[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/when-inclusive-language-matters\/#NewsArticle","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/when-inclusive-language-matters\/","headline":"When inclusive language matters","name":"When inclusive language matters","description":"From the time she entered the working world, Shru, 23, learnt that as an ethnic minority at the office, she needs to jump over extra hurdles.\u00a0 It was a three-month internship then, and her first opportunity to work at a big public firm while she was in her second year of university. Her fellow interns [&hellip;]","datePublished":"2022-01-12","dateModified":"2022-04-16","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/rachel-teng\/#Person","name":"Rachel Teng","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/rachel-teng\/","identifier":367,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rachel_Teng-100x100.jpg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rachel_Teng-100x100.jpg","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TheHomeGround Asia","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","width":640,"height":640}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/S3-Feature-1920-x-1080-px-V1-8.jpg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/S3-Feature-1920-x-1080-px-V1-8.jpg","height":900,"width":1600},"url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/when-inclusive-language-matters\/","commentCount":"6","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/when-inclusive-language-matters\/#Comment1","dateCreated":"2026-08-09 09:52:21","description":"References: \r\n\r\n\r\nLemon Casino Auszahlung <a href=\"https:\/\/www.np-stroykons.ru\/links.php?id=digitally.site%2Flouburges9484\" rel=\"nofollow ugc\">https:\/\/www.np-stroykons.ru\/links.php?id=digitally.site\/louburges9484<\/a>","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"https:\/\/www.np-stroykons.ru\/links.php?id=digitally.site\/louburges9484","url":"https:\/\/www.np-stroykons.ru\/links.php?id=digitally.site%2Flouburges9484"}},{"@type":"Comment","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/when-inclusive-language-matters\/#Comment2","dateCreated":"2026-08-09 03:41:21","description":"References: \r\n\r\n\r\nVulkan Casino Erfahrungen <a href=\"http:\/\/www.garagebiz.ru\/?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fnfccardmaker.com%2Fshanawhitlow60\" rel=\"nofollow ugc\">http:\/\/www.garagebiz.ru<\/a>","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"http:\/\/www.garagebiz.ru","url":"http:\/\/www.garagebiz.ru\/?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fnfccardmaker.com%2Fshanawhitlow60"}},{"@type":"Comment","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/when-inclusive-language-matters\/#Comment3","dateCreated":"2026-08-06 03:14:43","description":"References: \r\n\r\n\r\nStar Casino Bonus ohne Einzahlung <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gta.ru\/redirect\/maps.google.hn%2Furl%3Fq%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Finstantcasinodeutschland.de%2F\" rel=\"nofollow ugc\">www.gta.ru<\/a>","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"www.gta.ru","url":"http:\/\/www.gta.ru\/redirect\/maps.google.hn%2Furl%3Fq%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Finstantcasinodeutschland.de%2F"}},{"@type":"Comment","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/when-inclusive-language-matters\/#Comment4","dateCreated":"2026-05-03 00:26:46","description":"I love the structure of your explanation.","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"watch live tv online free streaming","url":"https:\/\/oncreativity.tv\/?URL=https:\/\/www.oneotv.com\/"}},{"@type":"Comment","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/when-inclusive-language-matters\/#Comment5","dateCreated":"2026-04-28 00:59:52","description":"Thanks for making it so relatable.","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Best salomon shoes","url":"https:\/\/globalshoepalace.com\/product-category\/women\/Salomon-Women-Shoes"}},{"@type":"Comment","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/when-inclusive-language-matters\/#Comment6","dateCreated":"2026-04-24 01:14:37","description":"I learned something new today.","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Salomon shoes brown","url":"https:\/\/globalshoepalace.com\/product-category\/men\/Salomon-Men-Shoes"}}],"about":["Community","Local","Race","Singapore"],"wordCount":1985,"keywords":["business language","chinese","chinese speaking workplaces","discrimination","ethnicity","exclusivity","inclusivity","indian","language","language barrier","malay","mandarin","meritocracy","privilege","race","Singapore","workplace"],"articleBody":"From the time she entered the working world, Shru, 23, learnt that as an ethnic minority at the office, she needs to jump over extra hurdles.\u00a0It was a three-month internship then, and her first opportunity to work at a big public firm while she was in her second year of university. Her fellow interns at the workplace hailed from the other local universities: the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, and Singapore Management University.\u00a0She was taken aback and found it \u201crather ridiculous\u201d that her fellow interns \u2014 whom she assumed to be \u201csocially aware to a certain degree\u201d \u2014\u00a0 were speaking Mandarin so often and widely that she felt excluded.\u00a0\u201cWe would go for lunch together, and they would be speaking Mandarin all the time,\u201d she says. \u201cThe only time they use English was when they were directly speaking to me. Because of that, I couldn\u2019t jump in or contribute to a conversation unless I was being directly spoken to,\u201d says Ms Shru, who declined to give her full name for fear of retaliation.\u00a0\u201cThis was one of the biggest reasons why I didn\u2019t really make proper friends during my internship,\u201d she adds.