just a small, racial prob.

There are about 4 designers in my company's design section, and that includes me, the part-timer. The design office only have one Sabah man and one Indian lady. The rest are all Chinese, including me. You can tell that it is more like a Chinese advertising company here, though they do ads in English as well.

The most common language that they use to communicate is obviously Cantonese or Mandarin. English language is more like secondary. I speak more Cantonese in this company. Feels good as they all started to accept me and they are even more friendly.

But this situation is in contrast with the Indian lady's situation, well from her side of story. She quit this job and found another job. On her last day of work, she told me things about the Chinese staffs here. She couldn't work here anymore because she assume that they are always against her. She also felt like she was being bullied in a way, as in doing many things that they gave to her. She felt not satisfied when she found out that one of the staff was busy designing his own wedding card while most of the work was pushed to her. I find that not fair too, but then I seriously do not mind. Maybe its because I'm not a full-timer there.

And this is another side of story. The staffs were talking about her. They said that she often record the whole conversation in the office whenever they speak in Cantonese or Mandarin. Then, she will let her Chinese friends listen to it and it is a way to find out if they were talking about her. That is freaky and offending. The staffs were actually shocked as they do not have anything against her.

What I really think is that most people have problem in communication when they do not speak the same language or understand the language. For an example from this story, the lady kept recording their conversation whenever they speak in Cantonese or Mandarin. I think she must be feeling uneasy every time they speak in that two Chinese languages. She feel insecure, as though they have to speak in these languages to say things about her, or she will understand. I believe that she must be wondering why can't they speak English, at least she wouldn't feel uneasy. But then again, what do you expect when you are in a company which has a majority group of Chinese? I think she should have known that she was about to work with Chinese around her from the day she was interviewed.

Besides that, I really think that this is a problem that is not easily solved in our society. There are still people out there who thinks that the other race are their enemies. There's not much shitty thing called perpaduan kaum yet. It is difficult, though there are people who can get along with everyone. Some people feel insecure when they hear the other race speaking in their mother tongue. Some people can't get along well just because they do not speak certain language.

I'm not racist. I have lots of friends from various race and religion. At least we all speak the same language. English or Malay. My Cantonese is not so good, so I left it out. I myself will feel uneasy too if there are few Indian ladies speaking in Tamil behind me. It makes me wonder why. It makes me feel like they do not like me.
Don't you feel like that too? There's nothing wrong. We are just curious. Nobody can escape this commucation problem.

anyway, I wished that she didn't leave. Or maybe, should have not join this company if she knows she is going to have problem like this. But like I said, it is just so hard to avoid that.