#4 Evaluating Intercultural Behavior

During my one month stay in Taiwan over the December vacation, I met several locals and there was an incident that left me quite culturally shocked.

I had met an acquaintance for the first time and I realised he was speaking to me in Chinese slowly,using hand gestures to emphasize his words. He even tried to communicate with me in halting English as the conversation wore on, as if I was unable to comprehend what he was trying to say. It puzzled me as to why he was acting in this manner because he was speaking fluently to his fellow Taiwanese and I had perfectly no problem following the conversation as I was fluent in the Chinese language.

So I asked him why he kept acting in this manner and his answer was: "I thought Singaporeans only knew how to speak English and I was afraid you would have trouble understanding me." And when I started asking the other Taiwanese if they thought Singaporeans only knew how to speak English, they nodded in agreement because we hardly used Chinese language as a medium to communicate.

This incident made me realise that different cultures really view each other differently. Even though we were all Chinese, the Taiwanese thought we could not understand Chinese because of the way we portrayed ourselves to the world, using English as our main language medium. I believe that if they had been aware that Singapore was a multi-racial country, they would have known that I was fully capable of speaking and understanding the Chinese language.

In a nutshell, we really should not be ignorant of other cultures and form our own opinions about others. It is important that we become socially aware of the different cultures around the world as Singapore becomes a globalised country.