By Eisen Teo

YOU are in a restaurant that serves delicious Western grub, and you ask its waitress if her English is passable because you have low or no proficiency in Mandarin.

She blinks, then asks in the unmistakable accent of a Chinese national: 'Can you speak Mandarin?'

This is just one of the dozens of complaints, gripes and horror stories pouring from a new Facebook group set up two months ago about a burgeoning number of service staff who have no inkling of English.

Titled 'I am Singaporean and tired of service staff who can only speak Mandarin', it has already garnered more than 1,700 members of all races.

Among the comments are 'How do you think it makes us feel when they give us funny looks for not speaking their language?' and 'The last time I checked, Singapore was not part of China!'

Most come from Malays and Indians who resent having to ask something of service staff - be that food, books or clothes - who cannot understand them.

Their chagrin is magnified when such incidents occur at major retail outlets such as English bookshops and department stores.

For businesses, hiring service staff from China makes good sense - they are cheap, efficient and easily replaceable. They also serve the ethnic majority that is Chinese Singaporeans.

But what about Singaporeans who cannot speak Mandarin?

Businesses must attend to this oversight, or risk a bad reputation. Is it not their duty to train staff and ensure they can serve all customers, not just some? I would wager that foreign workers want to learn English, if given the chance.

Already, among both Chinese and non-Chinese Singaporeans at the Facebook group, posters have been uploaded, naming and shaming outlets guilty of hiring only China staff.

Left unchecked, such negative sentiments could adversely affect our multiracial society.

After all, what is the wisdom of having immigrants think they can subsist on just Mandarin? Singapore is not a 'Little China' and has no intention of becoming that. The last thing we want is for our minorities to be overlooked in what appears to be racial blind-siding.

So I will do my part by speaking English to service staff, no matter what language they understand.

The point is this: Although I am Chinese, my loyalty is to Singapore first.

Like all my fellow Singaporeans, Chinese or otherwise, we have a right to be seen and heard in our own country.

The writer, 24, is an honours student in history at the National University of Singapore.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on 24 Nov, 2008.