Why did this Kiwi woman get so angry with me?

Hello again guys! I was writing a long piece on the democrat nominee process but it seems to be somewhat uncertain as to whether or not in would be Biden or Sanders and I thought I'd wait a day or two before publishing that post as that post would make more sense once I know who would be up against Trump. In the meantime, allow me to talk about something that happened on Facebook which started as a fairly innocent post: I have a friend in Singapore who wrote a list of places he would love to visit this decade. It was like a bucket list for his travel plans and there were some pretty exotic and beautiful places on that list - some people were leaving comments on how awesome some of these places are then I chipped in and bitched about one of the locations on his list: New Zealand. Now my regular readers will know that I found New Zealand extremely disappointing for a simple reason: it is so incredibly British. I live in the UK so it's just like the UK with much higher mountains and unless you're there to see the local Maori culture (they number 16.5% of the population but are very assimilated today) - you might be better off going to somewhere like Argentina where you get the same kind of dramatic landscapes but nobody speaks a word of English which is perfect for someone like me who speaks Spanish but if you're the kind of monolingual tourist who can't order a coffee in another language, then perhaps going to an English speaking country like New Zealand might be preferable. Thus different people have different needs and desires when it comes to what they want out of their travels, hence two travelers can go to the same country at the same time and then come away with very different opinions of the place. One may love it whilst the other one may hate it.

So amongst my Singaporean friends on Facebook is this woman in New Zealand called Karine who then launched a stinging, personal attack on me. She didn't ask me what I did in New Zealand, whether I traveled to both North and South islands, she didn't ask me when I visited New Zealand or how long I spent there. No, it was just a lot of name calling because I said New Zealand was boring and my Singaporean friend should favour other more exotic destinations in Africa and South America. I made it clear to her - woah Karine, I don't know you, I have never met you, why are you attacking me like that? Even if I don't rate New Zealand as a particularly interesting tourist destination, is this how you respond to someone voicing an opinion? I am not attacking you personally, so why are you so angry? But one thing was clear: she took my comment about New Zealand very personally, as if I was attacking her as a person when all I really said was something like, "don't waste your time and money, go somewhere else instead, New Zealand is boring." For me, I found New Zealand boring for a simple reason: it is an English-speaking country. I would enjoy my holidays a lot more when I visit a country where nobody speaks a word of English and I'd have to communicate in another language. That's my criteria and whilst you may find that weird, I'm not actually imposing that criteria on anyone else even as I share my opinion on social media. Regardless, even if I really disliked New Zealand because somehow it didn't entertain and thrill me enough, it still isn't any kind of personal attack on Karine but somehow, this woman has decided to hate anyone who doesn't like New Zealand and that's more a reflection on her poor social skills rather than her country per se.

Given that I've lived 21 years in Singapore, 22 years in London and 1 year spread out across various locations in Europe and the Middle East, how would I have then responded to someone who said, "I went to Singapore/London and I didn't like it - don't go there." The first thing I would do would be to try to find out when they came to the city, how much time they spent there, what they did and perhaps if they had any bad experiences. So I had a friend who went to Morocco and she suffered really bad food poisoning when she was there. That unfortunate bout of sickness did ruin her holiday as she was too sick to leave the hotel for two days - so she came back saying that she had an awful time in Morocco. So perhaps there was something wrong with that one restaurant where she ate at that resulted in the food poisoning, upon further questioning, even she agreed that she might have had a very different experience there if she had merely chosen to dine in a different restaurant that evening. Then I have this other friend who went to Poland and complained that she had a terrible holiday: the reason was because her flight to Poland was delayed due to engine problems at Gatwick airport and the airline had to arrange for a different plane to take the passengers to Gdansk - however, they didn't transfer all the bags from the original plane to the new one and some passengers were informed upon arrival that their bags didn't make it with the flight. Naturally she was absolutely furious as everything she needed for her holidays (from her clothes to her medicines to her toiletries even her phone charger) were all in her bag that was left in Gatwick airport. So I pointed out to her that the problem lay with the airline and the baggage handling staff at Gatwick airport rather than anything to do with Poland per se and she actually admitted that nothing actually went wrong whilst she was in Poland.

