After more than one month’s living here in Singapore, I have several contacts with Singaporean culture, especially Singaporean teenagers’ culture. Here I’d like to tell two stories and my reflections about it.
The first story began in the NUS cultural centre, where we watched a Chinese play produced by NUS students. I couldn’t tell whether it was a comedy or not, but there was something very funny in the play. Although I laughed with the other people during our watching, I still find it hard to accept the fun because most of the jokes were joking about sex, which seemed very strange and embarrassing to me. In the end, I told myself to respect this kind of campus culture, and managed to accept it. Thus, the teenagers in Singapore made the first impression on me of “open-minded but a little crazy”.
Since then, I became kind of sensitive about Singapore culture. I felt quite complicated about differences between Singaporean culture and Chinese one. However, I changed my mind when we went for a barbeque with the Singaporean seniors last Sunday.
We enjoyed ourselves very much that day. We ate a lot and played lots of different but enjoyable games. During the communications with each other, I found the other side of these local youths. They were very kind and simple guys. Sometimes they were just acting like children, which was very humorous. They cried winning the game, or tried their best to cheat. They knew our English was poorer, so they created some games that were very difficult for us. We also played a card game, which was a totally different one, called Saboteur. It was a kind of puzzle game. We cooperated together and had a lot of fun while smelling the fragrance of BBQ.
After these two experiences communicating with Singaporean peers, I realized that I am able to make good friends with Singaporeans here even though we have some different cultures. Similarly, I believe that only if we open our heart and show our respect, all Chinese people and Singaporean people are able to make good friends with each other.
William
2009-2-3
The first story began in the NUS cultural centre, where we watched a Chinese play produced by NUS students. I couldn’t tell whether it was a comedy or not, but there was something very funny in the play. Although I laughed with the other people during our watching, I still find it hard to accept the fun because most of the jokes were joking about sex, which seemed very strange and embarrassing to me. In the end, I told myself to respect this kind of campus culture, and managed to accept it. Thus, the teenagers in Singapore made the first impression on me of “open-minded but a little crazy”.
Since then, I became kind of sensitive about Singapore culture. I felt quite complicated about differences between Singaporean culture and Chinese one. However, I changed my mind when we went for a barbeque with the Singaporean seniors last Sunday.
We enjoyed ourselves very much that day. We ate a lot and played lots of different but enjoyable games. During the communications with each other, I found the other side of these local youths. They were very kind and simple guys. Sometimes they were just acting like children, which was very humorous. They cried winning the game, or tried their best to cheat. They knew our English was poorer, so they created some games that were very difficult for us. We also played a card game, which was a totally different one, called Saboteur. It was a kind of puzzle game. We cooperated together and had a lot of fun while smelling the fragrance of BBQ.
After these two experiences communicating with Singaporean peers, I realized that I am able to make good friends with Singaporeans here even though we have some different cultures. Similarly, I believe that only if we open our heart and show our respect, all Chinese people and Singaporean people are able to make good friends with each other.
William
2009-2-3
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