Just about one year ago, I met a group of America exchange students. It was their first day in Singapore and everything seems new to them. As newcomers, they hoped to immerse in the culture of Singapore quickly and to get along with Singaporean friends.
To welcome the students, there was a group of student ambassadors to introduce the exchange students to the campus and the surrounding. One of the student ambassadors called Jennifer was given the role as a guide. She introduced herself to the group. Everyone in the group greeted her warmly and loved to chat with her. (They hug her on the first sight.) Jennifer was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm. She was not used to such warmness and felt a bit uncomfortable. In her mind, she thought that it might be that was the foreign students were curious about the new environment and Americans are less conservative than Asians.
In the afternoon, the foreign students came to the canteen to eat lunch. The students asked Jennifer to recommend some unique Singaporean food to them. And then, the students followed her to the stalls. One of the students, Joseph, suddenly stretched out his right hand and surrounded Jennifer’s waist while chatting with her. At this moment, Jennifer felt really uncomfortable. Being a conservative Asian, such an action was unbearable to her. She immediately pushed his hands away. She shouted: “Hey what are you trying to do!” Joseph was shocked by Jennifer’s reaction. To him, such an action was a norm in America. He was just being friendly and did not know that it would cause such a commotion. He did not know what he had done wrong. Jennifer felt very embarrassed and angrily left the group.
Being one of the witnesses for this scene, I felt that this conflict was caused by the cultural differences between the two parties. Joseph was from America and in his country, hugging new friends were a norm to him; it was their way of saying ‘Hi’. However, Jennifer was a typical Asian. Over here, people are more conservative and would not hug each other during their first meeting. A hug is only mean for close ones and families. Hence, Jennifer was shocked by Joseph’s action when he placed his arm on her waist. She felt that Joseph was being rude and did not respect others. However, it did not occur to Joseph that his actions were perceived as something undesirable and unacceptable.
Such conflicts often occurred because of difference cultural values and beliefs. Due to lack of understanding in another country’s culture, people often got a cultural shock when going to foreign country. It was a norm to see how Singaporeans complained about the actions foreigners did in Singapore and vice versa. Perhaps with tolerance and understanding, there would not so much cultural conflicts.
Just to confirm, this is a real scenario right? Because personally, I would feel shocked if someone held my waist on the very first day I met him. Please enlighten me! And.. why was Marlene angry when Jennifer was the one he held? I'm slightly confused here.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, if I were in the same boat, I would probably have toned down my reaction. Personally I felt that it was an overreaction on the part of the Asians. It would have been more appropriate for them to voice out, and to let their foreign counterparts understand how uncomfortable they were feeling, instead of behaving so rudely. And there's another thing! Being student ambassadors, shouldn't they have been better prepared to welcome students from a different culture? For example, they should have at least had a basic idea of what the American culture was like, because they were the ones bringing them around.
Just my two cents worth!
HiI do not think that it is a natural reaction for Americans to put their hands around a girl's waist. We are globalised people and we do watch shows and dramas from America, thanks to cable television. I do not see such behaviour between friends, much less between friends who meet on the first day. So, I wouldn't regard this as a cultural difference, but more of a difference in personality and social circle.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post, Michael. You describe the scenario fairly clearly. I have to agree with Michelle, however, in questioning whether Joseph was acting on his cultural impulses rather than individual ones. Being an American, I can say with some certainty that we don't typically hug people we've just met, unless perhaps under special circumstances. You also use the word conservative Asian, implying somehow that ALL AMERICANS are liberal. These are gross stereotypes, precisely the sort of generalizations that I'd suggest that we avoid. Of course, this is not to say that we can never generalize. But let me ask you this: Are all Asians "conservative"? What about the bar girls I see down at Boat Quay? What about the hookers in Geylang? But my real question is this: What does conservative mean? Wouldn't it be better to not use such a vague term and just speak in specifics?
ReplyDeletehi mabel,
ReplyDeleteThere is a typo error. It should be Jennifer instead of Marlene.
This is true story told by one of my friend.Of course, I added modification and amplification.
Hi Brad, I fully understood your point. Might I suggest that in this case stereotypes of conservative and liberal are actually very very good simply because they SHAPE and GUIDE further thinking on conservative and liberal. We definitely need to start somewhere, do you agree? Our minds and brains need to have a framework that is basic and comprehendable enough, from which we gain more intricate knowledge as we grow and develop intellectually, do you agree?
ReplyDeleteFor that, I generally will want to start with West equals liberal or individualist or egoist, while East usually connotates traditions, conservative, communalism, altruism or otherwise.
Cheers
Hi Michael, Mabel and Michelle,
ReplyDeleteI am totally, so totally disgusted with that rogue American dude. He deserves the highest capital punishment equal to 24 strokes of the cane under Singapore jurisprudence. He is such a cheap flirt and I bet he didn't come here to fulfil his course credits only; instead he was also hoping to exercise his promiscuity with supposedly submissive and 'easy' Singaporean girls. Like Brad mentioned, no American dude has any legitimate reason to get so intimate with a girl within an hour of meeting other than to get in her pants? Oh dear, that is felony of the highest order because it is comparable rape!
