A clash of cultures: the label 'stupid'

My regular readers will recall last week when I got a real shock when one of my posts went viral and many people who had never read my blog before reacted by negatively to my week 7 letter concerning the racist joke incident. It was one of those moments when I felt a real clash of cultures - what can I say man, you can take the boy out of Singapore but you can't take Singapore out of the boy. Many people took offence to the fact that I had labelled Ziege (not her real name obviously) 'stupid'. Why did white people (from Britain, Holland and America to be precise, those were the countries where I got hatemail from) get so upset with the label 'stupid'?

The term 'stupid' (and all other related references to stupidity) is often used as an insult in the UK - this is something quite universal, but Brits are extremely sensitive about labelling someone as stupid. I have spoken to a school teacher here in London about this and they have to be very careful never to call a student stupid even if the student clearly has demonstrated stupidity. So it is okay to say something like, "You realize that you have acted in a very stupid manner by setting fire to your classmate's hair." So you are labelling the act of setting someone's hair on fire as stupid but not the student himself as stupid - that's the line British teachers cannot cross.

Contrast that to my experience as a student in Singapore - oh the teachers had no qualms about calling you stupid. They didn't bother distinguishing an act of stupidity or a person who is genuinely stupid. So if we take the same act of setting fire to your friend's hair, the Singaporean teacher would probably scream, "Why are you so stupid?! How could you do that, stupid?!" You get the idea - there is far less of a taboo associated with the word 'stupid'.

There is a further difference in the way we perceive stupidity in Singapore compared to Britain - I shall be talking about the Singaporean education system I experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. I realize that things have changed a bit since, but by and large, the culture is still the same. I want to talk about the culture of streaming in Singapore - where students are sorted according to their academic ability. It seemed like the most natural thing to me as a child as I saw my older siblings subjected to that kind of streaming culture and they simply had to get into the best class - otherwise they would be labelled 'stupid'. That was the system I grew up with and it has become a part of my mindset.

I remember when I got to the end of primary 5 (age 11) in my primary school - the students were streamed at that stage and there were four classes to go to - the best 6AA was for the smartest kids, then 6A was for the next best batch, then you had 6BB after that and 6B was for the very worst students. I remember asking, that sounds odd - why not just go 6A, 6B, 6C, 6D instead of this AA and BB business? It turns out that the principal was afraid that the students who ended up in the worst class would be stigmatised as 'stupid' as 6D sounded terrible, so he came up with that idea as 6B sounds much better than 6D (frequently labelled as 6-Dumb or 6-Donkeys). You can change the name of the class but you can't change Singaporean culture - the kids in 6B were labelled 6-Bodoh (Malay: stupid) by the rest of the school despite the form teacher's attempt to label them 6-Brilliant.

Things have changed little in 2013 - I know my nephew has streaming in his primary school as well and he didn't get into any of the better classes for the best performing kids. My parents and sister were in such a state of panic over it and I am like, who gives a shit what class he gets into? It's just primary school for fuck's sake come on. They were concerned that others may label him stupid if he wasn't in the right class - and guess what? I couldn't argue with that. Such is Singaporean culture. My family doesn't get to make the rules - they just happen to live in Singapore.

Now contrast that to the UK where you tend not to have any kind of streaming - for the majority of the students, they simply go to the school which is nearest where they live. You will get in a class a whole range of students of all kinds of abilities - from the super smart to the barely literate. The culture is to encourage those of different abilities to mix, rather than separate them. The rationale of that I suppose is based on the presumption that children of different academic abilities can still be friends, socialize together and play together. It is believed that the smarter students would encourage and help the weaker ones, even if one child will grow up to be a hedge fund manager whilst the other will end up scrubbing the floors and toilets of the hedge fund manager's office. Perhaps that hedge fund manager will notice that the new cleaner is his old friend from primary school and show some kindness to his old pal from all those years ago. This creates the kind of social cohesion that is an antidote to elitism.

Is this likely to happen? No. This is based on such utopian socialist ideals so far removed from the real world that will never happen. But still, there is a great resistance against streaming by academic ability in the UK as that is just the way things have always been here. Even in Eton, one of the most expensive, exclusive schools in the country - Prince Harry was given a place there despite being incredibly stupid. The guy may be third in line for the throne, but come on, the guy's an idiot, a moron. He only took two A level subjects and got a B for art and a D for geography - then it emerged that Prince Harry was helped to cheat in his art exam because he was such a weak student. So presumably, if he hadn't cheated for his art exam, he would have probably ended up with a D, E or F for his art A levels. It suffices to say that by any standard - British or Singaporean - Prince Harry is stupid and that's not just me saying it as an insult, that's me looking at the evidence.

