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I am ethnic Chinese, born in Singapore, and have lived here all my life. I have travelled to many countries in the world, but I still love Singapore the best. The main reason is that I love the diversity of the cultures, and more importantly, the tolerance of different languages and religions.

Nowadays expatriates are not only westerners from USA/Europe etc. Huge numbers of Chinese are coming from mainland China, as well as many Indians from India. I am perfectly OK that westerners do not learn to speak a single word of chinese/malay/tamil, and that Indians do not know a single word of chinese. I myself do not know Malay/tamil. There is no such thing as a "local" language in Singapore. All languages were imported here from other countries since Sir Stamford Raffles founded Singapore in 1819.

A westerner who knows only english, should not expect everyone around him to speak only english in Singapore. Many chinese singaporeans feel more comfortable conversing to each other in mandarin, and I don't see why we should speak only english if there is one westerner working among us. If the westerner feels uncomfortable, then he should try to learn and understand mandarin instead, and not expect us to change to suit him.

The most important thing is for everyone to respect each other's culture and religion. We need to respect that Muslims do not eat pork or any meat that is not Halal, and we should not mix our own utensils with theirs. Every year, they don't eat any food from dawn to dusk, for a month until Hari Raya Puasa. The chinese have many superstitions, like during weddings and chinese new year, guests should not wear all black. During the lunar 7th month, chinese will burn paper offerings to the dead, and this could result in a lot of air pollution.

I don't think it makes sense to embrace other cultures and traditions, in many cases, we cannot, like we can't be fasting together with muslims right ?

So long as we have mutual respect, everyone can live in peace.

Learn more about this author, Tamara Hock.
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