Build friendships, not just business relations

The world today is getting more and more global. We are born in one place, maybe move somewhere else to grow up and go to school, work in yet another city, sometimes marry someone from another city or country, and possibly work in yet another country. In our lifetime, it would be very rare to say that we were born, grew up and still live in the same city.

Moving to a new culture is not unusual anymore. With constant people movement, we may never have moved from our hometown, yet we are surrounded by different ethnic groups, nationalities and cultures. How do both cultures strike a balance to meet somewhere in the middle? How do we create a win-win situation?

Many years ago, Singapore's former Prime Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, had the foresight to forge good relations with China. Today, we celebrate Singapore's relationship with China in so many different sectors of society: political, economic, social, etc. A large majority of Singaporeans are ethnically Chinese. We still speak the language of our ancestors, and Mandarin, the working Chinese language of today. But, we are so different from China. Unless we learn, we cannot work well together.

In the above article, Mr Lee says that we Singaporean Chinese must live in China to be truly bicultural. I agree. The best way to learn about a people and its culture is to be fully immersed in the atmosphere. We will never really "be one of them", but we will be able to understand what makes them tick. That's where the real relationship or 关系 is formed.

Business relationships are temporal. Friendships are for life. Singapore and China have built a friendship. Let us, the people of Singapore and China, build personal friendships. It begins by learning the language.

我们都要学普通话！We must all learn Mandarin!

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