Man asks, ‘Is there a bias in Singapore against people with foreign accents?’

SINGAPORE: After being frequently singled out during his National Service (NS) days and later encountering unpleasant treatment from a hawker stall owner, a Singaporean with a strong American and mainland Chinese accent turned to social media to ask: “Is there a bias in Singapore against people with foreign accents?”

The man shared his experience on the r/asksg subreddit on Sunday (Jan 18), explaining that although he was born in Singapore, he spent many years studying overseas. 

Coupled with the fact that his mother is a Chinese language teacher, he said he naturally developed a pronounced standard American accent in English and a strong mainland Chinese accent when speaking Mandarin.

However, upon returning to Singapore to serve NS, he began to notice subtle differences in how he was treated.

During his time in the army, he recalled being singled out on several occasions. “I figured it was normal, just army things, and I just laughed it off, and it never bothered me too much.”

More recently, however, an encounter at a hawker stall near Commonwealth MRT left a deeper impression on him. He recounted that the stall owner, who appeared to be in his late 50s or early 60s, was “extremely rude” to him despite there being no obvious reason.

According to the post, the stall was not experiencing any lunch-hour crowd, and the owner was selling only drinks. The man was reportedly the sole customer at the time.

“I asked him to buy a canned drink and how much it was, and I don’t know if his mood was just bad or whatever, but he started slamming the counter, asking for me to pay,” the man recalled.

 “After paying, he slammed the change super loudly and dramatically into the counter, and the entire time he was eyeing me like he wanted me to get out.”

He added that the owner’s behaviour made him deeply uncomfortable, and he struggled to understand what might have triggered such hostility.

“The only reason I could think of was because I was speaking in a very heavy mainland Chinese accent, and my friends have told me a lot of Singaporeans don’t like mainland Chinese people,” he said.

Feeling unsettled by the interaction, the man said he eventually handed the canned drink back to the stall owner and walked away. He did not ask for a refund.

“The entire thing just left me bewildered, to be honest,” he wrote. “Is there some sort of stigma with having a foreign accent here, or am I just getting unlucky with some of the bad experiences I’ve had here? Is this more prevalent in older-generation Singaporeans as well?”

“Most local hawkers speak English.”

In the Reddit discussion thread, many local users suggested that the hawker’s behaviour might not have been personal.

“That old man is just nasty to everyone,” one user commented. “It’s solely the reason why his stall doesn’t have many people buying.”

Another added, “He is just being a hawker. Some of them are just plain rude for no reason.”

A third Redditor also encouraged him not to take the incident to heart, explaining that many older Singaporeans naturally speak in a sharp or quarrelsome tone. “That’s just how they speak,” they said. “My aunts and uncles, who are all above 60s, talk like that.”

Meanwhile, a fourth advised, “Most local hawkers speak English. You should just speak English with them. The hawkers that I speak to in Chinese are those with mainland Chinese accents.”

In other news, a candid Reddit post about toxic workplaces has been making the rounds after a local shared how two bad jobs in a row left him thoroughly fed up with corporate life and seriously questioning his next move.

Sharing his dilemma on the r/askSingapore subreddit on Monday (Jan 12), he said he initially assumed his unhappiness in his previous role stemmed from stagnant pay and a lack of progression.

Read more: ‘Barely slept due to my own thoughts’: Singaporean opens up about burnout from corporate jobs