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Sunday, September 21, 2008

Evaluating Intercultural Behaviour


This episode took place a week ago during a project meeting in school between a Chinese and Malay friend of mine. My Chinese friend John, asked my Malay friend Maerdin, whether he wanted somthing to eat and Maerdin declined. John, thinking that Maerdin was being polite, decided to buy him a chicken wing. Little did John know that this is the fasting month of our Muslim friends. When John returned, he gave the chicken wing to Maerdin and asked him to eat it while its hot. Maerdin flared up, 'Can you be more considerate? I am fasting now!'. John immediately apologised to Maerdin, saying that he totally forgot that Maerdin is fasting. But Maerdin packed up his stuff and left the meeting.

From this short encounter, I learnt the significance of knowing the cultures and practices of other races. And this fully reflects that even in a small country like Singapore, many differences can exist between the practises of people from, difference race, and we should make a constant effort to find out more information about people we are interacting with. Although this gesture seemed unintentional, John could have been more sensitive about such culture practices, and the misunderstanding could have been avoided.

Maerdin might have thought John is mocking him, disrespecting him and his culture. As we know, our Malay friends take pride in their culture and practices, what John did could have been too much for Maerdin to accept. When I talked to John after the incident, he confessed that he honestly did not know that Maerdin was fasting and he had bought him the chicken wing as he heard his stomach growling that morning.

When I talked to my neighbour Uncle Nazri about this episode, he told me that although John could have been more sensitive toward Maerdin, Maerdin should not have reacted the way he did. Usually, our fellow Muslim friends would be gracious about it and reply 'I'm fasting' and just laugh it off. It could have been a bad day for Maerdin and that might have triggered his forceful reaction.

11 comments:

Sze Min said...

Hi Darren,

This is a very common situation that will happen on every fasting month due to the other racial group's lack of knowledge of the Malay cultures. I admit that I would not have noticed the fasting month has already arrived if friends did not mention it in the first place. People can give lots of excuses that they are busy with their own stuff and thus forget about the events that is happening at that time. However, I believe that if we are observant enough to notice, such misunderstanding can be prevented.

The same can be said when we dine out with our malay friends at a restaurant as people would normally forget about the Malay's cultural practices of dining only in halal restaurants. It is these little things that hurt the bonding between 2 different racial groups as the receiving party may think that their friends are not respectful enough for their culture. Therefore, I think that more should be done to instill racial and cultural knowledge if we want to prevent such situation from happening in the future. Maybe we can start by educating the younger generation so that people have more awareness of the cultural practices of people around them.

Alicia said...

Hi Darren,

I have met with a similar encounter, but instead of offering my friend a chicken wing I offered her a curry puff. Judging from your friend’s experience I would consider myself very fortunate as my friend just jokingly shoved that curry puff into my mouth and reminded me that she was fasting. From what I can gather John may not be the first person to tempt Maerdin with food and this could trigger his frustrations.

In a multi-racial country that we are in, it is particularly crucial that different racial groups take the effort and initiative to understand and accommodate customs and traditions of other races apart from their own. Just imagine every Chinese would to act like John and every Malays like Maerdin. It would be ultimate chaos. Though there are times where such customs just simply slip our mind, ignorance should not be considered a valid excuse to disregard the practices of other races. I believe with a conscious effort to comprehend these customs, racial conflicts will be very minimal.

jiawei said...

Hi Darren,

I agree with sze min and alicia that knowing about other people's culture and religions are very important towards racial harmony especially in singapore.

As to the chaos that alicia mentioned will come about if we are ignorant and unsenstive about our neighbours religions and culture. i am reminded about the 1964 riot in singapore. I can fully imagine a riot taking place due to disrespect in cultural issues in singapore and therefore, we should be careful to prevent such incidents from having a chance to happen.

Jing Yi said...

Hey Darren,

I have to admit I am guilty of such acts like John. Frankly, because I am not a Malay, so most of the time I am not conscious about the fasting month.

I do snack during lectures most of the time. And there is once when one of my Muslim friend told me that I was rude to eat in front of her. I got a shock as I felt I did nothing wrong, since I have been snacking in lectures for quite some time and she does join in too.Upon asking her, then I realize that she was fasting.

As a Singaporean, we will really need to be alert and aware to different races. I do agree with Sze Min, Alicia and Jia Wei. As long as we put in the effort to comprehend all these cultures, we can keep any form of racial conflicts to the minimal.

Jean Tan said...

Singapore is a multi-racial country, hence culture differences exist.

