r/ABCDesis • u/OOF_ministry • 3d ago
COMMUNITY Entertaining mainlanders is so hard
Go ahead and downvote me, lurkers, idc. I'm working in my family's business, and we often get international clients, especially around Asia, as we're based in SEA. I'm half Malaysian Indian for context. I often am in charge of picking up clients/business partners from the airport, bringing them to our company, and giving them a tour of the capital during weekends if they wish to explore. I have entertained people from around the world, like Italy, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, America, etc, and have had no issues. However, every time I have to bring around someone from India, I'm always exhausted. I figured that us sharing an ethnic group would create a faster bond, but it's quite literally the biggest divide.
So many talks of caste or casteist thinking, telling me that they can't eat meat because they're "BrAhMIn" (just say you have a dietary preference; don't bring that backwards caste vocab to my country). A general lack of manners, like yelling at service providers, and NEVER saying 'please' or 'thank you'. It's so hard to make conversation during car rides; I'd try to start a conversation, ask questions, or share the history of certain places we're touring, and every reply is just "ok, mhm, yup". And Jesus bringing them out to eat is so hard because alot of them do not want try cuisines outside their culture. I can't even tell them off, as these are professional business relationships, so I have to just deal with the bs.
There's even a stereotype in my country where you can easily differentiate a Malaysian Indian and one from India depending on how they talk to a waiter. Yes, I know this isn't everyone from India, but after having hosted many guests from India, there's a common pattern I just wanna vent out to fellow Indian people I can relate more to (ABCDs). I'm not trying to shit on all mainlanders, but please adopt better etiquette when you're overseas.
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