how to deal with such a situation and that's why I wouldn't even talk to them at all about what happened as I don't want to risk being disappointed with their response. They simply don't know any other way to let me know that they care and my sister suggested just ignoring them when they say something inappropriate or stupid - it is this habit of simply saying the first thing that comes to mind without any filter whatsoever. Now I accept that there may be an element of human error in our choice of reactions, I too have said or done inappropriate things in the past but I'd like to think that has been the exception rather than the norm; the same way that accident I had at that junction when I fell off my bike was a rare incident rather than something that happens every time I get on the bike. But allow me to give you some examples of how my parents react by telling me the first thing that comes to their mind and why I feel frustrated as a result. So for example, I once was showing my mother the plants in my garden when I pointed out to her that I had some tomato plants, there were some fruit on the plants but they were green and unripe. Her reaction was to advice me not to pick the unripe tomatoes, that upset me as I was the one who fed her that information in the first place, she knows nothing about gardening or how to grow tomatoes. I realize that she was merely blurting out the first thing that came to mind: but she made it sound it it was useful advice. She failed to take into account of the fact that I didn't need any kind of advice on the matter: the Chinese phase 轮不到你开口 comes to mind as she should shut up about stuff she knows nothing about. 

So what would have been a better response in that situation? Well instead of simply blurting out the first thing that comes to mind, a more intelligent person might have asked questions like, how long does it take for the tomatoes to ripen? How many tomatoes do you harvest from your garden every year? Do they taste different from the tomatoes that you buy in the store? Do you tomatoes grow as big as the ones we see in the supermarkets? Why do you like growing tomatoes, would you like to grow other kinds of fruits and vegetables as well? Note that you don't have to know much about growing tomatoes in order to have an intelligent conversation on the topic, but such questions would at least demonstrate some level of engagement beyond blurting out the first thing to comes to mind. Let me give you another of how my parents have no idea how dumb their responses are: when I was last in Singapore, I told my father that I was going to have to call my client in China. My father's response to that was, if he is in China, you have to speak to him in Mandarin - they speak Mandarin in China. Now did he think I was going to speak to Mr Yang in French, German or Spanish instead of Mandarin? And did he honestly think that despite having done so much business in China, I had no idea what language they spoke there? Actually, that's just my father blurting out the first thing that comes to his mind again without taking even a moment to consider if what he was saying was of any value or helpful. If it is information that I already knew (such as people in China speak Mandarin), then offering it to me would be wrong on so many levels. Firstly, I felt insulted that my father imagined that I didn't already know that fact about what language was spoken in China, did he think I was that stupid? Secondly, I am felt frustrated by the fact that my friends can have intelligent conversations with their fathers whilst I am stuck with a father who is so uneducated he is incapable of saying anything intelligent. Now I can live with the fact that my father is stupid, I've come to terms with it and have accepted it but what I cannot accept is the fact that he still wants to think that he can offer me useful information when I'm like, just stop it, shut up, you embarrass yourself the moment you say anything as you're that stupid. I know I cannot cure my father of his stupidity and ignorance by scolding him, thus I don't quite know how I am supposed to respond in this kind of situation - it is 轮不到你开口 again. 

So in this example with my client in China, I can think of so many questions that my father could have asked. How long have you known this client? Is he a friendly person and easy to deal with? Where in China is he based? Are you going to go visit him in China soon? What kind of company does he work for? Is he older than you or younger than you? What kind of project are you working on together? Is he well educated, does he speak English? I can think of dozens of questions to ask, but my father simply doesn't have the mental capacity to engage me on that level - he simply defaults to saying the first thing that pops into his mind like a young child incapable of anything more complex. However, the dynamics with a young child is totally different - so imagine I spoke to a young girl and told her that I was doing business in China and the young girl points out to me that she knows they speak Mandarin in China, the standard response would be for me to then praise the young girl for knowing that fact. However, in the case of my father, well he isn't looking for praise that same way - I actually think he is so socially inept that he actually believes that he is being helpful and obliviously creating a socially awkward situation where I am reminded that I succeeded in business in spite of my parents rather than because of them. I told this to my sister and she just shrug her shoulders and told me that she has learnt to ignore them and that my parents talk like that because they're lonely, they crave some form of social interaction and they will just say things for the sake of talking without thinking if they are contributing anything interesting or useful to the conversation. I can tell that my sister is just so used to hearing my parents spout rubbish all the time that she doesn't even roll her eyes anymore when they say something stupid again. She would talk to them out of a sense of duty, to stop them from becoming lonely whilst having very low or no expectations at all about the quality of conversation that she is going to have with them. I am sure you have heard me use this saying before on my blog: a pessimist is never disappointed. Therefore my sister is not left disappointed and frustrated with my parents because of her very low expectations - which begs the question: am I the one who has unrealistically high expectations then? Am I at fault here? 

Perhaps it is my nature as a businessman that has compelled me to ignore my parents, in business, we have to focus on the relationships that are most productive and lucrative. If you know that you are very unlikely to do any business with someone, then you simply ignore them - it's nothing personal, it is just a strategy to be efficient with our time. Neither or my sisters work in a business environment, they are both civil servants so my ruthlessly efficient business-like approach to relationships may come across as harsh, even heartless at times. But I don't apologize for having this attitude - it has served me well in the world of business and thus I don't see why I need to change or make an exception. So that's it from me on this topic, what do you think? How would you react if a good friend told you that they fell off their bike? How would you react to people like my parents who simply say the first thing that pops into their head without any filter or more sophisticated thought process? Do you think that I'm being way too cruel in my decision to stop talking to my parents or am I merely being quite rational in light of their behaviour? Please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.