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| Recently at the Botanic Gardens of Singapore |
I would like to challenge that mindset in today's post. I have just spent three weeks in Singapore quite recently over August and September and part of the reason why I enjoy visiting Singapore is because I get to catch up with my old friends there each time. Having spent nearly 20 years away from Singapore, many people would assuming that I am merely catching up with old classmates from a long time ago - well actually, no. I did meet up with two classmates - one whom I went to secondary school and JC with and the other is Kevin Jang, whom I studied French with years ago at l'Alliance Française (so yeah he is an ex-classmate of sorts) - you can see him in my latest vlog post here. I did see a lot of people in Singapore - I uploaded over 300 photos onto Facebook from my trip there - so who were these other people I saw in Singapore if my old classmates couldn't be asked to see me?
You know, I am actually friends on Facebook with quite a few old classmates of mine, but quite simply, we have moved on with our lives and our paths no longer cross in any meaningful way. Heck, an old classmate moved to London a year ago and neither of us have had the motivation to even meet for a coffee even though we are living approximately 4.5 km from each other as the crow flies (I'm in Soho, she's in Notting Hill). I always announce on Facebook that I am coming to Singapore and those who wanna see me will always get in touch; and if they can't be asked to see me when I am in town, then I don't wanna see them either. But the people whom I do see have a more meaningful connection with me: they include those whom I have worked with, who interact with me actively through social media and quite simply share something in common with me (such as through gymnastics). Oh and as for the one classmate who did make the effort to have lunch with me, we do share one thing in common: we have worked in the same industry.
Let me address one sentence in particular that this reader wrote, "Not that one cannot make new friends overseas but it is never the same." Well I fundamentally disagree with that - So how does it work? That statement sounds like something my father would say - I often talk about my father on my blog but for those of you who are not familiar with him already, let me introduce him again. He is in his late 70s and doesn't speak English - he doesn't know how to use the internet and can barely punch in the numbers on a mobile phone. Thus as you can imagine, his social circle pretty much very limited to ex-colleagues and friends of friends within that Mandarin-Hokkien speaking circle locally in Ang Mo Kio. Now this is pretty typical of a man of his generation and it couldn't be more different from what I have experienced, being of the internet generation. So if you do not have the language skills or enough understanding of another culture, then like my father, I'm afraid you simply cannot make friends with anyone from another country.
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| Can you establish friendships with a person from another country? |
It takes a whole range of skills to be able to make new friends: firstly, you need to empathy - it is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. My dad unfortunately is pretty shit at this and this is why we still argue because he makes zero effort to try to see things from my perspective and then I do the passive-aggressive bitch thing by showing him just how different I am from him. But I digress - to be able to make friends with people from another country, yes it will take more empathy to try to see thing from their perspectives, to try to understand their culture and maybe overcome a language barrier, but some people are more able to do this than others. Is this anything new? Not really - why do you think some men come across as sexist and misogynistic, unable to form meaningful relationships with women, whilst other others are able to overcome the gender divide and establish great friendships with women? Quite simply, men are different from women - but some men have more empathy than others.
What happens to those who lack empathy? Are they doomed to have no friends and lead a very lonely life? Not necessarily - it just means that they are more naturally drawn to those who have a very similar social background. So you will hang out with people who grew up in the same country, speak the same language, work in the same profession/industry, have very similar opinions, have the same religion, ie. people just like themselves they are never really challenged to try to understand anything vaguely unfamiliar. That's basically what my father is like and whilst people like him do exist, it is also necessary to acknowledge that there are also people like me who are the polar opposite: I make a genuine effort to reach across cultural, linguistic and religious divides to make friends with people who have a different background and my success in doing so is a reflection of my people skills (aka 'soft skills').
