World Without Strangers

Nowadays, the catchphrase seems very often to be “minority issues”. It’s Us vs Them. A tiny minority fighting against the overwhelming majority. If you are not out, you must be in. And as queer Asian women, it feels like we are a minority of a minority of a minority. But I think this dichotomy of classification is too limiting. I propose we look at it from the perspective of “differences”. Differences which are to be accepted and respected.

Because while being a lesbian makes me part of a “minority” group, cut society along other lines, and I become part of the majority (because I’m Chinese). Cut it yet another way, and I’m in the minority again; (my flat isn’t an HDB one, and the government will never construct a covered walkway from my block to the bus-stop). Hence I think this way of defining society by polarizing it oversimplifies things. I prefer to think of people like a Venn diagram, which uses circles to represent different sets and the overlapping portions to define shared areas of the different sets. My circle will partly overlap the circles of other people who have some common traits, but their own circles will also overlap yet others with whom I have nothing in common, and there will be parts of my circle not overlapped at all perhaps because I haven’t yet met anyone who shares those traits with me.

Therefore with this illustration, it’s easier and fairer to think in terms of Differences. I think that differences should be expected as the norm, rather than an exception. After all we are not gingerbreadmen who came from the same cookie-cutter.

And in our mission to gain acceptance from society, we have an expectation that the majority should give space to the minority. However, as individuals we have to remember that depending on the situation we are sometimes part of the majority and be careful not to marginalise other people.

Have you ever, if you are a non-Muslim, casually asked your colleague “Hey, are you joining us for lunch?” only to have her reply “No, I’m fasting”. Then you say “Oh pai seh” (translated: “Oh I’m sorry, my bad”) I know I’ve made that slip before, and I’ve heard other people say it too. Forgetting that it’s Ramadan, the fasting month for Muslims. Of course it is not something that is said out of malice. It’s not deliberate that you ask someone who’s fasting if she’s going to have lunch. It is a genuine show of concern and courtesy, but absentmindedly applied wrongly. It’s also not that we didn’t know that our colleague is Muslim. It’s not that we don’t know that Ramadan exists.

I put it to a plain simple lack of social consciousness. An awareness that society is made of people who are all different from us. It is a very human trait (maybe even animal instinct) to only be able to see things from our own perspective. It is a learned skill, which takes conscious effort to practise, to be aware of the fact that rules which apply to us don’t necessarily apply to everyone else. And it doesn’t even have to be big issues like religion or sexuality.

In my previous workplace, I would sometimes bring a sandwich from home as lunch. And how many times over the years, was I asked by my colleagues “You eat bread for lunch?” They could not fathom how you could eat a non-rice for lunch. It was just out of their paradigm. “Ah you must be on a diet”; and the best was “Oh you must have learnt to eat bread while studying in London”. They had to invent explanations that fit the rules of their little universe, as if my sandwich needed any explaining at all.

So my point is, on one hand, we have to cultivate our own social awareness, yet we also have to recognise that other are also in the process of developing their own awareness. For example: My aunt, I am out to her. She still loves me for who I am, but she still asks me strange and silly questions about being a lesbian. I cannot immediately write her off as homophobic. As much as I may think that some of her questions are redundant or ridiculous, I have to remind myself that she’s just trying to show her concern for me, and she is only able to do it within the construct of her own little universe. So by living my life authentically, being myself, and being out to her, it gives her a chance to see and learn that although the Lesbian part of my circle doesn’t overlap her circle on our Venn diagram, there is still a large part of my circle that still overlaps with hers, because I am still the same person that she knew before.

And I am also always seeing and learning. During the recent mid-Autumn festival, one of the Chinese girls said “Let’s buy some mooncakes for the others to share. But we must ensure that the mooncakes are halal, and that we have a clean knife to cut them with. Then the Muslim girls can share too.” I think that she showed me a brilliant example of being very socially aware and conscious of others. Me, it didn’t even occur to me that besides needing a knife, we also had to be aware of the knife that we used. It’s not that I do not know these things in my head. It’s the need to apply the head knowledge to daily life and letting it be seen in our actions.

Giordano’s slogan “World Without Strangers” doesn’t mean that we can instantly be friends with everyone we meet and know everything about them. I think it means that whenever we meet someone, we must be conscious that they are different from us, with different needs and different backgrounds, and are all at different stages of their own life journeys.

Therefore in being aware that the differences do exist, we will be able to embrace those differences, and make others feel welcome and included, being just who they are.