it's not easy living in a multi-racial community. there are the aspects of the religion, beliefs and cultures we ought to know (or at least make the effort to know) & respect; and when situation warrants to adhere to.
since young i have had a wide circle of friends ranging from the chinese to the indians, the malays to the lain-lain. yes, they do things, believe & cultures are different from mine but we got along just fine. it is not unusual to see a group of multi-ethnic students / colleagues hanging around talking in a multitude of languages. along the way, we picked up their languages as well (as usual, the process of learning another language is you learn the foul words first). so yeah, we could swear & curse in an array of colorful languages. and the best part of it all is we don't take it to heart cos at the end of the day there is no hate or malicious intent. another plus was when it comes to the different festivals, we would go visiting & at the same time indulge in the popular local past-time - pigging out!!
just today i read in the papers about a teacher who was accused of hurling racial slurs at her indian students has been transferred out to a different school. she supposedly regretted her actions & apologized but did not expect it to be so serious. duh!!?? are these the kind of people we want teaching our children in school??
the daughter had previously mentioned a teacher in her school who also is quite a racist. when she told her dad & me what the teacher said, we wanted to lodge a report against her. but the daughter did not want to create trouble so we thought we'd give it another chance. but we told her that if the teacher ever did the same thing again, we will not hesitate to do something about it. so far, no stories yet or maybe the daughter is afraid to tell us....
i mean honestly each and every one of us have our personal opinions, likes or dislikes about the other (be it of a different race or religion) but one spoilt person does not the entire community make. we learn to filter them out, be tolerant & adapt for a harmonious life.
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