Understanding Differences: A Foreigners Perspective

I am new to blogging and for the first time have decided to contribute. Let me begin by providing a little introduction which may assist in understanding my later discussion. I am Asian by birth and partially educated in Singapore. I left Singapore when I was young and spent most of my adult life in North America (over 15 years) with limited contact with Asia. As most of my adult life was spent in North America, I adopted a more American outlook as well as accent. However, I still understood my roots and had served the Asian community while I was living in the US and Canada. Later I adopted Canada as my country and became a Canadian. Three years ago, I decided to return to Singapore and this is where my experience and culture shock began as I adapted to life in Singapore.

To begin with, my experience began with the fact that many did not know how to categorize me; I looked Chinese but was not local, I spoke English but had an accent, I did not understand local culture but there was an assumption that I should as I am Chinese etc. These contributed to several rather interesting situations. For example, mobile phones and sms are popular tools here in Asia; however, such devices caught on slowly in North America. Even when I left Canada, sms was hardly used but was already a daily communication tool here. When I asked people how to sms or what it was, I received looks of surprise and laughter as if I were an alien. Another incident involved my speech. As I speak with a US mid-western accent (as I spent most of my life in the mid-western part of the US), I drew stares from people as well as comments that I was trying to show off with my accent and was a wannabe "ang moh" (the truth about my accent is that it's real and part of my speech).

However, the biggest shock that I received was how the "ang moh" was treated or the service that I would receive once people found out that I was Canadian. I had made the observation that if a person had blonde hair and blue eyes, service would be rendered to this person immediately; suddenly the rude sales person would tone down, smile, and speak to this person as if he/she were God. This experience was prevalent all through various places, be it at hotels, restaurants, banks etc. Also, the "ang moh" can say anything and people would be enthralled. I actually did run a test on the phone and realized that I got better service when I spoke with an accent as opposed to using local slang; this was shocking to me as I pondered whether an accent made me a different person suddenly (funny though!).

The point of my writing this is to point out certain issues:

1. With the influx of foreigners into Singapore, we need to be more tolerant and respectful of people. We all have to learn that the "ang moh" is not the only foreigner in Singapore; this group may be the most obvious in a crowd but potentially, there are still over a million of us here who are truly foreigners but look Asian. Looking Asian does not mean we are local and understand everything here; some of us REALLY have no clue about the local practices here.
2. Just because we look Asian and speak with an accent does not mean that we are wannabe "ang mohs"; some of us REALLY have this accent and it is part of our speech.
3. We should treat everyone with equal respect and not because the person is "ang moh". We are all human beings and the same treatment, whether in a hotel, restaurant, etc., should be given to all regardless. Please also do not try to categorize people by their appearances.

To summarize, I want to point out that there are differences between all of us and we have to learn to understand and respect one another for who they are. We should not make judgments and assumptions based solely on appearances beacause most of the time, you may be surprised that the judgment may be flawed.