Evaluating Intercultural Behaviour

When I first saw the topic for this week’s blog post, my mind immediately conjured up images of the recently concluded Triennial Intervarsity Games (TIG) 2009 which was held in July. The TIG is an international sports event that is held once every 3 years and involves universities from around the region such as Hong Kong University (HKU), University of Malaya (UM), Universitas Indonesia (UI) as well as National University of Singapore (NUS). The TIG this year was held in NUS and I consider myself very fortunate to have been involved in it as one of the helpers. This is a rare opportunity for me to interact with my counterparts from different countries; the best part being that they are all in one place! It’s almost like a buffet of cultures served up on a platter.

Most of the time, I was stationed at the secretariat office which served as a point of contact for the athletes and this gave me a macroscopic view of all the athletes. From my vantage point, I managed to observe some very interesting characteristics that seemed, more often than not, to be governed by their different cultures. I ceased to see them as individuals, but rather more as a collective group of their respective universities. For example, I would refer to the athletes from University of Malaya simply as the UM people. I know it seems rather callous of me to group them thus, but when dealing with hundreds of athletes, it’s the most efficient way of analyzing them. I am well aware that there are individuals who are very different from their peers in their universities, however, I am just stating my observations based on the majority. Hence, I do apologise if anyone gets offended by this post.


The athletes from UM are very much like Singaporeans. They came, they saw and they complained. They complained about the food, the accommodation, the facilities and even the umpiring. They loved sitting at stairwells, mostly kept to themselves and hardly interacted with athletes from the other universities. They also did not bother to do any sightseeing; probably because Singapore is just across the causeway and there is nothing new for them to see. They were in direct contrast to the UI athletes who were so excited to be in Singapore. For many of them, it was their first time out of their own country, and in fact, their first time on a plane. They were very impressed with the facilities and told me that they were unused to the even flooring as well as playing in an air-conditioned environment. I soon came to realise that there was a great rift among the UI athletes, and they were further sub-divided into the “poor” (who were the majority) and the “rich”. These 2 groups stoically refused to mingle and their animosity for each other bordered on revulsion.

I shall focus on the “poor” Indonesians since the “rich” are rather uninteresting. Personally, my heart went out to these “poor” Indonesians. During a basketball game, one of the girls fell and hit her head. She was admitted to the National Hospital of Singapore where the doctors called for a CAT scan. It turned out that none of the “poor” Indonesians bought health insurance before coming to Singapore as they could not afford it. In order to pay the hospital bill, all of them came together to pool their money. It was a touching scene and I remain quite convinced that should such a misfortune befall a Singaporean, his fellow Singaporeans would choose to look the other way and leave him to his own devices. The UI athletes were also eager to sample the food in Singapore. However, when they went to the canteen, took a look at the prices, calculated furiously and converted to rupiah, their downcast faces told us all that we needed to know; the food was too expensive for them. They ended up eating instant noodles which they had brought from Indonesia as they also couldn’t afford to purchase instant noodles here.

The students from HKU were by far the most diverse and interesting lot. They range from the loud, raucous group that woke us up at 3am to ask us how to get to Clark Quay, to the love-struck group who were quite besotted with our girls and were quite content to chat with us in the secretariat room. However, one common thing unites them all: their love for food! I would always see them in the various canteens sampling the different food and their favourite seemed to be chicken rice. When I asked them if they had chicken rice in Hong Kong, they replied in the affirmative and I got very puzzled. Why did they like it so much since they already had it back in their country? Is the chicken rice in Singapore nicer than in Hong Kong? It turned out that the food here is much cheaper than back in Hong Kong. A plate of chicken rice here costs $3 but would have cost them $7 in Hong Kong. In fact, the food here is nothing new to them, just that it’s cheaper! One thing that I found most endearing about them was how truly surprised they seemed when they knew that I could speak Cantonese. Their faces would turn beetroot-red as they recounted all the nasty secrets that they had revealed to a knowing audience.

On the last day of the TIG, the “kiasu” portion of Singapore culture reared its ugly head. The athletes from the various universities gave us their shirts or caps as keepsakes. When they asked if they could have some NUS souvenirs, the NUS students demanded that they bring more “gifts” in exchange! This is something I am truly ashamed of; to be affiliated with these ingrates. At the end of the day, the Singapore students collected them all, shirts, caps, jackets, track suits from all the different universities. If this was an event in the TIG, Singapore would no doubt win hands down!