Societal Hierarchy & other odds and ends

It's no secret that Asian societies in general are historically much more hierarchical than Western societies where equality tends to be favored over structured class system of elitists, servants, etc.  Much of that is still present in modern day Singapore culture.  A few examples:

 

·         Maids – everyone has maids and some type of help here.  People in the states tend to be much more self-reliant and the protestant work ethic has really permeated society.  In the land of cheap labor (from Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines), people can have a stay-at-home maid for $200-$300 Singapore dollars a month (about $150-250 USD).  As a result, some have said that people in this region gets spoiled, and aren’t used to doing a lot of things for themselves – like laundry, babysitting, cooking food.

·         Work environment.  I’ve traditionally been used to an environment where there is some hierarchy but in general bosses are open and want open thoughts and feedback from their employees.  In Singapore, I’ve noticed that local-to-local boss/employee interactions tend to be very one sided, with bosses telling locals explicitly what to do, and employees don’t openly question in front of the boss.  They might go gossip afterwards with their co-workers but saving face is really important.  Yet, when the locals are dealing with expats, the interaction is different and almost more like the U.S. system.  One has to wonder if the guy is trying to “appease” people that are from the head office even if they aren’t important but it’s the ivory tower syndrome.  Expat to expat interactions seem pretty normal (like the US).

·         Government – the government here takes care of everything.  I was reading a local paper and their model is that they take the smartest people in Singapore and give them the top government jobs so that they end up running the country, paying attention to EVERY detail.  For instance, there are two big funds that the Singapore government invests (stock markets, other companies, etc) and every year people here get a refund check for the earnings in the investment.  Pretty cool!  However, the newspaper cites that some have questioned whether this will continue to work in the future with folks going abroad?

 

Other interesting tidbits:

·         Some places charge a surcharge for take-out food orders, charging for the containers.

·         People still read the newspapers in print rather than online.