8/10/2011

Not everything can be compromised

We have spent 46 years to stew a broth, today some of the newcomers are complaining that the broth smells, and they don’t like the smell. We have spend several generations, a lot of blood, sweat and tears, and the newcomers said they are not happy and wanted us to change, to accommodate and adapt to their new ways, or even adopt their new habits. And some silly Singaporeans are telling our native Singaporeans to be tolerant and to appease the newcomers. (No wonder they even dared to beat up Singaporeans in broad daylight in Clementi).

I am referring to the cooking of curry in HDB estate and a foreigner complained, and the local mediator told our native Singaporean to give way to make the new citizen happy. The mediator must have been briefed on how to deal with such matters. There must be an official position and the mediator must be following that official position. For racial harmony, it is always good to compromise, even on things that we have done for the last 46 years, never mind, make the newcomers feel welcome and make their lives more pleasant. Can that be?

Is this the official position? I wanted to pui. For so many years, we have been emphasizing on racial and religious harmony, and we have accepted certain social norms and practices that we are comfortable to live by. This incident is threatening the very fundamental principles that we have built on. This must be put to and end.

New citizens must not be allowed to challenge and demand that we change to appease them. If they think they can get away with their demands, soon we they will be telling us that they want their own language, custom, newspaper, play area, and TV channels as well. They may want their languages to be taught in our schools or be spoken in Parliament.

The people of Singapore must take a stand to protect what we have built and not allowed any newcomers to suka suka change them. We welcome them since our govt wanted them so much, but they must accept what we hold sacred. We cannot let them change the status quo, the social norms, and undermine the mutual tolerance among the various people. The newcomers must adapt to our way of life, not the other way round. Is there anyone telling Singaporeans to adapt to the newcomers way of life? Now what is the govt going to do about it?

PS. There is a simple Simon approach to solving social problems. Compromise, no need to bother about right or wrong, as long as the two parties don’t give problem it is settled. I have experienced this attitude in the mediation of minor disputes. I had a bad experience with a crazy neighbor who came to my floor to threaten my family. I was told to stay indoor when he appeared. I was telling myself, I will do anything I can, even to break his legs if I have to. My freedom and safety of my family were compromised by a mad man and I was told to hide behind closed doors.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hahaha

Give them one inch, they will demand one yard the next time.

So, just give and give lah. We have already suffered from pay and pay for 46 long years.

No more such daftness lah!

Anonymous said...

Foreigners settling down here, must adapt to local environs, discarding what habits they have from their original land which would give offence to locals. whether in their cooking, hygiene,clothing, and so on. Singaporeans are basically a tolerant lot, and we would want our sensitivity to be respected.

agongkia said...

Whether new comer or not,its a matter of whether one have the skill to deal with their neighbour and interact well with them.
Not that I howlian,I manage to turn inconsiderate and snobbish neighbour into someone who will bring me food that they cook and share with me,though I am a nobody.

I am a typical Kaypoh who enjoy and help to settle family and neighbour dispute secretly and save the authority a lot of time.Ah Long..marriage problem,I attended.

Good mediator are born with such talent.Having good qualification or long angmor name like the one mentioned is not good enough.Bear with it Mr Bean.We are shortage of born talent for such task.Too bad,I have the talent but not the paper or I would like to volunteer for such task without pay.

And sorry to hurt you Mr Bean,your case is not well handled too.
From my instinct,you are still being haunted by the unpleasant incident with our neighbour.
I am sure you can even go to the extend of putting camera on your vehicle and so long as there are scratches on your vehicle,you will start to think its them.

Take it easy,dun let these simple incident affect your daily life.
I still need you to write good article.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Hi agongkia,

My problem solved with the help of a Yue Fei help group. They managed to make the mad man take his regular medicine. No more trouble.

Anonymous said...

I find it quite funny that the Indian family agreed to not cook curry when the foreigner family is around.

Honestly, I have to stop cooking something I have been cooking for the past 10 years because a new neighbour moved in and cannot take the smell??

I cannot take the sounds of Indian/chinese dialects on the MRT train, can I tell them to get off in order to maintain racial harmony? This is a joke really.

If I were the Indian family, I would tell the mediator to go fly kite. This is my life and culture, do I have to change my culture to suit another? This is Singapore's version of racial harmony, Singaporean giving in to foreigners' wimp and fancy.

Have you also ever thought how it can be enforced?

Indian man wants to cook curry, go knock on PRC door see if anybody answered. If not, can cook curry. If someone opens the door, Indian man says, okay I will not cook curry then byebye.....LOL, what a picture.

Poor Indians and Malays...a minority made even more minor...

Pity the daft and dumb 60.1% of Singaporeans.

Anonymous said...

stray cats have a simple solution to such probs - they move elsewhere.

but tt doesn't stop me from being outraged at the mediator's decision. the decision was racist.

Anonymous said...

I suggest that this Indian man tell his Chinese neighbour that he is willing to stop cooking curry if the latter agrees not to cook the chinese dish which gives out a smell too. If they are in such close proximity surely they can smell each other's cuisine odour. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you goes the maxim.

agongkia said...

hehe..maybe it will help if we make it compulsory for all future new immigrants to eat durian,curry,petai ,belachian and haebeehiam etc before allowing citizenship.
Let them know that any complain on these smell will not be entertain.

Unknown said...

I'm a FT.

Even I tak boleh tahan.

http://humyeefansang.blogspot.com/2011/08/can-you-please-dont-cook-curry.html

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Hi Hum Yee Fan Sang, welcome to the blog.

Living in a multi racial society, a lot of give and take. That is what we have grown up with. The fault here is the position of the moderator though it was explained that the compromise was suggested by one of the parties.

Certain things that are part and parcel of our way of life should be left as it is and should be explained to the complainant in the first instance.

Abao said...

lamentable indeed that our country has sunk to such depths...

at the rate we are going this nation will not be one in the not so far away future.

Anonymous said...

This is the direct result of LKY's obsequious fawning towards the mainland Chinese. As you said, he must have instructed his son's cabinet to give in to the mainlanders so that he looks good with the Chinese leaders and continues to get invited to their communist anniversary!

The way to counter this is for Singaporeans to form neighbourhood groups to interface with foreigners who are unreasonable and demanding.

If this is allowed to continue I would not be surprised if the HDB would issue a ban on us buying and eating DURIANS in our own homes because a mainland Chinese resident says it is offensive to him or his family memebers!!!

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