Wah lan! “Cannot eat curry when FTs are home” happened 6- 7 yrs ago. So now we know that for at least more than 6- 7 yrs, the Community Mediation Centre has been telling locals that complaining FTs can’t stand curry. This is even earlier than the “Foreigners 1st, 2nd and 3rd; locals last” policy that was introduced by the government. I hate to think what the CMC were doing after MM said in 2009 that S’poreans were daft and lazy while PRC FTs were “the salt of the earth”.
OK I exaggerate.
But the law minister and his ministry still don’t get it.
What upsets and annoys the respectable netizens of cowtowns is that CMC raised the issue with the local family. It should have told the FT family, “S’pore is a multi-racial, multi-cultural society. Preparing and eating curry is part of everyday S’pore life. As guests here, if you can’t stand the smell, pls find another apartment.”
Instead it conveyed the complaint to the local family. And initially gave the MediaCorp free-sheet the impression that it proudly “pressured” the local family. Of course, it now denies pressuring the family. But that’s to be expected. It would say that, wouldn’t it?
Even so, the fact that it wanted to publicise the incident of it telling the local family of the complaint, tells us that it is not willing to tell FTs that they,as guests, must be sensitive to their host.
Or maybe, the minister and ministry get it. They are just trying to throw curry powder over the issue of the insensitivity of the CMC towards locals.
I hope Lina Chiam raises the issue when parliament opens. The WP MPs will have better things to do. WP MP Pritam Singh implies that the WP wants to be in a coalition with the PAP after the next election.
Related post: https://atans1.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/the-insensitivty-of-an-official-currying-fts-over-locals/