Readers write in with tales of woes and worries.......

[Siti]

I believe she is aware that there are more than just Chinese customers in Punggol.

Hi, thanks for speaking up for the non-Chinese. Being Singaporeans, some minority races (especially the younger ones) can understand a smattering of Mandarin & some Chinese dialects due to the interaction with our Chinese friends/neighbours/colleagues.

But the Mandarin spoken by China Chinese is often beyond us! Besides the accent and pace of their speech, people like me have trouble understanding the pure lingo used. At least my Singaporean friends use 'rojak' Mandarin with English, Malay & Hokkien.

It is true. To be in service industry, we have to pander to the customers, not the other way around. Here's to greater cohesion, tolerance & understanding between the races!!! 

[tom]

  Don't worry lah, China is a very big country, consisting of probably hundredths of Provinces, each having different speech pronunciations. Just imagine having a population of almost 1.1 billion people and still counting.

The most interesting job is in the travel industries where you are really exposed to different places, people, cultures etc etc, the exposure is indeed tremendous. It's interesting.