Cultural Identifiers

Before today, I never really bothered about the words that I used to identify people. I did not know that certain words which I used could actually hurt people’s feelings. I had no idea that referring to a lady as woman is also disrespectful but I knew that I should not refer to an elderly person as old man because once for fun I called my dad that and I had to hear a days long of music from my mom. So since that I told myself never to refer to an elderly person as old man or old woman.

Last year I went for a seminar and one of the speaker said that some of the teenagers nowadays are really not respecting their parents. The speaker gave an example that is a dialog between a mother and her son. The mother will be saying to her son that you should listen to your dad and do not talk back when he is talking. The son answered “ Mom ask your husband to not cross my line!” and walked of. I think that refering to your dad as your mom’s husband is way more rude than calling him an old man.

Recently, I met my friend who is studying in a college in Nilai. He told me that once he and his friends were eating in a restaurant and he saw a very tall African guy walking past the restaurant. He wanted to show his friends that guy so he told to his friends “ Hey look at that negro!” The moment he finished saying that another African who was in the restaurant came and slapped my friend and started shouting foul words at him. My friend was so shocked that he just looked on dumbstruck. The African was on the verge of bashing up my friend. Thank God, my friend’s friend started explaining to the African that my friend is from a small town and does not know that he should not have used the word ‘negro’. Only after my friend apologised did the African back off with a warning to never use words like ‘negro’ and ‘black’.

From this incident I learnt that we should make sure that we do not use words that can make other people feel angry or hurt. We should put ourselves in their shoes and think how we will feel if we are referred to as something that sounds rude and degrading. We should try to follow the saying which goes “ Do unto others what you want others to do onto you”.

Posted by : A.Padmassini A/P V.Anand