Are Singaporeans Insensitive?

Last Thursday I was in Jakarta and a colleague who was traveling with me is a non-Muslim. It was lunch time and our partner brought her food and invited her to one of the meeting rooms to eat. I was with the mbak U'ut and she told me that in most restuarants and foodcourt, non-Muslims can only eat in designated area... separated by a curtain. I asked her if her non-muslim colleagues would drink or eat in front of the Muslims and she said not at all.

I was impressed.

Several years ago when I was in Manila during Ramadan, I asked to be exused for 5mins during a meeting to break my fast ( it was about 430pm then). When one of my Filipino colleagues found out the reason why, she quickly ordered a hot cup of coffee for me. That was very thoughtful of her.

In Singapore, first day of Ramadan coincide with the mid-Autumn festival. I received boxes and boxes of mooncakes which I give away to my colleagues to eat. Interestingly, between mouthfuls of snowskin jackfruit mooncakes, one colleague exclaimed and said, "Alamak, Zan Puasa lah...sorry sorry " but he never stopped eating and the rest didn't either. While I don't mind people eating in front of me, i thought when someone exclaimed something like that, they would be sensitive enough to quickly stop eating right. Well, I was wrong.

So are Singaporeans insensitive?

Thank goodness not. One of my colleagues was eating an apple when she came by my desk. She remembered I was fasting and quickly hid the apple behind her back, got the info she wanted and quickly walked away.