Cheers
Hi Brad again, the hookers in Geylang do not have a problem with conservative; instead they have one with rationalism. They were Asians and presumably brought up the way we think they were brought up which is conservative, traditional, and somewhat inhibited in freedom of thought, speech and action, very unlike individualist American or British culture or otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThese Asians who so worked as hookers had a problem with rationalism because they can have a conservative set of morals, ethics and values, but then decide to forgo one or two of them if it brings about THE GREATEST GOOD FOR THE GREATEST NUMBER ALA JEREMY BENTHAM'S UTILITARIANISM (18TH CENTURY FAMOUS CONSEQUENTIALIST PHILOSOPHER). THAT EXPLAINS WHY THEY TOOK UP THE HOOKER JOB!!!!
How do these hooker jobs bring about rationalism/consequentialism/utilitarianism or the greatest good for the greatest number?
Let's look at the hookers. They can be generalized to women who do not necessarily enjoy the sex that they do so much as they enjoy the velvet cash rewards that accompany sexual services; these are the benefits or the good with respect to the self or self-interest in terms of day-to-day survival and needing enough money to make ends meet for their families and/or themselves.
On the other hand what might be the greatest disadvantages or pitfalls of casual sex services? You name it, I got it: HIV, Gonorrhea, Herpes, Syphilis, Cervical and/or womb cancer, and perhaps some other mentally harrowing and sado-masochistic experience.
Having gotten and weighed the advantages and disadvantages of casual sex services, the women, whether accurately or inaccurately, derives a conclusion that due to exigent familial, personal, economic circumstances, she decides in favour of being a hooker; which is that she perceives the greatest good for the greatest number of people including any family members or friends and relatives and children she is trying to support.
In that sense she is not making a decision based on her conservativeness because she is by default of conservative socialization given her Asian background (if we presume all Asian socializations are more or less conservative); instead she is taking a decision based on self-interest or rationalism precisely because she is willing to overlook her conservative roots for some benefit to her outcome of life, which is often times cash-driven. She then calculates and perceives a greatest good for the greatest number and that cannot be faulted because she is rationally, albeit very mistakenly, giving more weightage to the seemingly altruistic virtue of trying to support her family members or otherwise. That makes the most sense to her because human beings are largely self-interested and rational when it comes to matters of day-to-day survival and staying alive and living on, and this is all the more defined and justified when these women are struggling to find a way out of poverty and are very desperate.
(continue below)
She ultimately had to see, given her poor state, that there can only be the greatest good for the greatest number of people including herself and her own survival, when she opts to moonlight in the streets of Geylang, or Vegas, Rappongi, Patpong etc.
ReplyDeleteShe has made a decision consequentially a la utilitarianism, independant of her primary value system or morals and ethics and beliefs socialized into her. And most hookers who take the streets are really mostly doing it out of making daily ends meet and a job rather than a pastime or hobby. If they were doing such sex out of the love for it or hobby, then they can be implicated for being at odds with the presumably conservative and prohibitive Asian socialization they were schooled in: but they weren't for most cases!!!!
The same cannot be said of the bar girls at Boat Quay Brad!!!! Those girls who work as bar girls might not be so desperate for cash and survival because if they would, they would be selling their bodies instead of working in the bar. These groups of women are the in-between groups who dont demonstrate as dire a circumstance as hookers. Of course I'm generalizing here because these women might be working as bar interns as some one-off job and then they can rightly be implicated for trangressing Asian conservative ideals: but I dont see how that can be the case because I think they are also operating out of rationalism and self-interest and utilitarianism. They want the greatest pleasure--which is cash salaries as well as being drooled over by men and having a surge of sexual estrogen and feel-good sensualities, for the greatest number---which include themselves and all the male customers they will serve, entertain, flirt, chat up with. So in a sense, they might be considered to be operating independantly of their primary conservative agency, in which of course inconsistency and contradiction exist hand-in-hand with more liberal bar or pole girl jobs. This is the same inconsistency and contradiction that would have been present in the hooker example given earlier.
Contradiction and inconsistency exist in every human agent, and that is as rule as that of night and day, light and darkness, hot and cold. The success of human agents in any aspect of living is and must be contingent upon the perfect balance of the contradictions which is called MODERATION OR JUSTICE!
Brad and everybody here, WE ARE BACK TO SQUARE ONE ARGUMENT---MODERATION/JUSTICE!!!
Cheers
Hookers and Bargirls
Apologies in my next to last post and in the 4th paragraph one of the sentence should read this:
ReplyDelete"They can be generalized to women who do not necessarily enjoy the sex that they do so much as they enjoy the velvet cash rewards that accompany sexual services and the pleasures of orgasm that their male customers concurrently experience of them;........"
Cheers
hi brad,
ReplyDeleteI think I am over generalize, I should have use limting words such as "some" Asian and American. "Conservative" to me meant adhere to old traditions and practices.