Who is your worst enemy? Take a look in the mirror.

Hello everyone. Now I don't often 'scold' people on my blog but in some cases, I feel I simply have to. I received this comment from 'Joan S' on one of my older posts from 2013 when I talked about giving up my pink IC: 

What is life like in the UK? I'm considering moving there, is there anti Asian/Chinese sentiment there in everyday life work wise and social wise? I'm looking at moving to London or maybe one of the Scottish cities.

Life in the UK has been pretty awesome.

Now my Singaporean readers will wonder if I am overreacting - okay, she didn't know, she asked a question, a poor choice of words perhaps - couldn't I at least answer it without getting angry? Let me tell you why I think she is was barking up the wrong tree with those questions. Allow me to deal with them one sentence at a time.

"What is life like in the UK?"

That's a really dumb question - the answer to that question depends entirely on whom you ask. Life is pretty amazing if you have money and pretty darn miserable if you are poor. Yesterday, I spent nearly a million pounds (and that's 2.11 million in Singapore dollars) at a property auction and I am laughing because I managed to get a property at a very good price (in terms of £ per sq/ft)  - and that's the fifth property I am adding to my ever-expanding property portfolio of central London properties. I'm about to go skiing next week in Slovakia and am about to book yet another skiing break in Spain in January. Modesty aside, yeah I have money, I am what you would consider relatively wealthy especially since I don't have any dependents so I can afford to spend whatever I earn on having a bloody good time, so I can afford loads of nice holidays. Life is pretty darn good if you were to ask me because of my wealth. Anyone who tells you that money can't buy you happiness is lying to you - you need money to buy things that will make you happy: like a nice house to live in, see your favourite singer in concert or have romantic holidays in beautiful cities.

But then again, I just had a rather awkward conversation with my friend John on Facebook this afternoon. He was congratulating me on having bought that lovely new property yesterday (I posted some amazing photos) and my friend John is rather poor. He is a few years older than me, he works in a shop as a sales assistant and well, he isn't paid that much. John doesn't make enough money to own property, instead he rents a room in a flat which he shares with a few other people in the same situation - John hasn't been abroad for ages as he is constantly nearly broke or broke. The money he makes simply doesn't go very far and even when he is not working, he would stay at home and watch TV or surf the internet as he can't afford to go out. So if you ask John what life is like in the UK for him, well, he would tell you that it is pretty darn tough. Telling John just how much money I spent yesterday made me think, "oops, am I being very insensitive by flaunting my wealth to a friend who is clearly struggling to make ends meet?" 

But to answer Joan's question - life is good in the UK for those who have money and terrible for those who don't. The right question she ought to be asking is, "what will life be like for me in the UK?" To which I would answer, "well Joan, how much money do you have? What kind of job do you do and how much money will you earn? And if I may be totally blunt: are you rich, average or are you poor? Do you have plenty of money? Are you very wealthy or are you totally broke?" By that token, it doesn't matter whether you're talking about life in the UK, Singapore, Canada, France, Japan, China or Australia - if you have money, then guess what? Your wealth will be able to buy you a pretty darn good life wherever in the world you are. Thus Joan, you're not asking the right question: there is no country in the world that can guarantee you a good life - rather, you should focus on working hard to become rich, so that you will have the money to buy the things in life that will make you happy. The best things in life aren't free: they do cost quite a lot. 

Do you have enough money to buy the nice things in life?

"Is there anti Asian/Chinese sentiment there in everyday life work wise and social wise?"

This gets me so angry. I have actually blogged a lot on this topic and would refer you to some of earlier posts I have done on the issue of racism in the UK. But my point is simple: Chinese people are hideously racist, Chinese people are by far the MOST racist people on this planet. The way Chinese people refer to Africans, Indians, Thais or anyone who happens to have a darker skin hue is absolutely deplorable and I utterly condemn the way Chinese people are so freaking racist. This aspect of Chinese culture utterly and totally disgusts me and I wholeheartedly condemn it. I can say what I want about Chinese culture as I am Chinese (well, mostly Chinese anyway).

Chinese people often assume that white people are racist because this is based entirely on the basis of the assumption of mutual hatred: Chinese people are racist towards non-Chinese people, so they simply assume that non-Chinese people must hate Chinese people as well. That is not necessarily true. Just because you hate someone doesn't mean they hate you: for example, you may hate Kong Hee and Sun Ho, but even if they found out about how you felt, they may choose not to return that animosity as they don't know you personally. So even if you are a Chinese person who absolutely hates white people, guess what? The white people you meet may not necessarily hate you in return - they may hate you for having such racist views (let's face it, it is hard to like a racist), but whether or not you get along with another person (regardless of the colour of their skin) really boils down to how you interact with them. 

