To be honest, I did not have much experience in intercultural communication until I came to Singapore. In Singapore, I made a lot of friends from different parts of the world but most of the cases I did not feel any inconvenience caused by different cultural background due to the limited time I spent with them. However, I experienced a great culture difference when going out with one of my roommate who has a different cultural background with me.
The story happened on a Sunday about a month ago. I, my roommate and my friends decided to go out to have a big dinner since all of us were fed up with the canteen. At the beginning, we planned to go to Clementi to have a buffet. When we got there, the restaurant was full and around thirty people were waiting outside the restaurant. Obviously we needed to change our plan. My friends and I decided to eat somewhere near so we can get back early because it was already 6:45 pm and all of us had early class tomorrow. My roommate suggested going to east coast to have BBQ buffet, which means we needed to spend one more hour. We are not willing to go since it was too far away but he insisted and spared no effort to persuade us. Finally one of my friends had no choice but to go back since he had a meeting at 9 pm and the rest of us went to east coast. Worried about my left friend and time, I did not enjoy the meal.
In my point of view, the meaning of eating out is to have fun with friends and the most important is to meet everyone’s demand. Since we had one person who needed to be back before 9 pm, we should choose a place not far away from school. However, my roommate felt that we had planned to have a buffet so we must have it.
