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.
Hi there Qu Kui,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote about a very interesting problem that you encountered regarding intercultural behavior.
Having met and made friends with a few foreigners, I find that we, as Singaporeans, don't really think too much when we poke fun at each other, especially of people with different backgrounds from ours.
They often look on in shock when we jest about someone else--particularly if that person is from a different background--because they think we're doing it malevolently. I think this is why Americans are so politically correct because they're afraid of being labelled racist.
Even though there might be people who are racist in Singapore, there seems to be some kind of moral code in which we don't really pick at someone's background and culture if we want to insult them. It's one of the big no-no's because we have it ingrained in us that it's what led to the Maria Hertogh riots and is an integral part of our history.
You're right that we really have to not only consider our cultural backgrounds but also societal backgrounds when dealing with others.
I was thinking if my friend and I told Dinesh about the "inner side of the shirt" issue, would he have not feel so offended, especially when he already judged us as "racist" even before that incident.
ReplyDeleteRelationships are really complicated and all communications have to be mutual. I guess we can only try our best to be politically correct to others, but the hypocrisy is unpleasant too!
This may sound really controversial, I do feel that everyone is racist to some extend, but like you have mentioned, there is some kind of moral code involved.
Oh dear what a sad misinterpretation of intentions:(( You know what I'm tempted to ask if you locals (Singaporeans) tried socializing with him outside the army setting. The reason I ask this is that, we often get to know people better when we meet them socially. We understand their sensitivties, etc. much better.
ReplyDeleteHi Radhika,
DeleteDuring our free time, we always chat among ourselves, I think we considered that as socializing outside the army setting.
In groups (together with Dinesh), we talked about life outside the SAF such as relationships etc. We had conflicts in camp, which is common when individuals had clash of interests. However, these conflicts dissolved as quickly as they were formed. The racist issue was rather surprising because none of us meant it that way.
After his complaint to the superior, we tend to behave more professionally with him but it removed the social touch. Probably it worsen the situation since we tried to stay way from him to avoid him misunderstanding us again.
Frankly speaking, it is turned us off when he complained about the racist issue. Even when the superior tried to explain to him, he was adamant that we racist(I guessed he could have had bad experiences with it in the past).
There were instances when he retaliated by voicing out comments about Chinese, I feel that it makes him "racist" too. I think he could have just let us know in private if he felt certain comments were "racist", instead of insisting that we had the intentions to discriminate him.
Brought up in Singapore, I believed that locals are not racist as we have friends of different races. Since that incident, I tried to constantly remind myself to be as politically correct sounding as possible, especially when interacting with less familiar persons of a different race.