| Current mood: |  amused |
Assumptions and stereotyping
I was out with the ex-colleagues for dim sum dinner at Sims Avenue / Geylang earlier and while on the way to collect the car, we were walking down a stretch of shops along the Geylang side of the street.
There was one guy whom i shall name as CS among the other two of us women folk and he was walking in front of us, with me being in the middle and the older female ex-colleague whom i shall name as CT behind me. Midway through as we were passing by a erm, supposed KTV joint, a bunch of men dressed in tees and sports shorts/berms came out from another street and cut into my path. Hence it was CS, a couple of men part one, me, CT and a couple of men part two. I was kinda taken aback when the couple of men part one cut through but not unduly afraid, honestly. I mean we were in SG after all and surrounded with people, so what's there to be afraid of. But anyway i digressed.
What i was trying to say was that i observed the couple of men part one when they came into the path before me and i, to my embarrassment, assumed that they were from China based on their looks and attire alone. They were all tanned and erm, cheena looking and i thought i heard them speaking Mandarin. It didn't help that the men and ladies out there were all doing their 'jobs' when the men walked past whereas they ignored my guy ex-colleague in shirt and pants. So while we were all walking along, i had my blank aka black face on and kept turning back to make sure that CT was behind me. Until we reached a traffic junction and CS stopped and turned back to check on us and the couple of men part one stopped too and started converse in English (proper, not the cmi cheena or accented English) that i realised i assumed wrong: i had stereotyped and branded them based on superficial factors alone which wasn't all that smart of me.
As we were waiting for the traffic light to change and cross the road, it dawned upon me that those men could jolly be into some sports or sportsmen representing for that matter. Or even, as i think of it now, in the military, which could be a plausible explanation for their appearances. So what i am trying to say here was that i admit that i was guilty of judging a person, or in this instance, persons by their appearance which affected my first impressions of them, thinking lesser of what they deserve had i known or again, in this instance, heard of the truth earlier. And to think i probably had my fair share of disdain targeted at me when i walk down the streets with my short, ultra toot bob of a haircut back then or even now. I prolly won't like to be thought the same as i thought of those men so it's a case of do unto others what you want them to do to you.
The only consolation was that i wasn't the only one to come up with that assumption coz CT shared the same sentiments as well. Both of us thought that the couple of men part one and two were foreigners until we heard them talk. I guess being in the red light district and surrounded by men (and ladies) made us more wary and blinded us to reality.
Or maybe i am just a superficial person so sue me, lah!
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