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| Do you have the soft skills it takes to thrive internationally? |
As for my experience building up a brand new social circle from scratch when I moved to the UK, it really wasn't rocket science. There were two interests which dominated my life when I was growing up in Singapore: gymnastics and the performing arts. When I moved to the UK, surprise surprise, my interests didn't change: the bulk of my friends still come from those involved in gymnastics and the performing arts. Even back in Singapore, I didn't choose my friends based on skin colour or ethnicity - I chose them because of our shared interests, when I get together with my friends from gymnastics, we talk about (surprise, surprise) gymnastics. Of course, when I was a child, everyone was spoke English at school - hardly anyone spoke any Mandarin or Hokkien (or anything else) - hence I never faced a language barrier the way my non-English speaking father did. One of my best friends from gymnastics is Emmanuel - we have two key things in common: we have both been doing gymnastics all our lives and we work in the same industry. The fact that he is from France and I am from Singapore doesn't seem to matter as we share three languages in common (we both speak French, Spanish and English) and we have both been living in London for a long time.
I would contrast that to my experience in NS when I had the experience of having to work alongside people I have absolutely nothing in common with - in my unit, I had plenty of 'Hokkien pengs'. Now for those of you not familiar with that term, it is used to describe conscripted soldiers who are from the lower end of the social order in Singapore: typically they are poorly educated and hence prefer to speak Hokkien and Mandarin instead of English. I was wise enough to learn how to blend in, keep my head down, get along with the people I had to work with and try to get through my 2 years 4 months of NS as peacefully as possible. I didn't make any enemies but I certainly did not make any friends as well with the Hokkien pengs. I didn't pretend to have anything in common with them (even if I do speak Hokkien fluently - unlike many younger Singaporeans), but I knew that outside the artificial environment of NS, out in the civilian world, our paths would never ever cross and if given the choice, I would never befriend them in the first place. After we completed NS, we would simply retreat to our comfort zones and socialize only with those with whom we have far more in common with. Please, let's not pretend we did anything but put up with each other during NS.
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| Did you actually make any good friends during NS? |
This is why I am frustrated with people who assume that you must somehow have a notion of kinship with someone from the same hometown, same school, same family or if you have shared something in common in the past. I had a massive argument with my father about this when I was in Singapore when I told him that I pick and choose which family members I feel any sense of kinship for and whom I reject as strangers. Ironically, my father 'disowned' one of his own brothers after having fallen out with him around 1990 - surely that experience should have taught my dad a thing or two about making any assumptions about getting along (or even having anything in common) with people you think you share something in common with. I guess not. I believe any basis for human relationship: be it love, respect, kinship or friendship, should be earned, not given on the basis of an assumption. That is why I irk many people when I say that I would gladly treat the elderly with kindness, even compassion, but never with respect as I believe respect must be earned under all circumstances, I'm not making an exemption for the elderly.
I feel sorry for people like Bert because they seem to have the wrong priorities when it comes to selecting their friends and thus are limiting their options. I'm not saying that he doesn't have any good friends (that's an assumption I cannot make since I don't know him), but what I do know is that when you have the wrong criteria when it comes to selecting your friends, you're more than likely to rule out potentially wonderful people for all the wrong basis. Think about it - if a HR manager is unwilling to hire someone for all the wrong reasons, then ultimately, it is the company's loss because that talented individual will end up being an asset to another company. And finally, sure I can understand that people like Bert may be limited by the lack of his social skills or confidence to try to forge friendships with people from another country, but please don't assume that the rest of us are similarly afflicted by this lack of social skills and/or confidence.
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| How well are you able to relate to people from other countries? |
So that's it from me on this topic. What about you - how do you pick your friends? How do you establish your social circles? Do you think it is easy or even possible to establish good friendships with people from another country? What kind of criteria do you use when it comes to deciding if you want to befriend someone? Many thanks for reading!
As I have mentioned elsewhere on your blog before, I have little in common with old friends in Singapore. We no longer share the same political views, and my priorities have changed. They are still living in the island bubble insulated from the global reality, whilst I have moved on and seen life from the other side of midnight, figuratively speaking. There may be one or two I may meet for lunch when I visit next spring. That's about it.
ReplyDeleteMy friends are now people I share common viewpoints with. To keep to the same group of friends is perhaps a sign of arrested ddevelopment. Just think of all the lost opportunities Bert has closed the door on just by sticking to his friends.
