Stop Criticising China!!

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?