Sunday, 10 March 2013

Blog#4 Evaluating Intercultural Behavior



Hi Guys

Since I am a foreigner myself, I shall share my intercultural experience in Singapore.

Let me start off with greetings. In Hong Kong, we have the habit of greeting our family, neighbours, friends and colleagues ‘Good Morning’ in the morning. It is rude if we do not greet. In Hong Kong, we are taught to greet since young. In, fact I was scolded many times by my parents for forgetting to greet them in the morning. However, in Singapore, I think it is not so strict. Last year, I was working in an engineering company for my internship. When I greeted ‘Good Morning’ to the company staffs, they all looked shocked and seemed to be caught off guard.  It seemed to me that they had not expected the greeting and many only replied back after a while. And it was then I realized that the Singaporean staffs do not have the habit of greeting each other in the morning. Maybe this is not the norm, but generally I do not see many Singaporeans greeting in the morning.  However, this is not to say Singaporeans are rude, but maybe the habit of greeting is not common in Singapore.

My hobby is eating and I really LOVE Singapore foods. Some of my favourites are Chicken rice, Satay and Roti prate. I always go to the nearby hawker centre where I can order a variety of food at very affordable prices. Sometimes we can see packets of tissues on the seats and tables. Of course by now, I fully understand the function of these tissues. However, thinking back, when me and my family just arrived in Singapore, we were clueless about it. In Hong Kong, water and tissues are free in most restaurants and eateries.  Hence we mistakenly thought that the tissues were free for diners to use. It was really embarrassing when the people who had occupied the seats came back with their ordered food and explained to us that the tissues belonged to them.

These are some of my intercultural experience in Singapore. I am sure some foreigners, like me may be able to relate to my experiences above.

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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous11 March 2013 at 06:50

    Hey Siu Cheng

    Thanks for your post about the issue of tissue paper. It seems that many foreigners misunderstand about the tissue issue! Haha. Let me give you a Singaporean perspective. I guess seats can be hard to come by in public eating places such as hawker centres where it can get crowded during the peak periods and Singaporeans almost hate to wait for seat, hence they use tissue paper (the cheapest possible object) to reserve the seat they've found. While this might seem like a behaviour that is socially ungraceful to other cultures, it is accepted in the Singapore culture. This behaviour is goes overboard (in my humble opinion) when the person reserves the seat with the tissue paper and disappears for a long period of time (i.e. hogging the table without being there personally) but other than that I think it's fine.

    Thanks for not being judgemental about Singaporeans in the first paragraph too! It's nice to know that you can accept our culture for what it is.


    -Eunice S

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  2. Ci Xin16 March 2013 at 06:41

    Hi Siu chung,

    Thanks for sharing your greeting experience. I agree with you that Singaporeans are a bit conservative in the sense that we do not always take the initiative to greet people especially if you do not know someone well enough. This excludes your boss or colleagues that you already knew. So I am guessing that it should be the first day of your internship when you expressed a very friendly side of you.

    Personally, I would think that you were an enthusiastic and approachable person even on the first day. So I thought that the company’s reaction was sort of making a mountain out of a molehill. A possible reason could be different companies have different cultures and your company had a serious working environment or so. Therefore I guess we both have to learn to read the signs.

    After reading your post, I start to understand more about Hong Kong’s culture. If I am ever given the opportunity to work or study in Hong Kong, I will remember to greet everyone in the morning. :)

    Cx

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  3. Anonymous17 March 2013 at 03:13

    Hello Siu Chung,

    Personally, I do not have the habit of putting packets of tissues on the seats and table just to reserve the seats. I would prefer to put my bag or to have someone reserve the seats. Probably one reason why people have the habit of putting packets of tissues is because tissues are cheap and thus the risk of being stolen is small. Another reason is probably because people do not really like to wait at the table to reserve the seats.

    I also agree with you that Singaporeans do not really have the habitat to great people who we do not know well. I am glad you take the initiative to greet the people there and people may perceive you to be friendly which can be a good thing.
    Thanks for sharing about the culture in Hong Kong and I have learn something new which I will take note if I am going to Hong Kong in the future.

    Kelvin

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