This book-in was a rather unhappy one. I went to camp without knowing about the "China Milk" incident, and I even tried to buy a packet of Dutch Lady strawberry flavoured milk to drink. I only knew that this product has already been "condemned", together with many others which are suspected to contain milk produced in china. Wow, this case is getting more and more serious, I thought. But then everyone suddenly started to say bad things about the country itself. Sentences like:" It's like this because it's China.", "Did you buy China products?", "Is this thing made in China? Luckily it's not." were getting heard more and more frequently, and a lot of jokes were made based on this. "You think this is China is it?" "Don't worry lah, we are not in China." "Of course he does that, he is from China."...
I tried very hard to contain my anger instead of talking back to them. Most of time I kept quiet instead of laughing with them. But isn't there something wrong with the way they view other countries? I mean, the whole incident occurred because of a few (well, many, actually) black sheeps among the producers, right? Why is there a need to condemn the whole country? Just because China has been receiving good reputation recently and hence they must take this chance to bombard China?
Doesn't Singapore promote racial harmony? This is also evident in the army. But since we can treat the Indians and Malays with respect, why can't we treat those from China with respect as well? We are not even from a different race, and even our origins are the same! Why don't the Singaporeans know that we speak the same language and have the same skin colour? Sometimes I really get fed up about the way they look at China and people from China.
I don't deny that Singapore and China has different ways of doing things, and the quality of China products are not very high. But hey, can't you at least spend a thought for other people? Can't you think about the feelings of those who were born in China? What if people from other country talked bad things about Singapore and joked about Singapore right in front of you? How would you feel, assuming that you are a loyal Singaporean?
Sometimes the comments can be really be very hurting... Jokes are jokes, but there should be a limit, shouldn't it?
6 comments:
i exactly feel the same when i see 'criticising china' news in japan, its too much. i feel stop criticizing china ! its way toooooooooooo much in japan, i feel the information かたよりすぎ。やりすぎ！ even tho i dont have any special feeling for china, i feel its too much.
i guess ppl talk about china like that... since its 'easy' to criticize and feel singapore is better and safe. not so many ppl are sensitiev about this. i dont like.. we all should be sensitive about how others feel when u criticize other countries.etc.. i feel sorry about what happened to u. and i dont like..:-(
Thanks! I need to start getting used to these comments... Getting angry at them won't really help, since the facts are there...
In the army there're many diff types of ppl with different sense of humour.. Maybe the ppl in ur plt crack such "jokes" just for a laugh.. prevalent in my Coy too, but I'm not very bothered cos I know they are not serious about what they said, and they were just kidding around. yea no point getting angry with them since what they say won't change the facts..
Actually I know they are serious about what they said... But there's nothing I can do to change their mindset...
actually ppl learns to be more sensitive about such stuff gradually or by experiencing 'getting hurt' by similar thing as having singapore criticized etc. i wasnt sensitive about such stuff before, but now, i dont wanna hurt people for this. when some japanese friend criticize chinese etc sometimes, and one of our acting buddy is half-mainland chinese, i feel so bad !!! ppl should be sensitive, i go tell them 'she is half chinese, u know'. she doesnt show anger but i can see she is hurt and trying hard to be patient.
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