Attitudinal Barriers to Intercultural Communication

I want to highlight an important aspect of attitudinal barriers to intercultural communication, which is prejudice against other culture not similar to oneself. It is vital in a way that people clam up and refuse to even try to understand people from different cultural backgrounds. This will then lead to social problems that may escalate into something Singapore cannot risk, multi-racial problems.

Personally I feel that it is unfair for them to face this kind of ridiculous treatment because in fact, we Singaporeans are much lucky than them in terms of general well- being. They flock here because of the vicious poverty cycle that entraps their entire family, and that they also need proper food and lodgings.

Locals often view India and Bangladesh workers as dirty and smelly. Well of course, who wouldn’t if they are required to work under the hot sun? They help us do dirty, difficult and dangerous jobs, which us locals are unwilling to do. Every morning, I see the familiar faces that clean my corridors and lift landing area. Sometimes they do give us a nod out of politeness, and I greet them back too. I go Mustafa to shop, Jurong Point and Little India, and even on Sundays too! And during Chinese New Year, my dad will distribute red packets to the usual few that sweep my block area. Maybe for my family, we’re indeed more open and acceptable about foreign workers because we strongly believe it’s only a few black sheep that spoils the market.

My stand on protecting foreign workers is inclusive of china working mums, and Indonesian domestic helpers. There is a rising trend of gruesome murders, and victims highlighted are china working mums who are murdered, limbs dismembered and so on. Thus I think the government must set up more regulations to protect our foreign counterparts, so that Singapore can maintain its image as a safe country. What makes Singapore safe if it does not seem the case for people like Huang Na and Liu Hong Mei, both China PRs who dominated the news highlights last year.

We as Singaporeans being more educated should keep an open mind and look for the best solutions, instead of being angry and threatening to bring up this issue in the next government elections. The government can built more public toilets for them so that they will refrain peeing in public and dirtying our estates. I believe a committee should be set up to observe and address the concerns of the residents and propose a counter solution or proper mitigation measures to allow a less hostile "settling in". I would actually recommend having all of them sited in centralised estates, say 2 or 3 major locations so that we are better able to keep track of them and these 2 or 3 locations which are located in less populated areas would allow less problems to occur too.