Living in a multi-cultural society like Singapore, one always has to be conscious of his/her actions/words when he/she is around people with various cultural backgrounds to ensure harmony. However, one can be only conscious if he/she is aware of the norms and values of the cultures.
When I was in secondary school, a few of my classmates visited a malay friend, Zulkifi, for Hari Raya. Zulkifi was preparing drinks for us while we were sitting in his room and chatting. When Zulkifi returned to his room with the drinks, he suddenly burst at us, “ What are you doing? Get off the carpet!!”. We were dumbfounded. We quickly stood up and moved away from the carpet. Little did we realize that the carpet was actually his prayer carpet? I could remember him shouting, “ Do you know how sacred the carpet is?”. All of us felt really guilty and apologized profusely to him. We mistook the prayer carpet for a normal carpet as it was laid near his bed. After awhile, he calmed down and accepted that it was an unintentional mistake. He said that he would just buy a new prayer carpet, as this carpet cannot be used again. The prayer carpet must not to be handled by the foot.
Our action might be unintentional but the incident did hurt Zulkifi. I felt bad for upsetting our host on his festive day. Though we could not differentiate between a prayer carpet and a normal carpet as both looked similar, I felt that if we had more knowledge about such intercultural elements and religious teachings, we would definitely have prevented such incident from happening. We would have been more conscious in dealing with the carpets in the house. Zulkifi also could have prevented this incident if he had placed his prayer carpet in a corner or warned us about the sacredness of the carpet when we went to his room.
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Hi Shiny!
ReplyDeleteYour post has clearly illustrated how conflicts could arise due to the lack of cultural understanding. I realized that many people, including me, have little knowledge of the multi-racial cultures in Singapore. The social studies modules that we took in both primary and secondary schools taught us the importance of racial and religious harmony, however, they did not go beyond to explain the values that underlie various traditions and behaviors. I guess this might be one of the reasons that explain our ignorance of the cultures in our country.
To understand the cultures of other people (or race in this case) can be challenging. I have learnt more about the Islamic practices through your post. Thank you for sharing!
Peiling
Hi Shiny,
ReplyDeleteHad you not wrote a topic on this, I would not know about the prayer carpet too! It is indeed important to know the culture for a particular group to prevent any misunderstanding.
In Singapore, even though we have multi-cultures, we did not fully understand about each culture. I guess making mistakes is unavoiable if the other race did not warn or tell us what we should do.
Thanks for sharing a valuable experience. Just a side note, paragraph 1,
"However, one can be only.." >> "..one can only be.."
"..norms and values of the cultures" >> "..norms and values of a culture"
Paragraph 2:
"..he suddenly burst at us," >> burst sounds abit wrong here, maybe you can use "bellowed"
"..actually his prayer carpet?" >> A question mark is not need here.
=D
~ huahua ~
Hi Shin Ye.
ReplyDeleteI personally feel that this kind of conflict is very hard to prevent. Malaysia is a multiracial society too. However, we only learn that "we must respect other races' culture" but we don't really get the chance to understand what their culture are.
For example, my malay teacher always joke that Chinese god statue is very much like the cartoon character "bunny" and she doesn't understand why Chinese like to pray to a "bunny". On the other hand, Chinese don't know much about the belief of Malay, especially Islam.
What we can do is try to be more careful in our action. In addition, if friends of other races visit our home, we should try our best to ensure we do not get offended too. In the case described above, like what you said, "Zulkifi also could have prevented this incident if he had placed his prayer carpet in a corner or warned us about the sacredness of the carpet when we went to his room." Everyone has to take initiative to maintain the good relationship among races.
You described the intercultural conflict very clearly in just three paragraphs. I like this post because it is very detailed and concise. Thank you for sharing. =)
Zhi Peng
Thank you, Shiny! This is a very clear and concise description of a conflict caused by 1) a lack of communication, and 2) a lack of understanding of cultural norms and practices. You and your friends were clearly not at fault for not understanding the importance of the "prayer" carpet. If your Malay friend had been able to anticipate your action, he might have explained the sacred nature of the carpet and how it should have been treated (and not stepped on or sat on). At the same time, he couldn't have imagined that you all didn't know, probably because he had not had non-Malay friends in his room.
ReplyDeleteWhat this tells me is that the education system (schools in particular) needs to do a better job of giving students deeper insights into different norms. That could be done through readings, films, discussions and role plays.
You do a very good job in this post of describing the incident in question and then discussing it with some basic analysis.
Dear Shiny,
ReplyDeleteYour post enlightened me that something insignificant to us can be important to others. :)
Like the prayer carpet that you have described, the ignorance of its significance to Zulkifi’s culture has created unhappiness. Being aware of the little things in one another’s culture can alleviate the effects of the differences. The presence of the cultural differences would not be that bad anymore, if its people learn to understand and accommodate one another. The lack of awareness may be a major cause of many cultural conflicts that arose and yours is a perfect example!
Thanks for the post Shiny and I have learnt something new from it! :D
Hi all,
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting.
I guess education plays a very important role here. Educating the public about the different cultures and beliefs would be especially important for a multi-racial country like Singapore. This will help increase our awareness about the other cultures and be tolerant about the differences.
Love,
Shiny