But what does this tell us about British society and streaming? Even an idiot like Prince Harry was given a place in Eton - they didn't behave like a Singaporean school, they weren't worried that he would drag their standard down. And after Eton, Prince Harry went to Sandhurst, who again didn't care that he was evidently stupid. Okay, it was his royal status that made Eton and Sandhurst bend the rules for Prince Harry - but what does this tell us about British society?

Basically, those in the position of privilege don't really need to bother with trying too hard with education - opportunities will come their way regardless of how they screw up their A levels. As for those who are ordinary folk, teachers have a far more laissez-faire attitude when it comes to their students. After all, this is a country with so many success stories of great British businessmen like Richard Branson, James Dyson, Harry Gordon Selfridge, Sir Alan Sugar just to name a few - heck, Sir Alan Sugar didn't even go to university. His academic record was even more dismal than Prince Harry's - yet no one would dare to call him stupid given that he is one of Britain's greatest, most successful self-made billionaires.

The attitude in Singapore is quite different - culturally we have this obsession with good grades. They indicate that the student understands the function of delaying pleasure for greater results in the long run: I may rather be watching TV now for that is fun, but in revising for my exams, I am making a long term sacrifice so I will have a better future with my better exam results. Asian parents are assured when they see their children studying hard instead of outside, playing with their friends - this is taken as a sign of good character. That is why those who are unable to follow this simple formula are labelled stupid. From young, this formula was drilled into my head: study hard + make sacrifices now = good results, good future. Those who tried to apply this formula but still ended up with bad results are labelled stupid.

What if she still had bad results after studying very hard?

Actually we have a far more accurate term in Hokkien, bueh tak chek ("can't study") - this is not to be confused with boh tak chek ("haven't studied" ie. uneducated).  So we make a distinction between someone who has tried hard to study but still fails his exams as opposed to someone like Sir Alan Sugar who may be naturally very bright but for some reason has not completed his formal education.Whereas someone like Prince Harry who went to the best school in the country and cheated in his exams only to get a B and a D at his A level exams - now that's clearly a case of bueh tak chek. 

Back to Ziege in my show - why did I label her stupid? It is through our conversations that I have found terribly mundane, the only thing that she has going for her is that she is German - now I speak some German and when I am trying to speak German with her, she can correct my mistakes and teach me new words. I did find learning German from her very interesting - but when we are in the company of others who do not speak German, we would default to English and she finds it hard to contribute to any conversation when we get intellectual. I get the feeling she spends her days watching vapid reality TV programmes, reading up on the latest gossip on celebrities in magazines and pays virtually no attention to current affairs. Does that make her merely shallow or is she stupid?

Recently, we were talking about the crisis in the Euro zone with countries like Greece, Spain, Italy and now Cyprus on the brink of bankruptcy - can Germany bail each and every single one of these countries out as they go bust one by one? As the only German person in the room, Ziege was invited to offer her opinion on the crisis. "Would the German government use the German tax payers' money to bail Cyprus out? What will Angela Merkel do?"

Ziege just looked puzzled that we would take such interest in her country and she replied, "Who is Cyprus? And why would Angel Merkel care about her?" We just gave each other a look of 'why did we even bother asking her in the first place' despair. That's right, she ask WHO is Cyprus, not WHERE is Cyprus. A German speaking member of the cast translated the question into German for Ziege and she laughed. She said in English, "Oh I understood you in English fine, I still don't know who this Cyprus is in German or English! My English is pretty good you know, I am not stupid."

It is the kinds of things she laughs at which makes me think, only a 7 year old kid could find that funny. Take for example, the incident the other night when we found a spider in the corridor and she stomped on it, killing the spider. I said, "Spiders eat other insects like flies and mosquitos, they are good animals, you shouldn't kill spiders." She replied, "I am only flattening the spider, I made it so flat now you can put it in an envelop and post it." She then laughed hysterically at her 'flattening the spider' joke, which I simply didn't find funny. I am a lot more demanding when it comes to humour.  Then Ziege accused me of not 'getting her joke' - go figure.

