While I was in Taiwan with my friends for vacation last December, we met a taxi driver who shared with us his political views of Singapore and Taiwan. He started off with commendations on the Singapore government’s efforts to promote a clean and green Singapore. Then, he proceeded to talk about Singapore as a “fine” country and the ban of chewing gums in which he felt was unnecessary. Other than commenting on Singapore, he also criticised the Taiwanese government’s effort to boost the economy growth, saying that the growth was very slow as compared to Singapore. We were taken aback by what he had said as we did not expect him to be so open to criticize the governments. We also felt awkward when he started to speak about the policies and did not know how to respond to his remarks.
From this conversation, I realised that Taiwanese are very bold in raising their opinions or criticisms on political issues. There is greater freedom of speech and a sense of democracy among the Taiwanese. Moreover, they have good knowledge of the political situations in their country and other countries. I felt that this was lacking in Singaporeans. Singaporeans are more politically apathetic and tend to restrain from talking about politics, often due to the unseen out-of-bounds markers. On the contrary, the Taiwanese are more open towards criticism and it is their culture to speak out their opinions whenever they want or feel a need to do so. There are also many platforms available in Taiwan - whether it is in the internet or the media, variety shows or news channels - that facilitate the transmission of messages from the public to political parties easily and vice versa. Although similar platforms in Singapore such as STOMP and the forum page in the local newspaper, the Straits Time, have emerged to serve as modes of feedback, I feel that these are not enough to generate a culture that is as open and critical as compared to Taiwan.
Different cultures in terms of the people’s way of thinking breed different kinds of attitudes and behaviours. The environment we live in also shapes our behaviour. These are indeed what make each country unique. Thus, after this intercultural experience, I feel that we should be more open to the different way of thinking in a foreign country and at the same time, we might be able to learn some positive traits of their culture from them.