\u00a0While work lunches would arguably be a grey area between professional and personal work settings, this pattern of conversing purely in Mandarin had penetrated into the office space as well.\u00a0\u201cWhen it came to our assignments, they would try to speak in English, but when they got really excited about the ideas, they would revert back to Mandarin. So often, we\u2019d be sitting in a meeting room discussing our project, and there would be Chinese phrases flying around,\u201d Ms Shru recalls.\u201cMany times after a Chinese phrase has been used, everyone else would just nod in agreement and then move on without any efforts to translate it for me,\u201d she adds. \u201cIn a work setting, I feel like I deserve to know what is being discussed.\u201dMs Shru believes it is not intentional. When she does speak up, her fellow interns would genuinely be caught off guard and apologise. While this oblivion is not ill-intentioned or outright racist, she can confidently say that none of her colleagues has ever been put in her position before.\u00a0\u201cIt seems second nature for them not to think twice about speaking in Mandarin,\u201d she says.\u00a0Mind your language\u00a0\u201cIn a country where we have four [official] languages, we speak English in almost all places because it\u2019s everyone\u2019s first language here,\u201d says Mr Sharvesh Leatchmanan, founder of Instagram account @minorityvoices.\u00a0Yet, it would not be uncommon for the occasional colleague or superior to suggest assimilation \u2014 for minorities to accommodate the dominant culture by picking up Mandarin \u2014 but that creates its own set of problems.\u00a0\ufeff\ufeff&nbsp;\u201cAll of us in some part of our lives have been made to assimilate forcibly and because of the lack of privilege, we do so,\u201d shares one minority voice on Mr Sharvesh\u2019s platform. He went through a similar experience during his time in the National Service.\u00a0\u201cI regrettably developed a growing distrust in the majority and do not know to what extent I can trust them. I always stick to friends who are Malay or Indian or at most, those who are racially ambiguous Chinese,\u201d he adds.\u00a0Mr Sharvesh points out that Singapore is not a \u201cChinese country\u201d \u2014\u00a0rather, a first-world democratic nation. \u201cWhy is our first reaction, \u2018they should learn Mandarin\u2019, and not \u2018how can I be more accommodating? It\u2019s really quite discriminatory and insensitive,\u201d he says.\u00a0Furthermore, Ms Shru highlights that Singapore\u2019s business language is English for a reason.\u00a0\u201cAs someone who speaks English \u2014 the business language of this country \u2014 I should not be disadvantaged for not being able to speak a second language that I was never told would help me survive in this country,\u201d she says.\u00a0\u201cYour understanding and speaking English shouldn\u2019t be harder than me understanding Chinese. At this point, it\u2019s a numbers game. Just because there are more Chinese people that suddenly it becomes a Chinese-speaking country?\u201d she asks.Not a \u2018soft skill\u2019 or networking tool\u00a0For every Chinese-speaking employee integrating into workplaces with such a culture, a choice has to be made \u2014 to either capitalise on their privilege, or level the playing field.\u00a0\u201cWhen I was being introduced to my workplace, one of my colleagues recommended that I speak Mandarin as regularly as possible, because that is the primary way of speaking there,\u201d says a 25-year-old, who goes by the alias Anthony.At present, almost all of Mr Anthony\u2019s colleagues have spoken to him in Mandarin on their first encounter, with questions like, \u201cDo you speak Mandarin?\u201d, \u201cHow well do you speak Mandarin?\u201d, and \u201cIs it okay if I speak to you in Chinese?\u201d\u00a0\u201cIt was implied that if I didn\u2019t conform to this, I would struggle in terms of making friends or getting stuff done,\u201d says Mr Anthony, who works in a government-linked institution. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of worrying, especially because the work that we do is geared toward all Singaporeans. By making it only Chinese-speaking, we would discourage non-Chinese people from joining.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Mr Anthony, whose work involves behavioural research, believes that these habits are where racist recruitment policies might stem from.\u00a0\ufeffThe numbers do not lie. In July 2019, the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) OnePeople.sg survey showed that about 3 in 5 people of minority races indicated that they felt discriminated against when applying for jobs.When it came to job promotions, almost 14 percent of Chinese perceived discrimination, which was significantly lower than the Malays (51 percent) and Indians (45 percent), the Straits Times reported.\u00a0Separately, 34 percent of Chinese Singaporeans felt that a job applicant\u2019s race was sometimes important when hiring them. Only 21 percent of Malays and 16 percent of Indians felt the same way.\u00a0The line when this truly applies is blur. \u201cChina is a rising economy, and there are a lot of China-based companies in Singapore with largely Chinese clientele,\u201d says Ms Shru. \u201cBut I do feel that while certain firms are justified in hiring Chinese-speaking employees, other firms try to pass off under the same category just to stay in their comfort zones of speaking Mandarin with their colleagues.\u201d\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve applied to firms in which I\u2019ve read the job description and done my due research on the company,\u201d she adds. \u201cThere is absolutely no need for me to speak Mandarin, yet I still get a call from HR saying that they\u2019re looking for Chinese-speaking employees only.