On this earth, only humans use words to communicate. All other animals are unable to do this. Are we using our communication skills to the fullest? What should communication be?

I think communication should be like playing catch (Catch-Ball). The catcher should provide a large target for the thrower, so that the thrower can easily hit the glove, the target. Also, the catcher must throw the ball back to the thrower. Or else, there is no point to playing catch.

Let me explain. To provide a large target means to listen carefully with one's eyes and one's ears wide-open. To throw the ball back, means to answer questions and state your opinion.

Communication is also using words with emotional content added in. For example, if you say, "I love you." ...without emotional content, it is very different from saying, "I love you." ...with emotional content.

Even if we should solve the problems stated above, we would still have our limits for effective communication. For example, if I say, "I'm very nervous." The people listening to me can not know just how nervous I really feel. Even within our single language of Japanese, we have such problems.

So, how well are we communicating to foreigners at present? Foreigners have different cultures, different ideas, and they very often speak a different language than ours.

Also, Japanese are a harmonious race of people. Japanese try very hard to get along with each other. The reason for this I believe is, that Japan is an island country and the people have learned the need to cooperate with one another in order to survive, in order to put food on the table, in order to be successful in business.

But, I have seen that America is a hugh country. The people there can be more independent. From my experiences while living in California, I often saw Americans arguing over even small things.

If you want to enjoy talking with foreigners, you must first learn a little about their culture and about the history of their country. I'll now give you an example of what I mean. I went to see an American movie at a Japanese theater. And, a joke was told in the movie. But, I was the only one that laughed at the joke in the whole theater!

However, if the audience had known something about the culture and history of the country the movie was made in, maybe more of the audience would have laughed at the joke. What I mean to say is, the audience could have enjoyed the movie more.

You know? It really isn't difficult to speak to foreigners. Maybe, you guys think that making even small mistakes is a very bad thing. In my case, even my father and I have trouble communicating from time to time. What we do is, we continue to talk to each other until we work it out. It took a long time, but we are now getting better at communicating with each other.

If we can solve the problems stated above, we will be able to avoid many communication problems between all people in the future.

Conflict or war will never solve these problems. We need to learn to be even more peaceful when we are communicating.