How might people from diverse backgrounds profit by encountering one another’s customs and norms?

Each race has its own unique custom, distinctive culture and religious belief. Generally, all these characteristics reflect their racial resilience and dignity, solidarity and social values.

In social life, we have a host of opportunities to taste various traditional foods while we mix with people from other race groups. A wide variety of spices may impart an Indian flavor to the Chinese dishes. Thus, the Chinese people may enjoy delicious foods besides Chinese cuisine.

While different races of people live in a multilingual community, they inevitably have the chance to learn other languages besides their mother tongue. Fluency in other languages is conducive to one’s career and also will help one to know different cultures in depth.

Cultivating a moral education is an approach to maintain ethnic harmony. People from diverse backgrounds come to know each other and learn from each other. “Among any three people, there must be one who can be my teacher.” (The Confucian Analects) From this quotation by Confucious, we explicitly know that despite diverse cultures or backgrounds, people should learn to inculcate values such as modesty towards other tribal groups.

Potential difficulties that could arise out of the differing cultural groups

When people have guests from other ethnic groups and religions, they tend to be very fastidious about hospitality, and an offer of food is an essential etiquette requirement. Offering an indecent food may be offensive to the guests. For example, a Chinese family hosts Malay friends or neighbors to visit and eat delicacies during religious holidays. If non-halal foods are served, the Malay guests may feel disrespected. To avoid such an awkward situation, the Chinese must be cautious in preparing the foods.

Gift giving is a courteous behavior and common custom in every culture irrespective of age, race, creed or color, and also one of the decent ways to express concern, gratitude and appreciation. However, we must take into account that what kind of gift to give will not cause a misunderstanding. As for instance, buying a clock as a present for any Chinese friends is taboo in Chinese culture. The word “clock” has similar sound with the “end” in Chinese Mandarin, giving a clock as a gift sounds like being a gift at the bedside when a Chinese person takes his last breath.

Certain colors such as white and black are considered inauspicious. The white and black color tend to be equated to that of mourning or death while the red color is considered a very auspicious color for new year festivals, weddings and other happy occasions. Wearing a black shirt or skirt to attend a Chinese wedding ceremony will be regarded as an impoliteness and will make the host feels uncomfortable. These auspiciousness and inauspiciousness are identically carrying the same weight in Indian tradition. Therefore, we must be extremely discreet when attending other culture occasions, try to dress up decently.