Also this week, a performer lost his balance and stumbled during a movement sequence as part of the show. It is the kind of accident that can happen with any performance and indeed, Ziege has to perform the same sequence and I've seen her stumble on a number of occasions. However, Ziege was the only one who laughed at the performer when he lost his balance whilst the rest of us thought it was a pretty tasteless thing to do. When someone makes a mistake like that, it is just unkind to mock them by laughing at them - this is not the way you treat your colleagues. However, I didn't think that Ziege was being malicious or that she was mocking her colleague, no. It was the kind of slapstick humour - a man losing his balance and tripping - that would appeal to her. Plain slapstick humour. That's just the wavelength she is on - whilst others would simply have the better sense to react differently to a fellow performer stumbling in front of the audience.

I could go on - but you get the idea. She just doesn't come across as very educated or intellectual - she clearly isn't particularly academic and I was ready to excuse her on the basis of the fact that English is her second language. Then my German speaking colleague assured me, "Trust me, I speak to her in German and she is equally stupid in German. She is a simpleton - she simply isn't very sophisticated and the thoughts in her brain are fairly simple and child like. The fact that she speaks better German than you and that you happen to be interested in learning German probably gives her some redeeming features in your eyes - but think about how the rest of us see her. I just see her as someone who is just plain dumb. Sorry if that sound harsh but I am just being honest here."

Perhaps that is why she gets along so well with Calvo - despite the cultural differences they share one thing in common: that kind of simpleton mentality which epitomizes the bueh tak chek mindset, making them kindred spirits. When they get together, they can laugh at vapid, silly things together without fearing judgement from anyone. Birds of a feather, flock together. I can totally see how that works in real life and it's not that I am being mean to her when I label her stupid, I am merely describing what I observe.

What do you call someone who isn't clever?

So why did people react so negatively to me calling her stupid then? Maybe it is the lack of distinction in English between bueh tak chek and boh tak chek. Maybe people thought that I was being elitist and snobbish for discriminating against someone who may not have had the opportunity to go to a good university, to become academically refined. Or maybe, some people are willing to give her the benefit of the doubt - like maybe she doesn't know that Cyprus is a country, but give her a topic that she cares about and she would be able to speak very intelligently about it. Or maybe, they are worried that if someone like Ziege can be labelled stupid, then they could well be labelled stupid too - that is why they react so angrily, so personally to someone like Ziege being labelled bluntly as stupid, rather than something a little more tactful like naive, child-like or simple.

After all, I go back to the IQ bell curve - surely some people will end up on the wrong side of that bell curve. It's harsh but true - so what do you call people who find themselves on the wrong side of that bell curve then? Is stupid an accurate but simply un-PC term?

I talked about this issue with a British person as I wanted to understand the British mindset - as to why there was such a negative reaction towards my use of the word 'stupid'. He said, "Even if you do have plenty of evidence that points to the fact that Ziege isn't particularly clever, you still should not call her stupid for it is cruel. Why can't you just settle for saying something like 'she isn't very clever' without using the word 'stupid'"?

That was when I said it was just splitting hairs. What do you call someone who isn't clever? Stupid. We're dealing with opposites here. Take a statement like, "Oh the weather isn't warm today" - that means "it is cold today." Or "this restaurant is not cheap at all" - that means it is an expensive place to dine. What could you possibly gain by calling Ziege "not clever" rather than stupid? He conceded that we're simply dealing with opposites here, but still there is a culture of giving someone a chance here in Britain.

That Japanese restaurant isn't cheap at all =  ??

"Take Prince Harry for example - we all know that he isn't academically gifted, we all know how he struggled at Eton and had poor results. But he still managed to get a job as a helicopter pilot - that is hardly an easy job! Now that just goes to show that you can get crap grades at A levels and still go on to get a good job in this country. If you had condemned him as plain stupid because of his poor A level grades, then you deny him the chance to prove himself in other fields in life. So maybe Ziege doesn't come across as particularly clever in the conversations you've had with her over the last three months and you're entitled to have an opinion about her - but our society would never condemn her the way Singaporean society would. Clearly, she has managed to get herself a part in your show and is performing alongside you - someone did see something in her even if you didn't. Surely that counts for something. Are you willing to acknowledge that?"

So there you go - I am happy and willing to allow my very Singaporean mindset to be challenged on the issue of labelling someone 'stupid'. What do you think? Is it wrong to label someone as stupid because they perform poorly at school or if they simply come across as not particularly clever when you interact with them? Do you believe in giving everyone the benefit of the doubt? Or are you happy to say, "so much for being political correct, fuck it, I know a stupid person when I see one". Let me know what you think - leave a comment below, thanks.

Is calling someone stupid going just a step too far?