Do you stand your ground or run away?

Hi! I shall begin this piece by starting on my friend Alvin Tan's Facebook page - now as you may know, Alvin is now in Los Angeles and there was a discussion about the possibility of facing racism in America. There was this Malaysian guy who was paranoid about it - he posted a question. "Perhaps you have not faced racism yet, but what if you are just walking down the street and someone shouts racist abuse at you, like if he says some really nasty racist insults to you - then what will you do?" My reply was, "I would turn to face him, look him or her in the eye and shout something equally abusive back at him, the fool had picked the wrong guy to mess with. Please grow a set of balls, you may enjoy having them." My response surprised that Malaysian guy - because he thought that our response to such an incident would be to run home crying and then return to Singapore. He didn't anticipate my response to be as such and I suppose part of the reason why I would respond like that was because of my experiences growing up in Singapore.

Have you ever confronted anyone instead of running away?

Now in the eyes of this Malaysian, getting verbally abused when simply walking down the street in Los Angeles or London is a scary thing and maybe he has never ever experienced anything like that in Malaysia; that is why the spectre of racism is so scary for him. However, I have been through national service in Singapore. I have personally been bullied in the army, I have seen my fellow Singaporean soldiers being treated extremely poorly and all this whilst we are supposedly making this noble sacrifice to serve our country. I have seen my fellow soldiers being bullied for their ethnicity, their weight, their looks, their mannerisms, their sexuality, their social class, their religion, their accents, their political beliefs, the way they talk, the way they walk, the way they work - you name it, I have seen plenty of Singaporeans treating other Singaporeans really badly during NS. 

In the real world, we all know that simply staying in the country or city of your birth does not automatically protect you from bad people who will be nasty to you, exploit you, bully you and attack you. Rather than worry about crazy strangers attacking you of nowhere, perhaps you should be more wary of friends, family members, neighbours and colleagues. Heck, for me, as I was physically abused by my mother (she had serious psychological issues and anger management problems), I never ever felt that there was any "safe place" for me in this world free from any kind of external threat since I never even felt safe in my own house (ironically, I felt safer in the streets or at school then at home as a child). Instead, from a young age, I learned to cope with the threats that may come my way in life. 

Do you know where the real threats in your life may come from?

Allow me to share a little story from my childhood, this happened when I was about 6. On the street where I lived, one neighbour had a really huge dog that was always on a leash. One day, as I was walking down the road, to my horror, I saw this dog just standing in the middle of the road and I quickly calculated what I could do - there was no way I could outrun the dog and the dog was about 10 meters away. The dog was staring right at me and was walking closer and closer to me. I panic and froze - then my savior came along: one of the neighbour's Filipino maids appeared out of nowhere. "Please help me." I whispered to her. Calmly, she took my hand and we walked towards the dog. She stood tall and strong, staring right back at the dog. "Come, don't be scared, walk with me," she said. The dog simply stood still and let us pass - she then told me, "just be calm if that happens again. Never run away. If you run away, then the dog will know you are scared of it and will chase you down and bite you. But if you show the dog that you are bigger and stronger and you're not afraid, then you will be fine, okay? 

So that was how it was for me, learnt from this kind Filipino lady how I should respond the next time a threat came my way in life. Stand your ground, never run away, face your threat bravely and show them you are not afraid. I remember how in school, there were the kids who used to run to the teacher for every little dispute or complaint they may have with other students. "Teacher teacher, he scold me, he touch my bag etc." Oh the number of inane complaints my primary school teachers had to put up with. The naive kids who ran away to the teacher, expecting the teacher to solve their problems rather than try to solve their own disputes. Okay, perhaps children may encounter more complex disputes they simply cannot solve on their own - but the bulk of these disputes could have been resolved if the children simply took the time to try to talk to each other about their differences. No, instead our standard default response seems to be to run away from the problem and to find someone else to solve the problem for us.

I am quite good with dogs today actually.

Now that is wrong. That is so wrong and it must change. I realized this in the army when we were pretty much expected to solve our own problems - we were supposed to be adults (well, we were barely 18) but still expected to behave like responsible adults rather than little kids. Often there was no one to run to and we had to learn to get along with people we didn't like, work with people we despise and often had to live with people with could barely tolerate. Running away simply wasn't an option in many of these cases - no, we were simply forced to work out our differences, learn the art of compromise and hiding our feelings. It was where I was introduced to office politics: it was good training for the real world that awaited me out there.

Oh the amount of shit I had to put up with in the army, the number of very difficult people I had to work with - well, I survived it all and lived to tell the stories. So that did train me to face my problems and try to solve them, rather than run away and cry. It saddens me that the Malaysian guy in question didn't even think about confronting the racist in the situation - after all, if someone has already hurled abuse at me, my first reaction would be to turn around and give as good as I got because I would be angry that he had the audacity to insult me. Anger would be my primary response and anger would make me stay and stand my ground - not run away. Running away doesn't solve or change anything.

NS is a good training ground for the crap we have to face in the real world.

Have I ever done so? Well I have never faced a random racist attack before but there was an incident once at work when two people made a racist joke and I reported them. I made sure they were threatened with dismissal and it was only with my consent that they were allowed to continue with their contract. I guess this is one thing my regular readers will know about me - I don't get mad, I get even. Well, okay, I get angry first, then I get even. Anger is a great motivator. Perhaps some of you who are pacifists would advice me against allowing anger to overwhelm me at times like this - but what is the alternative? Run away and cry to my mother? Oh, you forgot, I spent most of my childhood running away from my mother. So that was never an option for me. 

Don't get me wrong - when I was in the army, I may have gotten angry on many occasions, but it was often the art of compromise that helped me achieve an amicable solution. My arny unit was full of "Hokkien pengs" (ie. Mandarin and Hokkien speaking soldiers who did not have either a poly diploma or A levels) and sure, there were conflicts which could have not been resolved by fist fights. A lot of it depended on the other party - sometimes you had to make friends with your enemy (keep your friends close and your enemies closer) and sometimes I had to show them that it was a very bad idea to mess with me. I always chose the best response to make the best of a difficult situation. I have seen people in the army attempt the 'run away and cry' response: they can't help it, they just don't know how to response otherwise to a difficult situation. There is really no where to run, so they end up isolated, helpless and miserable. It is not like they didn't have the resources to try to solve their problems, but I'm afraid there is something in our culture that conditions people to run away when confronted with a difficult situation. Now this has got to change: running away should never be your default response to any and every problem you may encounter in life.

It's kinda strange how the difficulties I faced as a child and during NS has actually taught me some of the most valuable lessons in my life - now I am not an angry person who goes around life picking fights, on the contrary, I am very rational and pragmatic. I have always preached the value of picking one's battles. But in this case, I am talking about when trouble comes looking for you: 不是我找的麻烦，是麻烦来找我 - thus we have to consider a range of responses including standing our ground and facing our problems instead of just running away.

So that's it from me on this issue - what would you do if some stranger started insulting you in the street? Would you turn around and face your abuser or would you run home crying to your mother? What do you think should be the right response then? Please let me know what you think - do leave a comment below, many thanks for reading.