My Thoughts on Culture

From what I learnt on chinese culture, I think that we all should be aware of our actions in China as many of them could offense the Chinese people without us knowing.

For example, we should call the people by their surnames to show that we respect them. We do not do that in Sinagapore often so that is a difference between our cultures. In China, it is considered rude to stick your chopsticks upright in your rice bowl or to tap your chopsticks on your bowl. We also practice this in Singapore so it is considered a similarity. In Singapore, we point things using our index finger but in China, they point at things using their thumb as it is considered rude to do so with their index finger. As we are used to point at things using our index finger, I think that we should be extra careful in China so as to not offense anyone there.

Apart from these practices, there are also many similar festivals that we celebrate such as Chinese New Year. However, Sinagapore, being a multi-racial country, celebrates Hari Raya and Deepavali while China does not as they do not have many Indian or Malay people living there, hence they did not make it a tradition to celebrate these festivals. The food we eat are similar to China's cuisines but not every dish. In China, we rarely see Indian or Malay food but we can all see Indian and Malay food such as roti prata and nasi lemak being sold in Singapore. Singaporeans dress in all types of beautiful traditional clothes — sari for Indians, baju kurong, baju melayu, baju kebaya for Malays, and the cheongsam for the Chinese. However, in China, people only wear the cheongsam during Chinese New Year.

In conclusion, there are many difficulties as well as similarities between China's culture and Singapore's so we should embrace these differences and be sensitive to each other's practices so as to maintain good relationships with them.