End of my 6th Week in Chennai

Woah... It has already been six weeks since I first set foot on Chennai. I don't know whether it is a good thing or not that I am always counting the number of weeks and using them as my blog titles. Anyway...

Today I'm so happy that we don't need to go to office. This was because our lab coordinator decided that the lab was very simple and that we could do it within one hour. He gave us the chance to choose whether we want to come back today to do the lab or stay back till late last night. Most people chose the later because they wanted to take the weekends off to go home. Another reason I think he allowed that is because this morning there was a "big" cricket match between India and South Africa (I think....). So, everyone "MUST" stay in and watch the match. Did I ever mentiont that cricket is religion here in India? :P

For this post, I'll cut down on what I want to say about my labs and the rain. Think my blog readers will get bored soon with all the mention of frustrating labs and irritating rainy weather here. I think I shall talk about some culture shocks that I have experience here so far. I can't list all of them but I'll just briefly mention some of the more obvious ones in point form below.

1. No proper public toilet & ESPECIALLY NO Tissue!!
This is might seem like a joke but this is the biggest shock and problem. I'm so used to the clean and well-equipped toilets in Singapore. People laugh when they see that Singapore has a World Toilet Organisation but I think it is good that they have such an organization to ensure QC. At least in Brunei and M'sia, even though there is bad public toilets but can still buy tissue from shops easily. Packet tissue is like a foreign item here. I can find them but only in "Guardian Pharmacy" (A shop with guardian's colours but different name and logo) but it is being sold at quite an expensive price. Not worth buying.... When I go back to Singapore, I'll need to stock up more packet tissues before I come over. :S

2. Poor people and their living conditions
I mentioned this briefly previously. Each time I see them I feel quite sad. I don't know what I should do. People will come up to me and the first thing they do is make eye contact. Although they don't say anything, their actions tell you what they want. They'll clasp their hand and then extend it to you. They'll then repeatingly move their hands that they want you to give them food. Some of them are very persistent even if you say no. Most of them in fact, would because we are foreigners. Some of them are really in need of support while there are also some beggars who I think are healthy and strong enough to do something else rather than begging.

On TV, there is this advertisement about the "Kuwait Fund". The advertisement goes along the line of "If you give a hungry man food, you feed him for a day. If you teach him to fish, grow crops, rear animals, educate his children then you have taken care of him for a lifetime." Actually I do think that many people who have access to education has taken it for granted. Experiencing the condition here, it is very easy to notice the poverty gap between the rich and the poor.

3. Political Issues - The power of the fourth state
I follow the local news channel - NDTV 24/7 every morning. This is the only local news channel in English that I get on my TV (I do have BBC and DW-TV for world and sports news as well :P). The first time I got a shock from this news channel was when a reporter was reporting about the flooding problems in Bangalore. She was talking about the bad conditions that people in Bangalore were facing during the floods late last month and how the authorities were slow in taking action. At first when she was reporting it, I sensed that the news was getting abit too personal as her expression was that she was quite angry with the situation. At the end of her report, I quote her: "The politicians are just good at what they are doing. Political posing". Instantaneously, my friends and I were like "What!?! Did she just say what we heard her say?" Then we started to laugh and of course, compared it with our home countries.

Another show that they have on NDTV 24/7 is a puppet show called Double Take. The puppets are designed to look like the ministers. In this show, they'll use the puppets to tell stories and act out how incompetent the minister is in his post. I was like "woah..." then I found out from a friend that this concept was adopted from Germany. They sent 20+ people to train in Germany on this puppetry criticism.

4. Matrimonials in newspaper
This is very interesting. You know in newspapers, we always get classifieds where people sell/buy products/services,etc. Here, there's another section - Matrimonial. One section which writes - Looking for brides and the other Looking for bridegroom. I was laughing when I first saw the section in the newspaper. Advertisements were like "Looking for fair,slim,beautiful girl from good family background". Some were like "The parents of So&So who is in US working now is looking for an alliance with the family of a girl who is etc etc etc". Alliance? The most interesting one I think was "So&So with MBA degree, earning six-figure salary looking for MBBS etc etc". He's only looking for a doctor wife huh? Oh ya, some others have astrology requirements and locations.

In addition to these requirements, people have to send in their "applications". Most of the people in my class talk about "applications" instead of "proposals". So, I suppose one must first send application, get approval stamp then can continue. hahaha..... I suppose it is still a practice here that continues where some parents still arrange the marriage of their children.

5. Girls one side, guys one side
Although it is not an explicitly written rule on the bus but this seems to be the case. It must have been a horrifying experience for those ladies that some weird guy (ie. my friends and I) sit next to them. Even on a packed bus where there are not enough seats, guys would prefer to stand rather than sit next to the women. I don't know if we are offending their culture or not. This one I'll have to check. My cultural sensitivity is getting abit low these days ^_^.... Making plenty of assumptions or thinking that I will be forgiven because I'm a foreigner.

About culture, people here like to address each other as Sir/Madam especially when it comes to people of higher rank. Hierarchy is a very important concept here. However, for those of us from Singapore, we seem to be different. We would address them by their names and treat them more equally. (I'll blog more about this next time... my surfing time is up again)