4Fs, Culture differences and similarities, and SG's shared values

4 Fs
They say that the most common and easiest working definition of culture is the 4Fs - Food, Festivals, Fashion and Folk. I do agree with this statement. If we want to find out more about one's culture, we can easily research them online and all the information would appear on the screen right in front of us. However, is that all to one's culture? We cannot understand one's culture so easily based on the information online. We have to approach the culture in person, getting to know the people of the culture, and to experience the culture by ourselves. But even then, we still might not be able to understand one's culture fully. Culture is not something that can be understood overnight, over months, or even over years. Thus, we have to open ourselves to other cultures and embrace them, movung from monocultural mindset, to multicultural mindset. Although we might not be able to reach the final stage of integration, but at least, we can strive towards acceptance of different cultures and adaptation to different cultures. And to start off, we can always get to know more about other cultures, by researching online and interacting with people of other cultures.

Similarities and Differences between Singapore and China's Culture

Similarities
• Both cultures are heavily influenced by Confucianism such as, filial piety and nation before family, family before self.
• Both education systems are very competitive.

Differences
• Singapore has many races which results in diverse cultures existing together while China consist of mostly Chinese, so they only have one sole Chinese culture.
• Singapore-Chinese speaks mandarin in a different way China-Chinese do. Furthermore, China has many provinces and people of the different provinces speaks mandarin or dialects in a different accent which makes it easy for them to instantly identify where the people that they are talking to grew up in.

• China supports its people to have as less child as possible while Singapore government encourages its people to have more children.

Singapore's Shared Values

仁，义，礼，智，信。

Humanity, Justice, Ettiquete, Wisdom, Faith.

These are the 五常 of Confucianism. Humanity(Ren), Singapore practise it in two of our shared values - Place nation and family before oneself. To care for others, to think about others and not be selfish.

Ettiquete(Li), is practised in another shared value - Communal support and respect for the individual. Everyone in Singapore should be respected regardless of where they come from, which language they speak, and the customs and tradition they practise.

Wisdom(Zhi), is practised in - Consensus, not conflict. Instead of quarrelling and still not get any positive thing out of it, we should always think of a win-win solution together, so all parties are able to benefit with no/equal loss. 

Faith(Xin), is practised in the last shared value - Racial and Religion harmony. We must have faith in each other, in humanity, and to accept one and another in this small little red dot, instead of tolerating other different races/religion. This way, we would be able to create a harmonious society for each and everyone, and we can all progress as one nation together.