A four-year-old video of a Singaporean confronting a Chinese food curt worker for not being able to converse in English went viral for a second time after it resurfaced on Facebook earlier this month. Netizens from China have since picked up on the video and have expressed outrage over the incident that occurred in 2014.
In the video, a Chinese woman can be seen working at a stall as the man shooting the video can be heard saying, “Don’t ask me to speak Mandarin okay? You don’t ask me to speak Mandarin. You come to Singapore to work. This is my country. I’m Singaporean. Okay, you must learn how to speak English.”
The man continues: “And here we have another problem with Government’s policies – bringing in foreign workers. In this case, this lady is from China and she cannot understand English. I’m just trying to get her to separate this-“
At this point the woman who appears frustrated begins to complain to another customer about what was going on. Undeterred the man shooting the video says, “Go back to your country okay? This is my country. I am Singaporean okay?”
He adds, “This is another case of the Government’s fault lah. Bringing in foreigners and giving us Singaporeans trouble.”
Singaporean uncle not happy she can't speak english. Must she die die learn english?
Posted by Singapore Peasant on Tuesday, 12 June 2018
Interestingly, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) ran an article on the viral video this past Thursday. The article failed to mention that the actual footage is years old and has been circulating online as far back as 2014.
The SCMP reported that the video “ignited debate” in both Singapore and China and noted that netizens from China have asserted that the majority of Singaporeans are ethnically Chinese and so, they should be speaking Mandarin.
PRC netizens reportedly asked, “80 per cent of Singaporeans are ethnic Chinese and speak Chinese…Mandarin is one of Singapore’s official languages. Forcing her to speak English – where does his sense of superiority come from?”
Meanwhile, several Singaporeans newly responding to the video showed their support for the worker and criticised their fellow Singaporean for “bullying” her:
