Evaluating Intercultural Behavior

Few years ago, my family and I went to Bali during my holidays. Bali was an extremely cultural rich country and the Balinese culture was strongly influenced by Indian and Chinese, and particularly Hindu culture. A large proportion of Bali's population adheres to Balinese Hinduism and thus there were numerous magnificent temples in that country. I remembered I was in a sleeveless top and shorts when we were brought to visit a temple by the tour guide for the first time. When I was about to enter the temple, I was declined entry. The man that was in charge refused to let me in, he said that I was inappropriately dressed, in other words, I have exposed too much of my skin. He wanted me to get a cloth from a nearby stall and to cover my arms and legs before I could get in. At that moment, I felt really awkward and that man was really angry with the way I dressed because he felt that I was being rude and disrespectful to their religion. Being dressed in a sleeveless top and shorts is a norm in Singapore, it did not occur to me when I was packing my luggage that this dressing can be deemed so differently in another country. During the journey, the tour guide also warned us that the Balinese eat with their right hand, as the left is considered impure which is a common belief throughout Indonesia. The Balinese also do not hand or receive things with their left hand and would not wave at anyone with their left hand. I kept those things in mind throughout the whole trip as I do not want to be mistaken for being rude or disrespectful again.

I realize that an ignorance of the culture you are visiting can lead to development of stereotypes and occasionally the causing of offence to the native culture. By having intercultural awareness can help us as tourists to understand the boundaries when visiting a foreign country and promotes good relations with the native culture. As we can see, being sensitive to intercultural differences is a need for many people. In a world that is constantly shrinking, coming to know and appreciate the cultural differences between us is paramount so as to ensure peace and harmony. A good thing to do before visiting another country is to get to know their cultural norms and their dos and don’ts through internet or other ways so as to ensure a higher chance of having a good experience there.

Research Project

After much deliberation, our group decided to do a research on the topic of delayed parenthood. This topic was brought up during this year’s national rally and has been a mainstay of much of our national discussion for some time. The title for our research project is “Delayed Parenthood among NUS Students” and for our research question we would like to know why the higher educated population of Singapore are not willing to procreate. Besides this, we would also like to find out what would be a good incentive for NUS students to have children in the future. Our hypothesis is that with better employees’ welfare, we can encourage NUS students to have babies in the future. With our project, we have limited ourselves to just NUS students because we know that in a few years they will be joining the workforce and their current attitude towards having children will be important if they were to start parenthood early. Besides this, we are excluding cases of unwanted pregnancies. We want to do a research case whereby both mother and father are ready and willing to step into parenthood together.

Problem Statement
The objective of this study is to analyze if having better employees’ welfare will encourage NUS students to have babies.

Audience
The target audiences of the research project are the relevant authority in Ministry of Manpower and NUS students.

Tentative Purpose Statement
One of the objectives of this report is to inform the Ministry of Manpower the attitude of NUS students towards having children. We also hope to inform them of the positive effects on our birthrate with better employees’ welfare.The second objective is to encourage NUS students to have babies in the future.

Methodology
Survey will be used to gain NUS students’ opinion regarding the issues on delayed parenthood. One hundred survey forms will be distributed to 3rd and 4th year NUS students randomly. We will also be working with literature review found on websites, newspaper and relevant advertisement, etc.

Potential Research Project Topic

NKF and Ren Ci charity fraud case had definitely left a deep impression in Singaporeans which made many felt cheated and disappointed. Thinking that the hard earned money they donated to NKF, did not went straight to the needy but to T.T Durai to buy a gold tap and to lead a luxurious life really anger them. The always humble venerable MingYi of Ren Ci Hospital and Medicare Centre was also involved in fraud, forgery and giving false information. Although both cases have tone down, Singaporeans have already lost confidence in Charity organizations and are not so willing to make donations anymore. From what I have read online, many Singaporeans have stopped their monthly donations to charity organizations. Furthermore, Youth Challenge, the Singapore Anti-Tuberculosis Association and the Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped were also hit by riveting controversies involving murky practices and misspent funds. Thus I truly can understand why Singaporeans have become so wary and stop their donations.

I think Singaporeans making fewer donations can pose a problem to our society. Although the management of charity organizations is at fault, the needy under them are innocent and they still need donations from us to survive. So if we stop donating, then what will happen to these innocent people? Thus, I think we can do a project on how can charity organizations be more effective to help the needy people. The NKF case had revealed that only 10 cents in every donation dollar go to patients. This goes to show that charity organizations are ineffective in making use of the donations. By finding what how can charity organizations be more effectively help the needy also mean that we can find out ways they can do to bring back the confidence level and make Singaporeans more willing to donate. Therefore a attitudinal survey enable us to know what is keeping Singaporeans from donating and what they think charity organizations should do to bring back the donations.

All in all, I feel that the society is facing a problem because charity organizations are leaving a bad impression of not being effective and honest when making use of the donations. This is leading to a smaller amount of donation which in the end, the ones that suffer are those that are in pain and need help. The objective of the study is to find out how charity organizations can operate to bring back the confidence level of Singaporeans to donate while our report will show some feasible solutions to this.