The situation described below just happened to me today as I went to the pool for a swim, which made me think again about what I have learnt in ES2007S about interpersonal conflict.
It was a sunny and hot Sunday afternoon, and as to be expected, the pool was crowded. With the heat beating down on my skin, I was glad and excited to be at the pool, so I quickly slipped into the water, without much consideration to the traffic in the pool. As such, in what admittedly my mistake, I ended up very much in the path of a man swimming in the pool.
When I realised this, I quickly tried to get out of the way (regular swimmers should know how frustrating it is to have to keep avoiding obstacles in the pool), but I was roughly shoved aside by the man as he swam past. I was upset by this, and thought that the man was being unnecessarily rude, but was not very much bothered. I then proceeded to swim towards the other end of the pool, and as luck would have it, had to be in proximity to the afore-mentioned man due to the crowd. Nevertheless, I continued to swim and eventually overtook the man.
When I reached the other end of the pool, I waited for him to clear the lane before starting on a new lap. To my surprise, when the man reached the end, he approached me and shoved me again , and in a threatening tone, told me to watch where I was swimming (presumably because I was too close for his comfort). In my shock, I did not provide a reply, and he promptly started on a new lap.
In an effort to avoid trouble, I then switched lanes before starting on my new lap. Nothing further happened, until I had finished my swim and went to another pool with massaging jets. The afore-mentioned man was in that pool, and upon seeing me, started to comment (with expletives) to his spouse how I was an inconsiderate person for blocking his path and being too close for his comfort. Again, to avoid trouble, I feigned ignorance and went about my business. Apparently, this irked him, for he approached me again and started giving me threatening looks. Again, I ignored him (this was easy since I could not see him very well without my glasses anyway), and he subsequently went away, commenting that I must be "one of those China people". With this, the episode ended.
In reflection, I wonder what I could have done differently to avoid this conflict?
I could have apologised to the man while he first approached me at the end of the pool, but I felt that I had not willfully done any wrong, and he was in the wrong for shoving me. I could again have spoken to him in the massaging jet pool, but I feared that he was not in the reconciliatory mood given his tone and use of profanities. Was there anything I could have done anything differently at all?
In a separate thread of thought, I am also bemused by the man's association of China people with what he claims is inconsiderateness. Certainly, we have all had our fair share of unhappy experiences with people of different cultures, but to use the "China people" as a derogatory term is perhaps going too far...
Wow Clement, I did not expect someone as crazy as me to create an extra blogpost! Well anyway, I feel that it is with great misfortune that you encountered this person.
ReplyDeleteFor me, I would usually shrug it off and tell myself that these people are not worthy of affecting my mood.
Sadly, I am also a culprit of using that phrase as a derogatory term. However, it is meant as jokes between friends and shall never be leaked out of our social circle.
Even in Korea, during my summer exchange program, what I heard from my friends is that they too use that phrase as a derogatory term. Thus we were also a little offended when they ask us if we were from China.
However, occasionally I do reflect back on this as ultimately we are still Chinese. So why are we discriminating against ourselves? This is a problem that I have yet to find an answer for.
Hi Kunlin,
ReplyDeleteWell, just decided to tell the whole world about the incident here as I was quite upset by the whole matter for a while there, and realised that it is actually quite related to what we are learning.
You raisee an interesting point about us discriminating about our own race, but I guess Singaporeans have a divide in our minds between the Mainlanders and ourselves. That may possibly be due to the adoption of the "I am a Singaporean" mindset, which interestingly, is testimony to the fact that perhaps the National Education efforts in the earlier stages of Singaporean schooling is effective!
Indeed stereotyping and using the term "China people" derogatorily is extremely dangerous. I think this may be because there is a certain amount of xenophobia in every Singaporean (and Australians - see Pei Rong's post on Intercultural Behaviour), which I am afraid will, unfortunately, be hard to remove.
I think you handled the situation admirably, Clement. You didn't engage him, which was what he seemed to want from you. Instead, you acted with restraint and ignored his rudeness.
ReplyDeleteHats off to you!
Hi Brad,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment.
I agree with you, and am glad that I have managed to stop the situation from escalating into violence. However, I am not quite sure if ignoring the man was the best thing I could have done, for he seemed to rather irked by that fact.