Before I start the post I have to say that in this post I am not being prejudice or "nationalist". If I offend anyone with this post please let me know thank you. This incident happened to my friend in NUS about 2 to 3 weeks ago.
My friend was in the central library on Saturday rushing his report which was due in a few days time. He has been slogging it out for about 7 hours since 9 am.
At around 4pm, feeling tired he went to the restroom to freshen up. As he was only going to be away for a short duration, he left his laptop and belongings on the table and went to the restroom.
When he returned he realised that his laptop had switched off by itself. He was shocked as it was still switched on when went to the restroom. He then found out what went wrong. The socket that he was using had an extra user and the socket had been turned off so that it could be shared; his lap top's battery was not attached to the laptop when the socket was turned off.
He immediately turned on his laptop to check if his work was still present. To his horror it was no longer there as it has not been saved. Fueled with anger, he went forward to confront the user sharing the socket with him. The user was a Chinese national; my friend, disgusted by the person's action started quarreling with him.
His reason for quarreling with the Chinese national was that, he had not asked the friend of mine if it was possible to share the socket with him. He had assumed that it was fine to just turn off the socket as everyone had batteries within their laptops.
I guess I will leave the confrontation to every one's imagination. After the incident my friend developed a very bad impression of these Chinese nationals, and had to re-type his report.
On first impression, most people will see this as a conflict because of a lack of basic courtesy. However to me I see this incident as an inter-cultural conflict between Chinese nationals and Singaporeans. From my observations and experience, most of the Chinese nationals tend to keep within their own group and they hardly talk to any Singaporeans. Many of never had a chance to immerse themselves into the Singapore culture when they arrived in Singapore. They do not know much of the Singapore and may have assumed that when you require anything from someone, as long as it doesn’t cause any problems for the party it is ok not to ask. I personally have saw quite a few incidents such as this in NUS, such as taking up empty seats of the without asking the first occupant of the bench. Therefore incidents such as this are bound to happen. I guess more interactions between Singaporeans would be a good way to reduce such conflicts.
Personally if I was a foreigner in a country, I would first find out the culture and customs of the country as it would help reduce conflicts and misunderstandings between the locals. Most importantly practice basic courtesy when in doubt. If everyone practices basic courtesy, I guess such conflicts can too be reduced.
UCS1001 S21 Tri1 2024-25
3 weeks ago
