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<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Aug 1, 2009
RACIAL HARMONY DAY
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Waitress ignores family at head of queue...
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->I AM of Chinese-Indian parentage, my husband is Dutch, and I have not experienced discrimination until two Sundays ago, when I stood first in line at the entrance of Crystal Jade restaurant in Tampines Mall, with my two preschool children.
While I was browsing through the menu and waiting for the staff to seat us, a couple and their two children joined the queue but stood beside rather than behind me. When the waitress approached and asked them in Chinese how many were to be seated at their table, I leaned forward and politely said I was first in line and required a table for four, with my husband returning from the carpark to join us. To my surprise, she ignored me and asked the family to enter the restaurant to be seated. Thinking she might have misunderstood that the other family was first, I asked her again for a table for four. She ignored me again and this time looked behind me to another family of four and asked them in Chinese to follow her to be seated.
The second family was seated before the waitress returned, and nonchalantly asked me finally what I needed.
I asked to speak to the manager who tried to rationalise her behaviour. But what room was there for excuses when she chose to serve those who came later not once but twice, despite my requests to be seated, when all our groups were of the same size? We dined at another restaurant.
It troubles me to even allow myself to think there was any hint of racial discrimination.
The incident calls for greater sensitivity and awareness of equality and respect for all individuals to be upheld continuously in our minds.
It is also the responsibility of private organisations and government bodies to teach new migrant workers in our workforce to appreciate the value of racial diversity. This is something I urge Crystal Jade management to address with its staff.
As I dressed my four- and five-year-old daughters for their Racial Harmony Day celebrations in their kindergarten on Tuesday, for the first time I took pains to speak to them about how wonderful it was to be in a class, a school, and a country where there were so many different races, colourful cultural costumes and exotic foods.
They may not have understood why they could dress in cheongsams, have a bindi on their foreheads and take Dutch cookies as their contribution, but they thought it was all great fun. That is a good enough start for me.
Suguna Madhavan-Reiniers (Mrs)
RACIAL HARMONY DAY
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Waitress ignores family at head of queue...
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->I AM of Chinese-Indian parentage, my husband is Dutch, and I have not experienced discrimination until two Sundays ago, when I stood first in line at the entrance of Crystal Jade restaurant in Tampines Mall, with my two preschool children.
While I was browsing through the menu and waiting for the staff to seat us, a couple and their two children joined the queue but stood beside rather than behind me. When the waitress approached and asked them in Chinese how many were to be seated at their table, I leaned forward and politely said I was first in line and required a table for four, with my husband returning from the carpark to join us. To my surprise, she ignored me and asked the family to enter the restaurant to be seated. Thinking she might have misunderstood that the other family was first, I asked her again for a table for four. She ignored me again and this time looked behind me to another family of four and asked them in Chinese to follow her to be seated.
The second family was seated before the waitress returned, and nonchalantly asked me finally what I needed.
I asked to speak to the manager who tried to rationalise her behaviour. But what room was there for excuses when she chose to serve those who came later not once but twice, despite my requests to be seated, when all our groups were of the same size? We dined at another restaurant.
It troubles me to even allow myself to think there was any hint of racial discrimination.
The incident calls for greater sensitivity and awareness of equality and respect for all individuals to be upheld continuously in our minds.
It is also the responsibility of private organisations and government bodies to teach new migrant workers in our workforce to appreciate the value of racial diversity. This is something I urge Crystal Jade management to address with its staff.
As I dressed my four- and five-year-old daughters for their Racial Harmony Day celebrations in their kindergarten on Tuesday, for the first time I took pains to speak to them about how wonderful it was to be in a class, a school, and a country where there were so many different races, colourful cultural costumes and exotic foods.
They may not have understood why they could dress in cheongsams, have a bindi on their foreheads and take Dutch cookies as their contribution, but they thought it was all great fun. That is a good enough start for me.
Suguna Madhavan-Reiniers (Mrs)