So here's the moral of the story: one bad experience (such as a bout of food poisoning or baggage woes) can truly ruin your holiday but it is necessary to be very specific about what went wrong or what upset you rather than write off an entire country. Thus in my case, sure I knew New Zealand was going to be an English speaking country where I wouldn't get to use another language, but the reason why I felt disappointed was because I had visited parts of New Zealand where there simply wasn't much Maori culture - I favoured the dramatic landscapes like the fjords, the glaciers and high mountains and that wasn't where you were going to find much remnants of Maori culture. Hence if Karine had asked me a few questions about where I had visited and what I was looking for in New Zealand, she could have pointed out to me that for what I had visited the wrong places in New Zealand for Maori culture and thus if I found New Zealand boring, that was mostly down to my choices. But no, instead of engaging with me like an adult, she chose to attack me with personal insults as if I had just offended her personally. Of course, if I explained it to you like that, it was obvious that I didn't mean it as any kind of personal attack on Karine when I say that I felt quite disappointed with my holiday in New Zealand and indeed, as I have just pointed out above, I certainly have to bear responsibility for some of the choices I made in terms of where in New Zealand I chose to visit. But here's my question - when should you choose not to take something personally and when do you have the right to say, "you've crossed the line there and I'm offended by what you have said, I must demand an apology." So let's analyze these three scenarios I have come across over the years and analyze them.

Case study 1: The Australian woman at a hawker center 

Let's go back to my army days when my friend Colin told me this story. Whilst at a hawker center, he encountered an old Australian couple on holiday in Singapore and they started asking him for advice about what was good to eat. So Colin recommended a few dishes and the old Australian woman said, "I don't like the look of it, it looks like shit." So Colin took offence, told her to that there was a McDonald's nearby and she should fuck off back to Australia if she didn't like Asian food. So let's analyze the situation: the old Australian woman clearly lacked social skills - she wasn't obliged to like or even try everything she encountered in a Singaporean hawker center. If she wasn't from a big city in Australia, some of the Asian food she saw might come across as very strange and unfamiliar. If she didn't want to try any of it, she could have politely refused instead of using language like, "it looks like shit". Thus in this case, she came across as an uneducated, unrefined woman devoid of basic manners and social skills to deal with such a situation. Certainly, even if she really disliked what she saw, she should have been a lot more careful in what she said to Colin who was trying his best to help them out. She could have simply said something like, "no thank you, I don't think I want to try that dish." The older Australian lady seemed quite surprised that Colin took such offence at her comment - after all, she didn't say that Colin looked like shit, she said that the noodles in the hawker center looked like shit. But then again, she was insulted Bak Chor Mee, that's one of the staples in Singaporean hawker cuisine - it is a very common dish in Singapore that's popular with the locals. So should Colin have taken offence even if she was insulting the noodles rather than him per se?

So you see, on this occasion, I actually think that Colin had the right to take offence. He wasn't paid to be nice to these two Australian tourists, they had approached him for help and he did go out of his way to be nice to them whilst expecting absolutely nothing in return. The least that old Australian woman could have done was to be polite and refrain from using language like that which would have caused offence. But no, she was rude and thus Colin made the right decision right there and then to stop being helpful and tell them to fuck off. I would have done pretty much the same thing. In choosing to use such coarse language with Colin (remember, they have only just met - they are not close friends), she was showing a shocking lack of respect to Colin and thus that is reason enough to for Colin to take personal offence. Did she go out of her way to maliciously try to insult my friend Colin? I don't think so, I am happy to give her the benefit of the doubt that she was probably just a stupid old woman with poor social skills, rather than a racist who hates Asian people. There is a huge difference between the two and the key factor is the presence or absence of malicious intent. If this old Australian woman had been someone connected to Colin like a neighbour, a colleague or a friend of a friend, I might have suggested that he ought to have given her the benefit of the doubt with regards to that crass remark but since she was a stranger to him at that point, he definitely had nothing to lose in telling her to fuck off. Hence in this case, yes it was right to take personal offence, not because she didn't like Bak Chor Mee, but because her choice of words had been disrespectful. Hence I don't think we should suffer fools gladly and put up with their bad behaviour and poor social skills.

Case study 2: I don't like your mother's cooking. 

Oh this is a less clear cut case: my friend Abdul is dating a white British woman, Valerie. So there was a occasion when Abdul and Valerie were with his family (Abdul's parents were not there) and Valerie said to Abdul, "I don't like your mother's cooking." Immediately, Abdul's siblings took such offence at the statement - how dare you insult our mother's cooking? We were brought up by our dear mother and we totally love the food she gives us, are you being racist towards our Asian cuisine which is a vital part of our cultural identity? We welcome you into our family, our beloved mother works hard in the kitchen for many hours to prepare a lovely meal for you and this is how you show your appreciation? What is wrong with you? Here's the thing: Abdul's family is Bangladeshi so his mother's cooking is generally quite spicy - an Asian person like myself would adore Abdul's mother's cooking but for an English person like Valerie who was brought up in the UK and somewhat unfamiliar with Asian cooking, she simply doesn't have the same liking for spicy food. Thus Valerie protested that it was nothing racist but simply a reflection of her preference for non-spicy and less-spicy food and since Abdul's mother tended to use a lot of spices in her cooking, Valerie didn't like her cooking. So if Valerie had simply said, "I'm not fond of spicy food" then I'm sure Abdul's siblings would not have taken any offence. But since there was an implicit criticism in the statement "I don't like your mother's cooking" - that could be interpreted as "your mother's cooking is bad, your mother is such a bad cook", thus that's when they got defensive and took offence with what Valerie had said.

