Singapore and Malaysia are both multi-racial and culture countries as these two countries consist of three main ethnic groups such as Malays, Chinese and Indians. As different ethnic groups have different traditions, religious and cultures, the possibility of having intercultural problem are quite high as not all people will understand the culture and traditions of all the races. Thus, intercultural behaviours such as lifestyle, eating manner etc can cause problem if people do not understand the traditions and culture of different races. The incident that I would like describe is regarding intercultural behaviour and communication between Malays and Chinese which I heard from my friend.
Universities in Malaysia consist of majority Malays and Chinese students as these two races have a higher percentage in the Malaysia's population. As we know, first year students of all universities in Malaysia are compulsory to stay in accommodation so that they can be trained to be independent. As to enhance the interactions between different races and to minimize the gap between them, the universities has a policy to allocate students from different races to share a room so that they have more time to interact with each other. My friend was a student of one of the universities in Malaysia. During her first year in university, she was allocated to stay with Malays and Indian students. My friend was a student from Chinese school and did not understand much on the traditions and cultures of other races since she seldom have chance to communicate with people from other races during her primary and secondary school. Thus, she was not able to adapt herself to share room with students from other races. She had to communicate with them using Malay or English which was not her usual communication language. Besides that, she could not eat her favourite food which is pork in front of her room mates as there is a rule that not to eat pork in front of Muslim as this is a sin for them.
One of the major incidents that show intercultural behaviour's problem was the Muslim prayers' habit. As we know, Muslims are required to pray five times per day and they have certain direction for their pray. There was one early morning when my friend woke up during their prayer time. She was shocked when she saw her Muslim room mates prayed beside her bed with white clothes and head cover. At first, she was terrified by her room mates because she told she saw a ghost. After a few second, she felt unhappy and uneasy because in Chinese's traditions and culture, only dead person will be prayed by people and it is not a good sign if people pray in front of you. However, she managed to solve this problem by communicating with her Muslims room mate and both of them were adapted to each other's culture well and now they are good friends.
I was only aware about intercultural problems after I heard this story from my friend as my social circle is mainly Chinese since I studied primary school. Intercultural problems need to be solved to avoid miscommunication as well as ethnic groups bias. It is important to understand other races' traditions and cultures as intercultural behaviour cannot be avoided in our future workplace.
Universities in Malaysia consist of majority Malays and Chinese students as these two races have a higher percentage in the Malaysia's population. As we know, first year students of all universities in Malaysia are compulsory to stay in accommodation so that they can be trained to be independent. As to enhance the interactions between different races and to minimize the gap between them, the universities has a policy to allocate students from different races to share a room so that they have more time to interact with each other. My friend was a student of one of the universities in Malaysia. During her first year in university, she was allocated to stay with Malays and Indian students. My friend was a student from Chinese school and did not understand much on the traditions and cultures of other races since she seldom have chance to communicate with people from other races during her primary and secondary school. Thus, she was not able to adapt herself to share room with students from other races. She had to communicate with them using Malay or English which was not her usual communication language. Besides that, she could not eat her favourite food which is pork in front of her room mates as there is a rule that not to eat pork in front of Muslim as this is a sin for them.
One of the major incidents that show intercultural behaviour's problem was the Muslim prayers' habit. As we know, Muslims are required to pray five times per day and they have certain direction for their pray. There was one early morning when my friend woke up during their prayer time. She was shocked when she saw her Muslim room mates prayed beside her bed with white clothes and head cover. At first, she was terrified by her room mates because she told she saw a ghost. After a few second, she felt unhappy and uneasy because in Chinese's traditions and culture, only dead person will be prayed by people and it is not a good sign if people pray in front of you. However, she managed to solve this problem by communicating with her Muslims room mate and both of them were adapted to each other's culture well and now they are good friends.
I was only aware about intercultural problems after I heard this story from my friend as my social circle is mainly Chinese since I studied primary school. Intercultural problems need to be solved to avoid miscommunication as well as ethnic groups bias. It is important to understand other races' traditions and cultures as intercultural behaviour cannot be avoided in our future workplace.
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ReplyDeleteThanks for the post, Pooi San. It's very detailed, with your story reflective of the intercultural scenarios that Malaysians face quite often. I especially like this statement: It is important to understand other races' traditions and cultures as intercultural behaviour cannot be avoided in our future workplace.
ReplyDeleteActually, instead of "race," I'd use the phrase "ethnic group" because most social scientists see the basis of culture (and thus values, norms, traditions, religions) as being a person or group's ethnicity rather than the physical attributes of race.
Thank you for sharing this with us.
Hey Pooi San,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad this one had a good ending. I have many Malay and Indian friends and many, if not most, of them are Muslims. Even they have different religious standards, so I stopped trying to watch myself in front of them.
Pork is also one of my favourites, and I eat it in front of them very often. I didn't know it was offensive!
I think its good practice that the Universities in Malaysia allocate their rooms as mentioned. The many HDB flats in Singapore has that too! There're quotas for different families from different ethnic groups to meet. This is to ensure a multi-racial society in Singapore. I lived in the boarding school when I was in secondary school, so I lived with a Viet, a Taiwanese, and a Bruneian in a four-way room, and I was very glad for the experience.
Thanks for sharing, I think it was a good post.
Hi Brad,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback on my post as well as pointing out my language error!!=)
Cheers!!=)
Hi Roy,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your compliments and sharing with me your experience as well as the current Singapore phenomenon.
I think through staying with people who are from different countries, you did learn a lot about their culture and religious as well. I think it is good for you.
Cheers!!=)