The little India riot on Sunday, 8 Dec 2013 at 9:23pm.

The little India riot on Sunday, 8 Dec 2013 at 9:23pm.

  

Yes, it is old news by now. Nevertheless, it is still an important incident happening in Singapore that is worth recording. After all, how often do we see a riot involving 400 people, injuring at least 12 officers, damaging (burning, flipping and banging) 9 vehicles consisting of police cars, ambulances, Red Rhino and Fire Engine?

  

I am not a sadist, I must say.

  

It’s sad to see such incident unfolding and it is important for 小tz to know about this.

  

This is likely the peak of the anti-foreigners situations happening in Singapore, I hope. I really don’t wish to see more of this happening. The SMRT incident was bad enough, isn’t it?

  

Before anything else, I felt a strong need to clarify myself on the stand of so call foreigners against born Singaporeans. Am I against foreigners? No, I am not or else, I would have been stoned to death by now. Haha…

  

However, I am not going to be a hypocrite to tell you that I treat everybody, regardless of their relationship with me, race, nationality and religion equally. To hell with it, else I would be treating all of you as my daughter and wife. I cannot imagine... ...

  

So yes, yt is Chinese and I hope my future son-in-law would also be a Chinese. Err… ya, ya, ya… still many more years to go, I know. That’s my preference and it is very much affected by my race, origin and upbringing. However, if my daughter so decide to marry a non Chinese, I would have to accept the gentleman and treat him as part of my family. The same goes to my working life. As long as the person is in the team, the race, religion and nationality is not important. I will be more concern about how this person is able to integrate into the team and develop that team spirit much needed to tackle the issues we faced at work.

  

Personally, I felt the great tension were result of the disparity in income and culture of the many people (citizens and non citizens) staying in Singapore. In Chinese, there is a saying “江山易改, 本性难移", meaning that it’s very difficult to change one’s character. Think about it… how difficult it is for us to stay with our spouse after marriage (Initially, not forever before yt hit me.  ;P), the conflicts we have with our in-laws, the quarrels among siblings and the unhappiness with our colleagues and friends at times. However, those tend to disappeared with times when both parties respected each other's right, attempted to understand each other and developed a willingness to compromise.

  

When I joined the deaf community as a volunteer many years back, I did not feel comfortable. I felt out of place and alienated as I cannot understand their mode of communication and unable to catch up with their conversation. With time, with the community's  understanding and respect, I get better in sign language and started to understand the community better. It helps too that the community is willing to accept me and have patient with my poor ability to communicate in sign language. It is a 2 directional process and took years before I became more comfortable. Now, I am back to the starting point, I have not been practicing my signing and that’s another story altogether.

  

The points I wish to put across are (1) we need time, (2) understanding, (3) respect for each other, (4) willingness to accommodate, (5) patient and (6) a slow transition to encourage the integration of different group or individuals. Be it at home, with friends or at work, it is the same.

  

Oh, I am still talking about disparity in culture, character, upbringing, race, nationality and religion. I have yet touch on disparity in income, if you noticed.

  

Anyway, I am writing to share what I have learned with 小tz and hope it will help her later in her life. I have no interest in politics, I do not wish that this be circulated or used for purpose not intended by me. We each have our roles in life and in this society. For the smaller me, I will continue to provide for yt and 小tz financially, physically and emotionally. For the bigger me, I just wanted to focus on my work to support people who are less fortunate than I am.

  

Other than circulating oxygenated blood to the various parts of our body, the heart is also there to guide us in our daily life. If the decision that we are going to make is not going to benefit everyone involved and may even hurt others, may I suggest that we rather not act on it.

_/|\_