So was it wrong of Abdul's siblings to take it so personally? Were they being too sensitive - after all, they should know that their mother cooks traditional Bangladeshi food rather than a wider range of cuisines and thus her cooking is generally quite spicy. Or was it Valerie's fault in not being specific enough that her issue was only with the spiciness of the food? Well I found out from Abdul that his family were against him dating a white woman who wasn't a Muslim but they knew that they couldn't force him to marry a more traditional Bangladeshi, Muslim woman. Thus there are many episodes of micro-aggression of a passive-aggressive nature, when they choose to dwell on certain things that Valerie said and deliberately jump to the wrong conclusion, just to assume the very worst of her so they can turn around and say, "see what I told you about dating that Valerie? She's no good for you, dump her already. You deserve so much better than her." Thus if Valerie knew exactly what she was up against, then there is an argument that she should have chosen her words a lot more carefully under those circumstances; she should have been very clear that she was talking about her aversion to spicy food rather than drag Abdul's mother into the conversation. In any case, Valerie should have been given the chance to explain what she meant rather than for Abdul's siblings to simply assume the very worse of her. I wanted to use this example to demonstrate how in some instances, people have already made up their minds what conclusions they wish to have; hence they will pick and choose only the evidence that will support their long-held beliefs. 

Case study 3: Assuming the worse for no reason. 

When I got a part in a German film three years ago, I shared the news with some people I had worked with and one of them suggested that it was going to be a 'straight to DVD' film. I have no idea why he said that or what prompted that remark. Ironically, it turned out to be the German film with the biggest budget of all time and was a massive hit throughout the German speaking world and I had the pleasure of walking down the red carpet in Berlin and Munich like a film star. But given that I had yet to give that co-worker any details of what German film I had a part in, why did he make the 'straight to DVD' comment? Quite honestly, I don't know - maybe he thought he was being funny (but he was just being offensive) or maybe he was maliciously trying to put me down. As I didn't know him well, I didn't quite know where I stood with him - was he joking or was he serious? Should I take offence or should I let this comment go? The thing is when I tell most of my friends that I got a part in a German film, their normal response would be overwhelmingly positive, they might congratulate me or ask me if they could see a trailer for the film or maybe ask me questions like how long I would spend in Germany filming, or even if there are any famous celebrities in the film and if I would get to meet them during the filming. But this was the only person who said something quite disparaging despite not having any information about this German film in question. So did I take offence? Was he insulting me personally by insinuating that I could only get acting work in awful films? Or might you say that he was talking about the film, not me - so I shouldn't take it personally?

Actually, I chose not to for a simple reason: his opinion didn't matter to me. I'm not trying to please him or impress him, in fact I couldn't care less whether or not he knew that I was in this German film. If he was trying to be funny, then he failed and that's a reflection of his inability to be funny, that's no reflection on me at all. Likewise, if he was trying to establish social rapport, then once again, he failed and that's a reflection on his poor social skills rather than me. In any case, I didn't know him well enough. So even if he was behaving like an autistic moron in making such a comment, well then I choose to react with indifference and that's a really important option to have. I remember talking about this indifference when one of my readers asked me if my parents are very gay friendly since I am openly gay and I had to point out that they are indifferent. It's like if I told you that your neighbour's colleague's niece is a lesbian - you probably would just shrug your shoulders in complete indifference because that woman is just too far removed from you to care whether you were very gay friendly or if you were anti-gay. If it had been someone much closer to you like your neighbour, your colleague or your niece, then you might take a much closer interest if you found out that she is a lesbian. The fact is my parents and I don't have a close relationship at all - that's why they are indifferent about what I get up to with other men. By the same token, I chose to be indifferent to what this co-worker thought about me being in a German film - he can think or say what he likes, I choose not to care. I'm using this example to illustrate how indifference can be a valid option.

