DAY FIVE

Through a foreign lens

During the Leadership Amazing Race, we had an interesting encounter with two German tourists. Deciding to share a taxi, we hopped onto one where we met the middle-aged couple. Our student leader then began to strike a conversation with them. We learnt that it was their umpteen time in Chiang Mai and that they loved the city very much, especially for its slow pace of life and culture. When asked if they liked Singapore too, they didn’t seem too excited about it. The German man showed strong distaste for our country, shaking his head throughout the conversation and repeating the phrase “too much work”. He bluntly said that our city was “just roads and buildings, nothing special”. At that point in time, I did not know what to think of it, or how to feel about a foreigner having such blatant aversion towards my own home country. While I felt a little defensive, I couldn’t deny that it is true Singapore has a deeply-entrenched work-oriented culture. (It didn’t help that we told them we were on a research study trip.) While my peers just nodded along in agreement, a friend objected to it, and astutely pointed out that we shouldn’t let such a stereotype perpetuate. Instead, we should take every opportunity to show the beauty of Singapore. This really impacted me because I was guilty of it too – focusing on our flaws and allowing foreigners to do the same too. After this, I was determined on debunking all the overly-exaggerated stereotypes and spread the goodness of our country like our efficiency, security and familial culture. (I found myself doing so when I returned back to Singapore where I met my new roommate from Canada.)

Money

Being the last day, we decided to do some last minute shopping out at the local night markets. Unexpectedly, I experienced quite a bit of internal conflict. The shopkeepers were aggressive in selling their items and when we decided to drop the deal after haggling to an unsatisfactory price, they appeared disgruntled and upset. The internal conflict arose when I couldn’t decide between being “giving” and conducting a “fair trade” with the shop owners. I did not want to simply “give in” even though we reached a price that I was not happy with. Although it may just be a few dollars to me, it is a significant sum to them. However, it was strange to carry such a mindset, as if I was a benevolent wealthy foreigner giving to charity. A balance has to be struck between conducting a fair trade where both the consumer (myself) and salesperson are able to strike a fair deal and being generous. I guess I still have a lot to learn and reconcile about money-handling and dealing, which comes with adulthood but I hope that at the same time I will not become too hard-hearted about these things.