Oh he wrote me a really angry post about just how much money he earned, just how popular he is amongst his friends, just how big his house is etc - and to save him from embarrassing himself from my readers who may not be as kind as I am, I have not approved that post. You've hit the nail on the head - there's a sense of arrested development when it comes to his mindset when it comes to making friends. We're not saying that he is stupid or that he is incapable of making money (apparently he is rich - okay...), but what has that got to do with this aspect of being able to reach across the social and cultural divide to make friends with people from another country?
DeleteYeah I was once a primary school kid in Singapore who was only able to make friends with other kids in my primary school, I was shy, I didn't have the skills to make friends very well with people from outside that immediate neighbourhood I was in - thank goodness I have since grown up. To feel that it is "not the same" and to cling on to what you grew up with... that just screams of insecurity.
Apart from 1 best friend from secondary school days, most of my friend are from other ethnicities and countries like Japanese, Portuguese, British, Indonesian, etc. Even my SO is not local!
DeleteIn the age of the internet and social media i have never considered international borders/culture/skin color as a hindrance to making friends. In fact it is so easy to get on a budget airline to fly to another country to meetup with an acquaintance and have him/her show you around.
Bert and people from his generation (like my parents) are those who are afraid of technology and refuse to use even a smart phone in the event that it would somehow magically steal their money from their bank account.
Hmm for all his achievements, Bert seems to be pretty insecure. Funny how he started out acting like a sage.. all mild toned and 'wise' but riling up the moment he is rebutted.
Delete@Ayhtas K, oh he thinks he is smarter and wiser than me because he is older and he got very insulted when I refused to agree with him and 'show him respect'. It's a Chinese thing I'm afraid. And he got really, really crass when he tried to use the fact that he is rich (okay, you claim you are rich, what makes you think I'm not rich as well - and in any case how does that make you right and me wrong) to justify that he is right and I'm wrong.
DeleteYou can't argue with someone like that.
@Choaniki, people like that belong to the generation who are so stuck in their ways they find it hard to change and adapt to the modern world. He is a lot older than me.
I really agree with your point about empathy and making the effort to bridge cultural gaps- it's an effort that many would try to avoid because it is tough, they have no common topics with foreigners etc. However, I've realised when you really try to understand and know them they are just like any other human being, maybe with more interesting stories to tell that someone with a similar cultural background does. It is one of the best ways to open your mind and learn more about the world IMO.
ReplyDeleteHi Delia. May I point something out to you please: you and I may be both from Singapore, but I split the people I meet up into two categories:
Delete- people who are into gymnastics
- people who are not
And I'm afraid, you fall into the latter.
I have met people from countries all over the world but the moment I know they are into gymnastics, even without a common language, we somehow manage to strike a chord and if we can train together, boy we can have a lot of fun.
Here's the point I always make: get on a crowded MRT train and look at the Singaporeans staring down onto their phones and mobile devices, why aren't they talking to each other but ignoring each other instead? The fact is, you can be from the same country and still have no common topics, no areas of interest, nothing to start a conversation with, even when you are dealing with someone who lives on the same street in Ang Mo Kio as yourself.
Thus by that token, I find myself drawn to people who are into gymnastics, rather than people who are from my hometown. I know whom I have more in common with.
This is a tough one. How do you go out of your comfort zone to make new friends when it takes at most 2 hours to reach anyone anywhere in Singapore? What is the motivation to break out of the inertia to try new things. Everything is controlled in Singapore, in a way like a zoo. Not to compare anyone to animals, but zoo mammals are known to lose their ability to survive after long periods of captivity.
ReplyDeleteHow about trying a new activity? You will meet new people, one may be a friend potential. Chatting with someone at Starbucks. You will be surprised how interesting some people are. Start/join a club --- book club? Cooking club? Running club? Walking club?
DeleteJoining a club is the best way as you will meet others who have the same interests as you do.
DeleteThe problem with Singaporeans is that they are so incredibly consumed by their work, working 12 or more hours a day that they have no time or anything else.
I am perplexed as to why employees are expected to work such long hours? Do they not have employment standards that employers have to adhere to? Is it part of the contract or are the employees so kiasu that they try to out work each other? My husband works long hours sometimes, but that is because he is management, and he needs to get things done. His employees, however, work the hours they were paid to do.
