Living in a multi-racial and cultural society, we must be sensitive of each other's culture. It's better to understand a bit of every culture to avoid offending anyone and maintain racial harmony in Singapore.
One incident that happened when I was in Primary School is still vivid in my head now. One of my classmate who was known for being mischievous in school was playing with scissors and attempted to cut some of the girl's hair off. He was successful in doing so and his next target was a girl with long braided hair which is a Singh and practiced Sikhism. He went to cut a few strands off when the girl was not aware and realized only after he was showing off to everyone what he had done. She went home and told her parents about it and the next day he was being punished for his act and had to apologize to the girl and her parents. Why he was punished was not only because he was playing with sharp objects and cutting people's hair but in Sikhism, Kesh is the practice of allowing one's hair to grow naturally as a symbol of respect for the perfection of God's creation. If the Sikhs were to cut any hair, they were not considered pure. That week, the principal announced to the school about this incident and urged us to be aware and sensitive of our cultural differences.
It was through this incident that made me realized that every culture in Singapore should be taken seriously regardless of whether they are the minorities. Hence being aware of each other's culture and avoiding judgement would allow us to avoid such cultural taboos from happening.
This is indeed very interesting yet sensitive incident which does reflect the point as to how ignorance of another person's culture would lead to such misunderstandings. I believe that the boy would also keep this in mind when interacting with other Singhs practising Sikhism.
ReplyDeleteLiving in a multi-racial society, it saddens me that Singaporean generally do not know much about other people's culture other than their own. Perhaps if schools started to focus more on educating us about different cultural practices, we would be able to relate and understand more about the various cultures in Singapore.
That's an excellent post Isabelle and Yee Sheng's response is valuable too. It's funny that in a nation that has always been multiethnic & multicultural, there are so many instances of cultural insensitvity??
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