Cultural Shock!

Greetings

The first three questions asked after being introduced are, in the order:

– What is your background?

– Where did you do your MSc/PhD/Post-doctorate?

– What field did you do your MSc/PhD/Post-doctorate?


To me, that is very unusual. These will definitely not be the questions I will ask someone whom I’ve just been introduced.



Direct & Top-Down

When it comes to speech, my encounters so far had been "direct".

When we would say, “ Will you fill up this form, please? You could sit here and write.”, they say, “You sit and write this.”

When ending a conversation, they say, “Is there anything else?”

When asking you to do something, they say, “You do this…”

I was taken aback many times and it took me a little while, before I came to terms with their directness and not to take it personally.

And if only I had realized the top-down system earlier, I would have saved myself a lot of bumpy rides. Other than having to refer everything to ‘Sir’, frustrations from unable to get what I wanted or get help for things, after working together in the same laboratory sharing the same bench for more than a week, my benchmate finally asked me what my name is and how he should address me, and that’s because his ‘Sir’ told him to work with ‘Dr Tan’.



Seniority

I learnt that seniority is a status and privilege.

When seniors talk to their juniors, the tone tend to be harsh and the approach hostile. However, in front of someone more ‘senior’ than them, for example, their ‘Sir’, suddenly, like the coachman and the horse-carriage when the clock struck twelve, the high and mighty air dissolved into a tiny squeak…

I was invited to one of the freshers’ welcome and was told it will be really fun. There will be songs and dances, snacks and dinner will also be provided. What they did not tell me was, it were the new students who will be made to put on a mask, sing and dance, perform acts which many of them did not appear comfortable with, and on top of that, they had to be subjected to the ridicule and putting down by the seniors.

I’m not sure if the new students feel welcomed, I definitely do not feel so. I talked to one of the organizers after that and shared how our orientation programs were carried out. He told me that is the privilege of the seniors and this is their tradition, so they had to follow.

History will repeat itself the following year, when these juniors become “seniors” and their time has come…