Hi, I was in Italy, Switzerland and France late last year. I enjoyed experiencing different behaviour of the locals and appreciate how Singapore has tolerated some of our bad behaviours. There is 1 instance however, after sharing the experience with a colleague, he assured me that I was mis-treated as a Chinese (racism).
Case in point: I was in Rennes station, after a long day in Mont St Michel, waiting for my 9pm train (time was just past 8pm). By this time, the station was mostly people trying to get home. Some of the shops have closed, some barely have any merchandise left. My wife and I wanted to rest our feet and so we bought a crepe from a cafe in hope to use their chairs and table. We ask for the crepe to go for we just wanted to sit for a while. The cafe was empty, no customers.
After we got our crepe, I immediately sat down at an empty chair and put my bag down. But before I could take a bite, the shop attendant came out and ask us to leave as we did not buy our food to be consumed there.
I did not give it any thought, just accept it as face value. Partly also because we noticed none of their local people did what we do, and we also noticed similar absence of such Singapore-type behaviour in Paris, Rome or Florence.
Was the shop attendant being racist? Or is it common courtesy not to occupy shop's space if one did not purchase items from there (to be consumed that is)?
Case in point: I was in Rennes station, after a long day in Mont St Michel, waiting for my 9pm train (time was just past 8pm). By this time, the station was mostly people trying to get home. Some of the shops have closed, some barely have any merchandise left. My wife and I wanted to rest our feet and so we bought a crepe from a cafe in hope to use their chairs and table. We ask for the crepe to go for we just wanted to sit for a while. The cafe was empty, no customers.
After we got our crepe, I immediately sat down at an empty chair and put my bag down. But before I could take a bite, the shop attendant came out and ask us to leave as we did not buy our food to be consumed there.
I did not give it any thought, just accept it as face value. Partly also because we noticed none of their local people did what we do, and we also noticed similar absence of such Singapore-type behaviour in Paris, Rome or Florence.
Was the shop attendant being racist? Or is it common courtesy not to occupy shop's space if one did not purchase items from there (to be consumed that is)?