Roy Payamal, professional street busker, can often be found at the Orchard Road underpass.

Teach yourself: talk to a stranger today

"All my violence / raining tears upon the street / I'm bewildered / for we're strangers when we meet." - David Bowie

It's a well-worn piece of advice. You've probably heard it when you were younger, from parents expressing their concern for your safety. It's repeated over again in movies in which trouble starts brewing after the protagonist meets a stranger. And there is probably some sense in saying that we shouldn't talk to strangers. But we shouldn't take the example of movies to say that strangers have some ulterior motive in doing so.

The phrase "Don't talk to strangers" isn't useful. For who do you consider a stranger? Everyone that you ever knew in your life was once a stranger to you, your parents included. And if you make it a point not to talk to strangers, you'd probably never know anyone. Visiting a foreign country would be impossible since everyone would be a stranger. Perhaps what is meant is not to talk to shifty looking strangers who bid you to follow them into deserted alleys.

But whether the stranger looks like someone straight out of a police line-up or on the way to becoming a saint, there's good reason to be found in talking to strangers. It needn't be an hour-long discourse on everything that's ever happened in your life. Conversation can be something as simple as asking the person sitting next to you on the bus where he's going, or showing concern to someone on the street who needs it.

Advocating this sort of behaviour might strike one as being thoroughly impractical. It's not feasible to strike up a conversation with every person that one bumps into on the bus, especially when it's rush hour and everyone is in such a harried state of mind. But it just seems strange to me that people can sit beside each other for an hour of their lives and not bother to exchange a single word. Perhaps this is the result of having to live in a city, within such close proximity to each other. Everyday we are bombarded by a barrage of media information that causes people to shut out the rest of the world and pretend that everyone else on the bus doesn't exist.

Now ask yourself truthfully - when was the last time you talked to a stranger?

If you had to think very long for an answer, perhaps it's time you start reassessing how you perceive the world around you. It's easy to talk to friends and people you already know quite well because a certain level of comfort has already been reached. Going out of this comfort zone to talk to a stranger might be difficult.

But it's only when you do so that you can begin to see the world from a different point of view. To know that one's perception of the world at large is not the only one and certainly not the best one can be a humbling experience. And to this end I proffer another piece of advice that's been bandied around for some time now - do something everyday that scares you.

Talking to strangers can be an interesting experience. Once, I met a lady in Holland Village who was a very kind person. I told her that she was the nicest person that I had met that day, and since then my outlook towards meeting people has improved.

At best, a stranger can change your life. And at worse, that person will remain a stranger. You might even find out that both of you two live in the same block. But whatever the outcome, at least you'll know that you've explored that possibility.

By: Jared Tham. Published: The Nanyang Chronicle, October 2000.

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