DeleteHi Di. No there are no such standards and there is a culture of conformity - ie. if everyone else works this hard, then so must I, no choice.
DeleteCompanies also save a LOT of money by making an employee work 12 hour days. Let's take my sister for example - she is a very well paid employee who works crazy hours. Let's put some figures on it. Imagine she is paid $10,000 a month (not saying she is, just picking a round number), she has a ridiculously huge work load which requires her to work 12 hours a day, usually 6 days a week, averaging 70 - 75 hours a week.
When she goes through a period of extra heavy work load, the company will throw her a little bonus, say $1000 to reward her.
Now imagine this, if her company had a German style working culture where they capped her hours at 35 hours a week (note that she currently puts in about 70< hours a week). Then oh, they need to hire two people to do her job - but wait, she earns $10,000 a month.
So under a German system, they need to pay $20,000 a month for 2 people to work 35 hours a month to get the same work done. Under a Singaporean system, they get away with paying her around $11,000 or so a month to get the same work done and she doesn't complain about working 70< hours a week.
Get it? The company actually saves a lot of money this way. The employees are rewarded financially, but often work themselves to an early grave by working 70 plus hours a week.
That is one aspect of it. From what I understand, face time is still prevalent in Singapore. Amazingly, Singaporeans claim to work more hours but statistics show that productivity has not increased. In turn, no productivity = no growth = no pay raise = put in more hours and so on. I still don't see time to join a club. Additionally, I honestly believe Singaporeans do not know what to do with their spare time. If you have been following the routine of wake up -> school -> music -> art -> sport -> supplemental class -> sleep since 2, there is only relief in death....
DeleteForgive my ignorance on this matter, but I am still curious. So for example when a person accepts a job, does it actually say that the expected hours of work is 8-8? Or is it officially 8-4 pm, but employees just stay late to conform to other kiasu colleagues? If employees are officially told to work 12 - hour days, then all I can say is that despite its first world status, Singapore is a third world country in the way it treats its workers. Reminds me of feudal times when peasants worked long and hard for their lords and masters.
DeleteDi Talasi....it's kind of a hidden culture in Singaporean organizations. Officially your working hours might be 8-5 or 9-6 but the actual workplace culture(as you have rightly suspected) is such that no one actually leaves at that time. There is this unhealthy fear and pressure of being judged by your fellow colleagues and bosses as not being hardworking enough. As nemonic mentioned, people sometimes fill out the excess time with pointless non-productive activities. Oh the horror! Thankfully, I work for an American MNC here that does not adopt these practices.
Delete@Di officially on HR policy record would be 8-5 or 9-6. But then your line manager would expect to give you a list of things to do. Maybe make you complete something at 4:30pm or your department being understaffed you have a list of customers to serve or tickets to complete before ending your day.
DeleteThus you stay on to complete your work until 8-9pm. And your employment contract does not entitle you to OT since you are technically an executive as you earn more than 2.5k a month (before CPF). Multiply this by 5 days a week and 250 days a year and there you have it, the working life in Singapore!
And since our biggest union, NTUC, is interest in running lots business like a huge chain of supermarkets, don't expect them to help put pressure on any employers.
Then the union(s) are useless machines. What people need to do is to ALL not conform to the culture of outworking each other. That is too much to expect of Singaporeans, of course. I can't imagine working under such conditions. Even my husband in management does not work such ridiculous hours. He works later than his staff, but he also takes time off here and there when my son has appointments, etc. He would NEVER ask his staff to do something big at 4:30 when they are off at 5:00. This is just wrong. I feel sorry for Singaporeans, but for people like Bert (and there are many of them), they choose not to explore the possibility of leaving that horrible life. Why? Oh, yes, because of the stability and peace! What good are those things when you can't be home with your kids?
DeleteWell Di, the problem is that the vast majority of people in Singapore tend to just accept the system that expects employees to make sacrifices such as putting their work before their family life.
