Well, at least that's what Ellouisa Chen from ST Forum thinks. Even though I have to say that most would probably NOT agree.

"It's Singapore, serve us in English first, please"

Ellouisa Chen wrote an article at ST Forum that caught quite a bit of attention.

She started off commenting how displeased she was with the fact that whenever she step into a retail boutique, she was always greeted by the sales assistants in Mandarin instead of English.

Although she claims that this isn't about speaking in Mandarin equals mediocre service. But "attacks" were somewhat made throughout the article.

Yes, English is the universal language. However, when you talk about Singapore, though having a mix of cultures, on an ratio, the majority of Chinese living here still surpasses those of which are foreign.

What's my point?

Well... Let's put it this way. I doubt that the Chinese sales assistant is going to walk up to an American or Indian and start blabbering off in Mandarin. That wouldn't really make sense.

The fact that this Ellouisa Chen is a "Chen" somewhat means she is Chinese. And according to the comments made,

"The retail assistants probably sized her up as a local Chinese Lian and hence spoke to her in Mandarin."

She looks very much like one too.

Thus, it isn't surprising that the sales assistant might tend to speak to her in Mandarin instead of English.

I mean, the Japanese tend to speak to other Japanese in Japanese, the Filipinos speak to other Filipinos in Filipino, and so on so forth.

It's kinda a warmth feeling, if you know what I mean.


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