\u201d\u00a0Experiences like these have unfortunately become such an anecdotal experience among minority races at this point that banning racial preferences from official job descriptions have evolved into the government\u2019s tenuous attempt at meritocracy.\u00a0How to be a good ally\u00a0As a minority, Ms Shru would not consider Singapore to be a meritocratic society. She feels the pressure to cultivate her other skill sets such that \u201cit never comes down to language\u201d. \u201cIf I had a Chinese person in my department who has the same experience and skill sets as me, being Chinese-speaking might just be the extra bonus that pushes her over the finish line.\u201d\u00a0Not every Chinese person is comfortable with capitalising on his or her privilege. \u201cIt definitely ran through my mind that I might lose out on workplaces opportunities and relationships because I choose not to speak Mandarin. But at the same time, I wouldn\u2019t want to progress in my career this way, just because I can,\u201d says Mr Anthony.\u201cIf you think about it, it\u2019s added work for minorities as well,\u00a0whether it be picking up Mandarin, or finding other ways to connect with their colleagues,\u201d he adds. It is for these reasons that he still opts out of speaking Mandarin, even when everyone there is Chinese.\u00a0Mr Sharvesh also highlights that it is not always easy for minorities to speak up for themselves during such situations. It would not be uncommon to receive responses like, \u201cbut I\u2019m not directly talking to you,\u201d when in a group setting, he says.\u00a0Additionally, he points out that it depends on the nature of one\u2019s work, and position in one\u2019s company. \u201cMy mum would simply walk away from these lunches or meetings, but she has the agency to because she\u2019s in a higher-up position,\u201d he explains. \u201cMy sister, on the other hand, was doing client-facing service work, and she didn\u2019t feel like she had the power to just walk away.\u201d\u00a0As a blanket rule, Mr Sharvesh wouldn\u2019t take it upon himself to remind someone past the first interaction to speak in English. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s on me to do it,\u201d he says, emphasising that the onus should not fall on minorities to constantly ask that basic courtesy be extended.\u00a0Channels should also be in place for minorities to voice their concerns in the workplace, Mr Anthony adds.\u00a0\u201cI think the easy excuse people might give is that this is an issue some Chinese people are just imagining or exaggerating, and that minorities themselves are not actually complaining about it. So there needs to be an awareness of hierarchy in the workplace \u2014 getting buy-in from leadership is very important for minorities to feel comfortable enough to voice these concerns,\u201d he says.Communication: A two-way street\u00a0Having said all this, it is important to acknowledge the reasons why the inertia still exists.\u00a0\u201cI completely understand that speaking in one\u2019s mother tongue or dialect gives rise to a certain sense of camaraderie. Some things are just easier expressed in our native languages,\u201d says Mr Sharvesh.Agreeing, Mr Anthony says, \u201cBilingualism is one of the main values that Singapore puts forward, and being able to speak in one\u2019s mother tongue is supposed to help you know your culture better.\u201d\u00a0In an era where globalisation threatens the loss of heritage, culture, and native languages, it can sometimes be hard to discern when and how much one should be speaking in one\u2019s mother tongue, he says. \u201cBut I think at the workplace, it\u2019s pretty clear, because by reinforcing your own personal culture, you\u2019re forming an in-group purely based on that.\u201d\u00a0For Ms Shru, this extends to companies run by minority leaders as well. She has sparked conversations with her own father, who runs a small company and has the tendency to hire Indian nationals in particular.\u00a0\u201cIndia\u2019s business language is actually English as well, so I\u2019ve pointed out to him that there\u2019s absolutely nothing stopping him from hiring regardless of race,\u201d she says.\u00a0But since it is a relatively small firm, her father\u2019s reason is that he wants to \u201cretain the culture of the company\u201d. Everyone speaks comfortably and jokes around in Tamil. Everyone continues working over Chinese New Year, but takes breaks together during Deepavali.\u00a0In the face of these perks, she maintains that it is a crutch. \u201cThere is so much talk about Singapore not having a \u2018Singaporean culture\u2019,\u201d she says. \u201cI feel like if we make it a point to have more diverse workspaces, we might start to have some.\u201d\u00a0Emphasising the other commonalities we have with other people besides the language we speak might be painful at first, but not as hard as many of us might think.\u00a0\u201cRegardless of where we are, somehow, we\u2019ll find a way to bond with other people. It might be hard at first if we\u2019re so used to bonding through a common native tongue, but we\u2019ll eventually find something else. If you both grew up in Singapore, then your shared childhood experiences could be a bonding mechanism,\u201d she says.\u201cSometimes it feels like Singaporeans have forgotten that they\u2019re Singaporean, and racial identity comes before our national identity. That is quite sad to me,\u201d she adds.\u00a0Join the conversations on TheHomeGround Asia&#8217;s Facebook and Instagram, and get the latest updates via Telegram."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Destinations","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Singapore","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/\/singapore\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"When inclusive language matters","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/when-inclusive-language-matters\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]