Learned how to argue, finally.

The other day I talked to a Verizon representative for 20 minutes and tried to explain why they should have let me know when they canceled a scheduled visit to my place, after they had made me waiting at home.

In the end, all he could say was, "Sorry, but I don't know."

At that point I felt pretty good about myself, not because this single "victory", but because I learned how to argue, finally.

I come from a culture where people rarely argue, not in public, anyway. For one thing, it is regarded as a bad manner; more importantly, we Chinese think argumentation or confrontation in general cannot solve any problem and on the contrary, it often makes things worse.

Soon after arriving in the U.S. I realized, however, argumentation is just something that happens whenever and wherever.

My first memory was about two research scientists argued over some technical issues over brown bag lunch meeting. Ouch! Did they have time to chew?!

Then I was flabbergasted when a fellow student argued with our professor in class--definitely a taboo in China.

The most amazing part though, as I later found out, is those who argue don't necessarily enjoying it. They just have to if they want to be heard. If you wait politely, as I used to do, there is hardly ever a moment reserved for you to jump in.

Of course lack of enjoyment is not the only problem. The biggest issue is argumentation assumes one side is right and the other is wrong, which is not always case, and this is especially true in the environmental science domain. Very likely the two parties may as well present different points on a continuous spectrum, and a win-win solution is possible if people can communicate in a more peaceful format.

For this reason I actually organized an event called "Multi-logue" in our group. Although one person argued that "Poly-logue" was the right name due to word origin issue (and I think he is right) people got my idea and seemed to enjoy the event.

I myself obviously picked up some skills on how to argue here and there, and before I realized, I finally learned how to argue. Yahoo!