People in China Triggered By Video of S’pore Man Asking Chinese National To Speak English

Singaporeans are no strangers to Chinese nationals coming to work in Singapore. Unfortunately, not all of us are as tolerant towards them as we should be.

After all, they’re working jobs that most, if not all, Singaporeans wouldn’t want to do.

But from time to time, videos showing Singaporeans “ill-treating” foreign workers still surface on the internet.

And the reason why I used open-close quotes? That’s because, sometimes, the video doesn’t show the true story of the situation.

Like this one.

Do you remember the video of a Singaporean man scolding a Chinese lady at the food court?

Here’s the video to jog your memory.

In the video, a man could be heard telling a lady to speak in English.

“You don’t ask me to speak Mandarin okay. You come to Singapore to work, this is my country. I am Singaporean. You must learn how to speak a bit of English… In this case, this lady is from China. And she cannot understand English.”

He even asked her to go back to her country.

Now, before anything, kudos to the lady for keeping her cool though out.

And the netizens, naturally, aren’t impressed. At all.

And some even felt that he should be ashamed of trying to shame this woman online.

And I get where they’re coming from. After all, it feels like he’s nothing but a bully. Customers always right mah, right?

But of course, there are some who felt the man got something right. Foreign workers should at least be able to speak a bit of English, no?

But whoever is right or wrong, it doesn’t matter. Because this (shameful) act has been picked up by overseas media.

The South China Morning Press (SCMP), to be exact.

They said that this video was uploaded back in 2014, but got back into the limelight after getting posted on the Facebook page, Singapore Peasants.

The video had both countries in a state of debate.

While commenters from Singapore are judging the man on his “disgraceful” behaviour and a bully, the Chinese nationals are more concerned about the ethnicity and language use of Singapore.

To them, Singapore is made up of 75% Chinese people. And the Chinese language is one of the four official languages in Singapore.

So to them, they don’t know where this man get “his sense of superiority” from.

“Forcing her to speak English – where does his sense of superiority come from?”

Singaporeans immediately commented on the SCMP Facebook post that not every Singaporean is like that.

And this isn’t the first time Singaporeans did something xenophobic

Back in Jan 2017, Straits Times reported on this man who told a Filipino family to get out of Singapore at the Arrival gate.

“This is Singapore. You Filipinos. Go back to the Philippines. This is Singapore.”

Even when confronted, the man thought that he was right to do it.

Singapore has developed well in terms of economy, but isn’t it time for Singaporeans to grow up as well?

Thankfully, just as there are bad apples in the field, there are good ones as well.

Like this initiative that’s meant to help foreign workers with being away from home for such a long period of time.

Think about it.

Foreign workers are building our schools, our homes and everything else. But they don’t feel appreciated.

Even when Singaporeans does something nice for them, they’re wondering, why? Why would they do that?

And that’s a sign of how far we’ve ostracized these gentlemen, isn’t it?

When foreign workers were invited to break fast with a Muslim family in Singapore, one of them said that it was the first time he has stepped foot in a Singapore home.

Despite building HDB flats for years in Singapore.

Migrants Workers Centre (MWC), which organises this initiative, hopes that someday, foreign workers will no longer be ill-treated.

Not because it’s illegal and has harsh penalties, but because Singaporeans don’t approve of such actions.

If you want to do your part and be volunteer hosts for foreign workers, you can email in to [email protected]

Now you know what Singaporeans are talking about today; do check back tomorrow for another piece of news of the day!