When I was serving in the army, there were many unpleasant incidents which involved intercultural communication. In my section, there was an Indian called Dinesh (name was changed). Dinesh was an Indian national who received his Singapore Permanent Residence status after graduation from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU). Therefore, he had to serve National Service (NS) too.
I had Singaporean Indians in my previous sections and everyone got along well. To pass time, we often joked among ourselves and made fun of each other. However, with Dinesh, it was very different, he seemed to be offended easily when we made fun of him and often commented that we were racist. We found it hard to comprehend since there are other Indians around, why was it only Dinesh who got so agitated. After all, the teasing was mutual and no one targeted a certain race or group.
There was an outfield exercise and after a long day of training, we finally set up our tents and could change out of the sweaty uniforms. My other friend and I removed our uniforms and laid them on the tents to dry with the inner side facing downwards. Dinesh came along and placed his uniform, similarly with the inner side facing downwards, on top of our uniforms. The interesting thing was my friend and I simultaneously said, "No Dinesh, flip it." Dinesh took offence and removed his uniform. During the debrief of the exercise, Dinesh complained to the superiors that we were discriminating against him by not allowing him to air his uniform with ours.
On hindsight, I feel that this incident was a major case of intercultural miscommunication. My friend (Chinese) and I said no to Dinesh because he was placing the inner side on top of our dirty uniforms. Probably it is a Chinese culture that even dirty clothing have an inner and outer side. The inner being the side which will come into contact with one's skin and the outer being the side which is exposed to the environment. We did not want the inner side of Dinesh's uniform to be dirtied by the "dirtier" outer side of our uniforms. Our intentions were grossly misinterpreted to the extent that they were seen as racist and discriminatory.
From this experience, I realized when communicating with people of different cultural backgrounds, it is necessary to pay extra attention to the details. Having a similar culture and way of thought, my friend and I could understand what we meant by "No. Flip it." and would find that comment as a nice gesture. However, coming from a different cultural background, Dinesh was offended by the "No" and did not understand the subtle message behind "Flip it". Once again, I would like to remind everyone to be more tactful with the choice of words when conversing with people of different cultural backgrounds.
