Reﬂection - Storytelling

Challenge & Selection

Language barrier and communication remains a challenge for immigrant families of  all ethnicities. My mother, sister and I arrived in Australia on July 1995 with all our  possessions neatly packed in boxes and suitcases. Armed with wool coats and a few  basic English words like “Hello”, “Thank You” and “Goodbye”, we start anew a our  lives in Australia. My mum often told me she made the move because of the  opportunities Australia had to offer, educational opportunities that would have been  non-existent had our family decided to stay in China. Like the mindset of many  immigrants, it was in hopes of a better life and a brighter future that my mum packed  up our lives and settled in Australia. Yet, many things were still difﬁcult for my non- English-speaking mother. As the ﬁrst English-speaker in the family, I often act as the  spokesperson for my mum. School interview at school and doctors appointment  often meant acting as the translator for the teachers and doctors and mum. Mail at  home had to be reviewed and translated. My mum could sense the frustration and  agitation when I struggle to translate certain phrases or words in Chinese  (Mandarin). It is difﬁcult to express complex feelings or go into in-depth explanations  with my mum because of the language barrier.

I have selected storytelling as a tool to illustrate the challenges of language barrier  because stories can reach out to people and make an impact. The IBM example  showed us that storytelling is the foundation for examining the customer need and  how they are behaving. Our stories, individually or collectively, reveals something  about our own personal needs.

Application

Storytelling allows us to communicate and connect with the people around us and  makes us feel like we are a part of something. How effective is storytelling to  overcome the most impossible obstacle - language barrier? What can you do to  empathise and understand if you are unable to interact with those around you? Truth  is, most of us connect with the emotion rather than the form itself. Working for a  better education for my sister and I meant everything to my mum. My mum begins to  cry when she tells me stories of her childhood and how she never had the  opportunity to basic education. Being raised in a poor family as the last child of ten  children during the Chinese cultural revolution, my grandparents struggled to ﬁnd  food on the table let alone provide a fulﬁlling education to all the children. Til this day  she feels completely ashamed and embarrassed of the lack of education, yet her  heart is ﬁlled with joy and pride when she realise all the sacriﬁces she made was  worth it in the end was the day my sister and I graduated from university. For our  family, storytelling has broken down some language barriers as we were able to  connect and understand each other more on an emotional level, but certainly the  issue with using language as a prototype, aiming to solve the problem of  communication will remain a challenge.

Insight & Approach

Storytelling is a powerful tool in design thinking that is used throughout the process  because knowledge and data are captured in the stories. My mum’s story is not  unique, but it does highlight the importance of engaging your personal needs through  storytelling despite the language barrier. While dealing with the challenges of  language barriers, I wouldn’t substitute storytelling for other tools. Most of the  classmates I had gone to school with also had parents who immigrated to Australia,  and many of us grew up in households where language barrier was a major issue.  Storytelling has a profound impact on linking thoughts and ideas and become  emotionally connected. Through the stories we told each other during school lunch  breaks, we shared our lives and grew closer than ever.