You may hate them, but they do not hate you.

How is that any different from working in an office in Singapore? I had one of my readers (let's call her Jenny) approached me for help back in June because she was having a lot of trouble at work - one of Jenny's senior colleagues (let's call her Mrs Lao)  was being extremely difficult to deal with at work and she simply didn't know how to deal with this kind of nasty office politics. Jenny's boss simply wasn't interested in helping her and expected her to resolve these kinds of issues herself - he simply told her, "Jenny, please lah - this is not a primary school and I am not your form teacher, sort it out yourself, you're an adult, Just go talk to Mrs Lao about what is going on and I'm sure the two of you can reach an understanding amicably." As a last resort, Jenny came running to me for help as she was so miserable from the whole sorry situation. Guess what? Jenny, Jenny's boss and Mrs Lao are all Singaporean-Chinese: being in a homogeneous environment like that doesn't protect you from nasty office politics. If you think that you are somehow protected from that kind of nastiness just by working with other Singaporean-Chinese people, then you're sorely mistaken. Just ask Jenny or that poor intern who got bullied at that Singaporean company.

It truly frustrates me when I see people of ethnic minority play the race card - now imagine if Jenny was a Singaporean working in a British company in London and that the two other people in the story (her boss and her difficult colleague) are white. I can just imagine many Singaporeans immediately playing the race card, "oh the boss wouldn't help you because you are Chinese" or "you kena bully by that woman because you are Chinese." But there are so many reasons why two people don't get along - racism and skin colour is just one of a whole range of issues. For example, I don't get along with my neighbour because he is quite nocturnal and sometimes he disturbs me when I am trying to sleep. Now whether he is black, white, Asian or whatever is totally irrelevant to the situation when it is in the middle of the night and I am awoken by his guests having a party. My frustrations are compounded by the fact that he thinks I am overreacting to the disturbances in the middle of the night - so the relationship with this neighbour is particularly bad, but it has absolutely nothing to do with racism at all. Human interactions are very complex and they depend on a whole range of factors that go way beyond your skin colour. It almost seems bizarre that Singaporeans have this uncanny, unhealthy obsession with being victims of racism when really, there are so many other things to worry about.

Office politics is a lot more than the colour of your skin.

You see, I am not claiming that every single aspect of life will always be perfect in the UK - things can go wrong and sometimes, even I find myself in situations similar to Jenny's story. But every time, I am able to identify the root of the problem and it is never racism - it is always something else (which can be equally frustrating or difficult). The fact is you will encounter the same kind of social problems at work and in social situations whether you are in London, Singapore, Shanghai or New York and a lot of the time, our ability to handle these situations determines how happy we ultimately are. So let's go back to Jenny's story: this older, more senior colleague Mrs Lao seems to want to assert her authority on Jenny and has gone out of her way to make life difficult for Jenny at work. Jenny had recently been promoted and Mrs Lao may have felt slightly threatened by this new star of the company who had been doing so well. 

So I told Jenny she had some options: she could either swallow her pride, try to go out of her way and show Mrs Lao that she is not a threat, to be extra nice to Mrs Lao and reassure Mrs Lao, or she could go to the other extreme and scare Mrs Lao off by responding aggressively, standing up to her and showing Mrs Lao who is boss. And a third option was for Jenny to try to get a colleague (someone who gets along with both Mrs Lao and Jenny) to intervene on her behalf, to try to find out what Mrs Lao's state of mind was and how best to proceed. The perfect solution would have problem involved a mix of at least two or three of the options. I couldn't tell Jenny which option would work better and such is the tricky nature of office politics - it was down to Jenny to try to read Mrs Lao, to try to figure out how best to deal with this difficult woman whom Jenny simply had to work with whether she liked Mrs Lao or not. Now you might be wondering, so what has Jenny's story got to do with whether there are anti-Asian/Chinese feelings in the UK?

It didn't occur to Jenny to find out why Mrs Lao disliked her.

The more capable you are of dealing with and resolving tricky social situations (like the one Jenny was facing), the more likely you are to be happy. Conversely, if your people skills suck and you simply don't know how to deal with difficult social situations like Jenny's story, then chances are you are going to be pretty miserable no matter where you go in the world. In short, this has nothing to do with racism but just how good you are with people in general. Why is this such an important point? You see, when you are dealing with racism, you are the innocent victim - you've done absolutely nothing wrong but that other person has a problem with the colour of your skin. However, if it is simply a difficult social situation whereby you can actually try to do something about the situation to solve the problem, then the onus is then on you to do something to solve the problem. Even in Jenny's case where it did seem that she is the victim of bullying, there was still something she could do to try to improve the difficult situation she was facing at work. 

