Facebook user Petrina Ng shared something she overheard recently at a FairPrice supermarket. An elderly Chinese couple was discussing if a certain brand of chocolate was halal. They wanted to buy the chocolates for their neighbour, who is Malay.
As they could not decide if that particular brand was halal, they turned to a young Malay man for help. “Boy, are these halal? Hari Raya is coming and I want to buy for my Malay neighbour but we don’t know how to see if these are ok. Says it’s made in Malaysia but means it’s halal or not?” he was asked.
Ms Ng said the conversation brought a smile to her face. “It warms my heart not just because they wanted to gift their neighbour something but they were sincere enough to want to get it right,” she wrote on Facebook.
“Though it seems like common knowledge that most people would know, but it’s really nice that they bothered to ask when they didn’t because they respected their neighbour’s beliefs,” she added.
Ms Ng recounted that the young man they turned to for help probably felt as she did because it was visible in his eyes and in his smile. He helped the couple to go through a few options and pick out the chocolates. The elderly couple thanked him profusely and praised him for being a nice man.
She said, “(It’s) so nice to witness such a lovely scene today.”
Her post has garnered more than 3,000 likes so far on Facebook and has been shared more than 2,200 times.
Facebook user, Lindar Haslir, who shared Ms Ng’s post said: “Warms my heart to read this when one take the extra step, instead of just saying “no pork no lard” or “some don’t care if halal or not”. This act, “shows how inclusive a person you are. May more humans in this world learn to educate themselves on the differences in all walks of life.”
Finance Minister Lawrence Wong appealed in June last year to the Chinese community to “take the extra step” to make those from minority communities feel at ease.
In a lengthy keynote speech at a forum on race and racism jointly organised by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) and the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Mr Wong addressed recent concerns about racism in Singapore following a spate of highly-publicised incidents.
“First, we must recognise that in any multi-racial society, it is harder to be a minority than a majority. This is so everywhere in the world,” said Mr Wong.
“So, it is important for the majority community in Singapore to do its part, and be sensitive to and conscious of the needs of minorities.”
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