Since my previous post was an utter failure in trying to portray an intercultural observation, I am going to make up for it with this post on the same topic!
Two years ago, I was working at the duty-free shop at Changi airport departure hall as a promoter for Absolut® Vodka for the launch of one of their new flavours. There was an Absolut® roadshow display at the airport for a couple of weeks with lucky draws and a sophisticated-looking bar for passengers to try the different Absolut® flavours.
During one of my shifts at the roadshow counter with a guy partner, there were a couple of Australian guys who came to sit and chat with us. Usually, we would serve the passengers some tasters and try to get them to purchase a bottle or two of the vodka. If there were passengers who treated the roadshow counter as a free bar, we were told to try and get them to leave in subtle ways. However, the two Australian guys bought a couple of bottles after trying the latest flavour and started chatting with us as we were packing their bottles. After finding out that they had a few hours to spare with nothing to do before their transit flight, we offered to make them more drinks as we were also bored on our part due to the slow traffic of passengers at that point of time.
The four of us hit it off really well as they shared with us their traveling experiences and we exchanged our thoughts on different matters. We were comfortable with their company and they even shared with us music that they listened to on their MP3 player. At one point of time, the Australian guys started to tell us about the parties they have back at the place where they came from and one of them took out a magazine to show us pictures of the party scenes. We leaned over the counter to get a better look while he flipped through the pages and little did we know, he was showing us pictures of women flashing their uncovered boobs at the cameras! Both of us got a shock at the same time and literally “jumped” back to our side of the counter and busied ourselves with washing the cups and wiping the counter. It was really awkward as we were genuinely taken aback and yet we had to try to keep up with the conversation to appear normal. While they went on ranting about how hot the girls were over there, the two of us were just smiling on the outside and squirming on the inside and we did not know how to respond. After awhile, much to our relief, they seemed to realise our uneasiness on the topic and dropped it.
This just goes to show the different level of openness on sexual references between people of different cultures, namely the Chinese and the Australians in this scenario.
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Thanks, Wan Yu, for sharing this with us. (Don't think of your last "intercultural" post as a failure but as a learning experience!) This is an interesting story, and I can imagine your shock. At the same time, I'm not sure we can generalize and say that Australians have such and such views based on your experience with two guys drinking vodka at the airport. It can be dangerous to over-generalize based on one particular encounter. Now if every Australian you met did the same thing, maybe you could report on the trend and call it a trait of all Australians. But what if those two dudes were just perverts?
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned by Brad, I think it is very dangerous to generalize Australians in your scenario. I believe that Asians or even Singaporeans may show a different level of openness on sexuality that you do not agree with. For instance, just off my head, xiaxue blogs about the male genitals, I guess this might seem offensive to you but not to her many thousand readers.
ReplyDeleteI think its a matter of how susceptible we are, where should we draw the line and how firm our values are.
Anyway, I would choose to believe that these 2 fellows were perverts to show you those photos. At least thats how I feel. =)
Hey Wanyu,
ReplyDeleteI was impressed that you and your friend managed to be cordial to the Australians in that situation. It was definitely a show of professional customer service. However, I think that what they did could have been interpreted as outrage of modesty if put in another situation.
I think that it is overgeneralization to say that Westerners are more open to discussing sexual encounters. Some areas in US and Europe are extremely conservative, especially the towns that are further away from cities. Brad, do you agree with that?
However, I do agree that there are Westerners that we encounter in Singapore who more boisterous and open. In the case of the two Australian guys, they probably thought that your friend and you were interested to "hook up" since you seemed to be enjoying the chat with them. Casual sex may be totally acceptable from where they come from, and chatting up a girl may be the first step in seeing if the girl is interested. Your friendliness may have been misintepreted, and they thought that you were interested to take things further.
Thank you for sharing such an experience, but please don't let this experience make you more adverse to Westerners, or to think of all Westerners as 'ham sup guai lou' (dirty old Caucasian). There are lots of decent Westerners around, like Brad. ;P
Daniel
Hi Wan Yu,
ReplyDeleteI agree with Daniel that we can't generalise all westerners to be so open minded about sexual relations. I also agree that your friendliness was seen as an opportunity for the guys to hit on you! I guess we should be more careful about how we behave, not only around westerners, but more importantly, around strangers in general.
With that being said, if one chooses to clam up whenever there's a stranger around, then its not good communication as well. Balance is the key.
snll