DeleteI did ask my sister if she could apply for a job with a more European work environment, with a white boss, without a slave driver Chinese boss and she said, "if I was more capable, I would - but I am not, so I have to do what I do." I don't know what she meant as I think she is capable, but maybe she was just fobbing me off with that kind of reply as I think she just accepts that what she does (working 70+ hours a week) is normal within her culture and that people like me are hedonistic lazy bastards because I work sooooo few hours a week that I have time to blog. LOL.
I think it depends whether the foreign person is also willing to bond with you too. Sometimes it could just be the language barrier, when you cannot make meaningful conversations with the other. I don't think there's anything racist about that or anything to do with empathy. It is just a linguistic constrain.
ReplyDeleteHi John, I'm not saying that I am so good with people that I can befriend anyone from any country - of course it takes two hands to clap and I've met loads of people who are shy, quiet, reserved and hard to engage. But what Bert did was to categorically rule out anyone foreign and claim that he can only really develop meaningful, deep, profound friendships with those of a very similar Singaporean background. All I am pointing out is that it is his loss to rule out someone as a potential (very good) friend simply because of his/her nationality.
DeleteYes there's always a part of us that's looking for empathy and understanding when it comes to friendships (and love) - but do you allow yourself to be defined by your 'Singaporean-ness' or are you defined by your dreams, hopes, ambitions, passions and desires that are not bound by Singapore per se? In my case, I am very much defined by the sport that has been a large part of my life and my identity: gymnastics, so whilst I still have strong ties to the Singaporean gymnastics community, I find it very easy to relate to the international gymnastics community around the world.
As for languages, well, given that I speak ten languages, I tend to forget how the rest of the world isn't as linguistically gifted as I am ...
I agree that ruling out any potential friends because of nationality is pretty lame. I'm actually curious how Bert replied to your post. Why did you censor what he wanted to say? If he is just sprouting rubbish, what do you have to lose if you accept his post?
DeleteBert got personal, he started insulting me and I'm like - you know what, if you are going to stoop that low and start calling me names, I am going to become the primary school teacher here and tell you to stop it by silencing you. I'm not going to stoop down to his level and allow him to sling mud at me like that. That's not why I blog - I don't mind people who disagree with me telling me their opinions (that can be a very interesting exchange indeed) but when a grown man (one who's older than me) acts like a child, that's when I draw the line and say, that's it - you're behaving like an immature kid and I will not indulge you. You don't like my blog, please surf somewhere else and stop reading, Limpeh doesn't have the time, energy or inclination to indulge you in a quarrel.
DeleteThat's just the way I chose to react to his post. I read it and then I made a cup of coffee - in my mind, I was already coming up with all these counter-arguments. He was insulting me, saying things like Singapore doesn't need people like me, don't ever come back to Singapore etc - and I was going to say, excuse me, are you stupid or what - I've left Singapore long ago and the point of that blog post was to encourage other people to LEAVE Singapore like me, why the hell would I want to come back to Singapore when I am already encouraging others to leave? Have I not made myself and my stance on Singapore clear enough?
At which point I realized, no you can't argue with someone who doesn't read what I write - like seriously, his reading comprehension is pretty bad - he just writes what he wants to write instead of responding to what I am actually writing.
You can't argue with someone like that. You only drive yourself up the wall because you can't get them to read what you write and respond accordingly.
And that's why I chose to take the high road and hit 'delete' because that was not a path I wanted to go down. You can't argue with unreasonable people and I've no desire to.
Hi Alex, I've just seen Bert's previous post just to see what kind of person he is like. He is a very typical Singaporean, a PAP apologist, someone very successful in exploiting the system to enhance his business and wealth, at the expense of normal Singaporeans who just want a fair wage. Really, I've seen lots of such posts on Facebook, claiming that Singapore is so great and how terrible it is overseas. These people would travel once in a while and see some homeless dude or vandalism and think outside is so fucking terrible, or make small talk to some foreigner and thinking his so damm international. They enjoy lumping Greece with other parts of Europe, cherry pick as and where they like. Have one bad racist experience overseas and think every foreigner is racist. The scariest part is that many Singaporeans would actually agree with Bert. If it's not brainwashing, I don't know what it is.
