As I was talking about appreciation, I came around with one habit the Western does and the Eastern doesn’t..

SHOWING APPRECIATION

After all those mumbo jumbo about Tony Blair, George Bush, and John Howard.. I notice one thing these Western people does and it’s worth learning from them.

I went to a restaurant last night (the Bridge Cafe) in Applecross. When I was about to pay the bill on the front counter, I saw two greeting cards were put face forward on the table. At first, I thought it was just a Christmas Card.. maybe a Father’s Day Card.. but no.. it’s an APPRECIATION CARD.

The customers had actually wrote their testimonials, appreciating every single thing the restaurant did to make their evening memorable. The card looks full with over a page of writting. A few that I read and could remember was:

“Thank you for the great service… when the restaurant was almost empty we thought we had to leave as soon as possible. But one of your waitress brought us a jug of water as if you were saying “Please don’t rush!”. It was an excellent evening!”

As I was driving home, I remembered this link in my bank’s website (Bank of Queensland) that have received letters of appreciation. Some of them had actually put down a name of the person who served them. Check out the link here.

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Now, to be honest.. have we ever written any of them and had actually send it out to the restaurant, or bank, or anywhere? Without being told to? Without promised there will be prize if you submit ?

I have never done that.

Neither have I seen one written by an Asian nor seeing one in an Indonesian/Asian restaurant.

Maybe we do appreciate someone in our heart.. but sometimes to express it, to take a move, to actually do it, isn’t our habit. Or maybe sometimes our appreciations aren’t obvious enough for people to understand that they are being appreciated.

Another important thing too for us who are being appreciated is that we often say “no” to appreciation. For example a conversation:

Man: “Hey, I really like your voice, I think it’s really good!”
Us: “Nah, my voice is bad.. it’s not so good”

Seems like we are trying to be humble, but guess what, for western culture.. it’s called cocky or rude. It’s true, a friend of mine did that and his western friend were kinda mad because my friend seems like underestimating himself.

If you are appreciated, accept it, say thank you, you deserve it.

Then, return the appreciation by saying nice things to other people.

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Finally, I want to try making a few simple decisions I would do to start appreciating people:

1. Saying thank you to as much people as I can
2. Seeing what goods and leave as much as possible the negatives
3. Gifts, encouragement
4. Tap someone and say : WELL DONE!

It’s a good habit to build and I want to learn it well.