Living in country where there are so many different cultures, one should know (at least a little) what each culture is about. John is being nice by offering food to a friend but it is also his fault in bringing the food to Muslim friend who is fasting. If he does know about the Muslim culture, he would have avoided this.

Maerdin is at fault too. He should be more forgiving and pardon his Chinese friend for not realizing it is the fasting month. He should use his EQ and communication skills, where he can explain nicely to John. He should also understand that John did that out of concern.

To maintain racial harmony in Singapore, we have to learn more about cultural differences and be more considerate and tolerance.

Shao Bin said...

Hi Darren,

Singapore is a small country with different races of people hang around together. Hence, it is very important for us to be more conscious on their individual culture to prevent any misunderstanding.

I think that your friend, John is just being nice to offer food to Maerdin with no intention. It is his fault that he slipped off his mind that it is the Malay's fasting period. But he really does that with no intention.

On the hand, Maerdin should not reacted this way. He should handle in a nicer way. He should let John know in a nicer way and i believe John will understand and feel bad. He should learn to be more tolerant and forgiving.

I remembered once my friend told me that while they fast, they are actually challenging themselves with the level of tolerance and forgiveness.

Nonetheless, we must respect and be more aware of others culture.

xinyu said...

hey darren,

I believe that this situation has happened to most of us with Malay friends. It actually happended to me not long ago with my Malay project group mate as well. My project mate revealed that she will be going to Geylang after the project meeting and another teammate actually asked whether she was going to have durians. My malay teammate appeared to be disappointed that no one actually remembered that they were fasting and that they have to shop at Geylang Serai to prepare for Hari Raya Puasa.

Coming from chinese schools for both my primary and secondary school, I am guilty of having very little malay friends and not understanding their culture well. However, i feel that it is definitely possible to bridge the gap between difference in cultures of the two races. While we have to be more sensitive toward our malay friends cultures and be careful not to leave them out in our conversations, they also have to put in effort to tolerate it when we unintentionally forget their practices and cultures.

oxy said...

Hi Darren,

I had encountered actually the same situation as your friend John. I remembered it was last year Ramandan month where the incident happened. Being ignorance, I kept complaining how hungry I was to my Muslim friend. Well, my friend did not react the same way as Maerdin. He put it across very nicely that he could not join me for lunch as he was fasting.

Though my friend seemed not affected by my ignorance gesture, I felt apologetic for my action. I know this friend of mine takes pride in his culture and yet I was so insensitive.

From this incident, I learnt the importance of understanding intercultural behavior. With the knowledge of how other cultural groups behave and work, it can better facilitate effective communication, thus enhancing our interpersonal skills with people around us.

MadelineLee said...

Hi Darren,

From the different encounters with people from different ethnic groups and religions, I realized the importance to learn and understand their ways of living and practices. In Singapore, the different ethnic festivals can bring about racial harmony as people share the festive joy with others but they can also result in conflicts should misunderstand arises. Besides Malay friends, I have friends who are Christians and they also fast near Good Friday. Therefore, it may take a thoughtful mind to remember all the different periods of fasting for different religious and belief. This applies to the other different practices. Hence, it is worth the effort to learn and be mindful about these practices so as to have harmonious relationships with people from different walks of life. Personally, I feel that the keys to intercultural interaction are understanding and sensitivity.

Joanna said...

Hi Darren,

I feel that even though Singapore has been a nation for 43 years, the different racial groups still lack thorough understanding to the respective cultures and traditions. Although racial ties have been improving tremendously throughout the years, it seems that innocuous neglect or minor ignorance might still be a spark to trigger racial conflicts. It is up to us to be vigilant to the existence of our intercultural differences, as the government has done much to foster racial harmony, the ultimate responsibilities still falls upon our shoulders to exercise sensitivity in all our actions as different actions are interpreted differently by different racial groups. The “John and Maerdin” incident is really an innocuous mistake, but if gravely disregarded it can flare up within the community.

Timothy Huang said...

Dear Darren,

I am quite amused at your example. It is almost incredible that your friend did not know about the fasting months which Muslims usually observe. This shows that "knowing" about intercultural differences is not enough and taking the initiative to actively learn about our friend's culture is the way to form harmonious relationships.

I think your friend John did not deliberately not know about the fasting month, but just like many of us, we are just too lazy to learn about these other cultures. I am sure that he would remember this episode and take care that he does not make the same mistakes again.

Maerdin, at the same time, could do more to help his culture by explaining about the fasting practice to John, instead of just flaring up. Like you've said, he might had a bad day so we should watch our own tempers when we speak with friends from other cultures. We do not want other things to affect our judgement while we are on the subject as sensitive as intercultural differences.

Rgds,
Timothy Huang
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