DeleteI'm equally curious too. I'm kinda irritated by his respond as well, especially the portion where he commented that your readers are naive. I still met people who are of Bert's age who likes to dissuade me from leaving Singapore. And the often cited reasons are peace, stability, cleanliness, low crime rate and most of us are able to walk on streets safely at night. They can never understand all the other 101 reasons behind why some Singaporeans are just frustrated and want to leave. Some even challenged me that I won't survive well if I'm in the West. I was like erm ok, thanks for reminding and your kind advice, I appreciated that... Is that a very inner inferior complexity these people have that once they leave Singapore, they will be no longer be "shield" from harm? It seems more like a psychological issue a lot of locals I talked to have 'cos the government has built a safety net (yet taking control over almost everything) for us which I feel it had incapacitated us to be independent and become overly reliant to them. This probably speaks why Singaporeans like to complain so much yet unwilling to make a change; just like a spouse who tend to go back to his/her abusive husband/wife even he/she knows the person he/she is living with is going to abuse him/her again. Despite the various issues, strangely enough a lot of them will defend the government yet still complain.
DeleteOh Katie. Don't get me started. But as I am not in the mood for a rant at the moment, I am simply going to ask you to pick your battles and not argue with such people - there's just no point. Pick your battles in your life wisely, life is too short.
DeleteI came into this conversation late, so had no idea who Bert is. But it sounds like misery (Bert) loves company. Why else would he dissuade anyone to pursue a better life for themselves? If I don't know better, I think he is scared or jealous or hurt or all the above. He has the right to his opinions, so do others. He wants the world to stand still, but yet it won't.
DeleteI can't agree on the language part. I got my previous job from a Japanese native. He was speaking broken English and me broken Japanese yet we managed to communicate and his reference landed me a job. In hindsight I wouldn't have joined a Japanese MNC knowing what I know now. But hindsight I always 20/20.
Delete@nemonic - Bert is clearly an older Singaporean who is doing rather well financially, he is able to provide for his family and is very happy in Singapore, good for him lah. But please don't come here and tell me that it is not the same trying to make friends with people from another country because they didn't have the same kind of childhood experience growing up in Singapore. That's a very Singaporean mentality.
DeleteYou only have to go as far as KL or Bangkok - in KL, you have so many people who have come from all over Malaysia for better jobs, better education etc and it is not just locals in KL. Likewise in London where I live, there are not only Brits from all over the UK, but also people from all over the world who have flocked to this big city for better opportunities.
Thus I have a far simpler criteria: I look for nice people who have empathy, whom I share something in common with, whom I can relate to and in turn they can relate to me. I disregard skin colour & nationality altogether. Welcome to the modern world.
This Bert character seems to successful by 'Singaporean' standards, but deep inside I think he harbors some kind of insecurity. It's unusual for a confident and secure person to resort to such childish outbursts. He is not all that different from those religious fanatics who go all ballistic when someone disagrees with them.
DeleteI think you've definitely hit the nail on the head Ayhtas K. Bert doesn't like his POV challenged and reacts very negatively when it happens. But what did he expect, coming to a blog like mine? Did he think that I was a big fan of life in Singapore and the PAP? Duh. Talk about barking up the wrong tree.
DeleteOne need not dump old friends when making new ones. You can't have too many friends. Some just fizzle out because paths no longer cross, but it doesn't mean you can't meet once a blue moon when the occasion calls for it. Bert needs to understand that there are plenty of people out in the world to make friends with. As new immigrants, our friends were people at university, friends of friends, neighbours, people at the gym, the grocer(!), people at church, etc. Now our friends are people at work (select few), neighbours, parents of my son's friends, fellow parishioners, people on the committees we volunteer at for charity, ... the list is endless. Of course, some are just casual acquaintances, but some of them have become really close friends. These close friends understand me more than my old friends because I have evolved as a person. Bert seemed unwilling to evolve. He is stuck in PAP land because he has achieved the Singapore Dream. Nothing wrong with that except that he is cheating himself a world of possibilities out there. Also, he should think of opening up his children's worlds.
ReplyDeleteYes.... of course you are right, but he won't see it. He's too brainwashed.
Delete