So what happened in Jenny's case? Well, at first she was playing the victim: oh I am a victim of office bullying, this older Mrs Lao is such a nasty bitch, I've done nothing wrong and my boss won't help me, I am a helpless victim, all I can do is cry. I made her snap out of her victim mindset and try to use a third party to find out why Mrs Lao hated her so much. Jenny found out that it was her dress sense that irked Mrs Lao - it turned out that Mrs Lao's husband has been caught having an affair with a younger woman and thus Mrs Lao had something against any woman who dressed a certain way. Jenny was told that she had turned up to the office sometimes dressed as if she was going on a date rather than going to work - this pleased the men in the office but irked Mrs Lao who thought that Jenny was more interested in seducing a rich man than doing her job seriously. Whilst it had nothing to do with Jenny's work performance, this coloured Mrs Lao's judgement of Jenny and so realized that we had to address that - Jenny toned down her outfits to look a lot more serious in the office and Mrs Lao noticed the difference. Things began to improve for Jenny in the office and I proved to her that she wasn't a helpless victim, but there was something she could do.

Do you fit into the corporate environment?

I used Jenny's case study as an example of how a situation can seem impossible to solve if you adopted the mindset of a victim, but the moment you analyze and explore your options, you may find that there is a lot you can do about the situation. The problem with people like Joan asking about "anti Asian/Chinese sentiment" is that the moment they meet any kind of problamtic social situations, the first thing they do is to play the race card so they can scream, "I am a victim here! I am totally innocent! Somebody help me please! I did absolutely nothing wrong! You can't blame me here or expect me to do anything to improve the situation!" That is a very unhelpful attitude at best - you are doing yourself a great disservice by thinking that you are so perfect that it couldn't possibly be your fault. 

Perhaps I am being extremely harsh with Joan here - she sounds like a really young Singaporean who has never lived abroad before, hence her utter ignorance on the matter. But really, this kind of mindset where one plays the victim is pretty childish. I cast your minds back to the PSLE maths question this year that stumped many students. The parents, students and teachers alike came up with all kinds of excuses: the question wasn't appropriate, it tested IQ rather than powers of reasoning, the question was misleading, the question was too difficult for primary 6 kids. How many people actually had the honesty to say what I am about to say: my nephew got the question wrong and I am not at all surprised, he was never really that great at maths and his PSLE score was mediocre - but knowing what I know of my nephew, I am not surprised and I hope that this will make his parents and grandparents think twice about the way he is being taught maths. (But I am just the uncle, no one listens to me, that's why talk about it on my blog instead.) Such is the way I choose to deal with such situations - really, what is the point of getting defensive when you can use this golden opportunity to see how you can learn from your mistakes? It's called taking responsibility for your actions. 

Whose fault is it that so many kids got this question wrong?

I have been living in the UK since 1997, I first came here as a student and stayed on after I graduated - the number of times when racism has caused me problems is negligible. Honestly, if racism was such a huge problem here, then why the hell would I continue to live here? I am such a highly skilled professional, I would have moved to another country long ago. Has my life here been smooth sailing all along? Hell no, I've met a lot of problems and obstacles along the way, but these have been caused by my own folly, laziness, stupidity and stubbornness. In short, when I fuck up, I hold my hands up and admit, "okay, my bad, I fucked up, it's my fault - let me see where I can learn from my stupid mistakes so as to avoid fucking up like that again." I do NOT play the race card and assume the role of the victim. Have I fucked up in the past? Of course I have, I am human, I have my faults and yes believe me when I tell you that I fuck up all the time - but what is most important is that each time I fuck up, I take the golden opportunity to learn from my mistakes and I blame myself, rather than others, I take responsibility for my fuck ups and I grow from the experience. That is why I am where I am today, a happy, successful adult who is able to deal with anything in life, especially when things go wrong because I know that 9 out of 10 times, things go wrong because I fuck up - not because of some malevolent boogeyman trying to fuck me up. When I know that I am often my own worst enemy, I have little to fear when I know what I am dealing with: I simply look in the mirror and I see what I have to deal with. 

So that's it from me on this issue. Yes I had been very harsh on Joan, but I think at times, I need to be. She is her own worst enemy and she needs to realize that. What do you think? Did Joan ask the right questions? Are her questions valid? Am I too harsh on her? Please let me now your thoughts - leave a comment below. Many thanks for reading.