So turning back to Karine in New Zealand, why did she take such offence what I said about New Zealand then? Well I have a theory. You see, if you were to talk about the many things which are wrong with the two countries I have lived in for most of my live: the UK and Singapore, I'd gladly indulge you and give you more details about why things are screwed up in these two countries. In fact, I spend a lot of time on my blog criticizing both of these countries. It doesn't mean that I hate these countries, but I'm honest enough to acknowledge the problems in these two countries and I certainly don't expect anyone to believe that things are perfect in both the UK and Singapore. However, Karine couldn't even stand the mildest of criticisms on my part when I claimed that New Zealand was 'boring' - so why did she take it so personally then? I am guessing that this Karine is probably not very educated, she is probably quite poor and doesn't have a good job - she is probably working in some terrible job being paid peanuts and life for her is probably pretty awful. She probably screwed up all her exams at school and was a lousy student who was always scolded by her teachers. And now as a worker, her boss is probably screaming at her on a daily basis because she is always screwing up. She has poor social skills and has no friends - she was probably bullied for most of her life. There's so little joy in her life, there's really nothing for her to be proud about when she looks back at what she has done with her life - you'll only see disappointment and missed opportunities. Has she ever won an award or a gold medal? No, never. Has she ever been interviewed by a journalist about her great accomplishments? Nope - she has never done anything that she can realistically be proud of.

So instead, she takes pride from being a Kiwi, of her country. She can hold her head up high and say, "I love New Zealand so much! I am very proud to be a Kiwi! New Zealand is amazing! New Zealand is the greatest country in the world!" And guess what? When she does that, nobody is going to disagree with her because okay, that's her opinion and she's entitled to it; if it makes her happy to say that then most people would just let her and ignore her (rather than challenge her). Hence any kind of attack on New Zealand (however minor, like the way I called it a 'boring' destination) is thus interpreted as a very personal attack because being a New Zealander is probably Karine's only source of pride. Now I see this kind of mentality quite widespread in so many countries around the world - it certainly isn't limited to any one nationality, but when you have achieved so little in your own life to be proud of, then you start latching onto something else like your nationality as your source of pride and that's not just unhealthy, it can be quite dangerous because this is the kind of mentality that can lead to xenophobia when so much of your identity is wrapped up in your nationality. Gosh, we saw this with the whole Brexit episode, we have the exact same problem here in the UK. Thus if Karine reacts like that to someone like me saying that her country is boring, can you imagine how she may react to someone who is even more critical of her country? She isn't even mature enough to defend her country using facts or trying to reason with me, instead her immediate response is using childish insults and name-calling. She may think that she's simply being patriotic but instead, I just see her as a very messed up person who uses xenophobia to cover up her own self-esteem problems. 

In conclusion, is New Zealand really that boring even with all the glaciers, mountains, ski resorts, fjords and beautiful landscapes? Well, allow me to give you some context to my advice to my Singaporean friend: my friend is in his late 30s, he is actually quite rich, has a successful career and thus is very well traveled. He has been to many countries all over the world, including some pretty exotic places and has spent a lot of time holidaying in places like the UK, Australia, Canada and the USA over the years. This is one of the main reasons why I am advising him against going to New Zealand - he is going to find a lot of it very similar to all these other English speaking countries that he has already visited in the past. Being your typical Singaporean, he has a lot of money but not a lot of time due to his hectic work schedule. It is with that context in mind that I was suggesting that he should go for more exotic destinations, particularly in countries where they do not speak English and the local culture is going to be very different from what he is already very familiar with. Certainly, if a local from a country like Thailand were to go to New Zealand, then he would find New Zealand very exotic: they speak a different language (well, if your mother tongue is Thai then every foreign holiday would be exotic) and everything from the landscape to the food is very different from what you are used to in Thailand. But my friend is an English-speaking Singaporean who probably wouldn't find New Zealand exotic at all; so under these circumstances, my friend isn't Drew Binsky - he isn't trying to visit every country in the world! Thus with the limited amount of time for holidays that he has, I would recommend that he ought to go somewhere else instead. Now that's the very specific context regarding my Singaporean friend's situation which I don't think that Karine actually bothered to try to understand.

That's it from me on this issue, over to you, what do you think? Have you ever met someone like Karine who hangs her pride and self-esteem on her nationality (as opposed to personal achievements)? How would you react if someone visited your country and said on social media, "I went to (insert name of country) and I hated it, don't go there, don't waste your time and money." Would you be insulted and take it personally? Would you get angry? Or would you simply say something like "Of course I don't expect 100% of tourists who have visited my country to have had a good time, surely there must be a minority who didn't like it and that's just normal - you can't possibly please everyone in the world. That's an impossible target to set." Do you think my theory about Karine's mindset is valid? Why would she attack me for not liking her country and calling it boring? Hey, I could have said far worse things about New Zealand based on what the white settlers did to the local indigenous Maori population! Please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading!