Blame it on the Asian or generally the Eastern culture where public conversations between opposite sexes were always frowned upon, sometimes even severely punished as being "sinful" or "evil". Compare this with the Western culture (and also American) where impromptu conversations and small talks between opposite sexes are a very normal part of everyday life and very much encouraged by society and even by your parents. When you come from such an open culture to Singapore, a place with closed culture despite its 'modernization', you always get negative reactions for behaving as though you're in an open culture - or even attempting to do so after watching movies and TV dramas from the open culture (a la America). You do not get the positive reactions you expect, and hence you are heavily discouraged from trying (if you're trying to learn open culture) or heavily shocked from the cultural difference (if you're already from an open culture).

Kindly excuse my generalizations here. Obviously there are exceptions for every generalization and I acknowledge that.

But what does this open culture closed culture thing have to do with the original post? Well, in a closed culture like this, dating is frowned upon and most of the time not even allowed. You see dating in Singapore because of the modernization, but otherwise the Chinese culture would probably not have allowed it. Closed cultures have relationships only after marriage. Your spouse is not found by you, but is found by your parents and/or relatives. In more rural parts of Asia, you do not even have a say in the marriage decision especially if you're a woman. What is the impact of this 'arranged marriage' system of closed cultures? Women do not have any experience looking for men with personality. They end up with some random dude who happens to have a white-collar job, a fat paycheck, a house/s and a car/s - because their parents are looking for material things in the son-in-law. This mentality is passed to the woman who also looks for material things.

Modernization in Singapore has caused people here to break open a little from their closed culture and experiment with some of the things that are very normal in an open culture, such as dating, sex during dating, short flings and such. But they are still in that materialistic mentality where they are looking for... well first of all racial purity, but next comes material wealth. This is why you do not find ads that describe a local girl's personality and what she wants as her partner's personality. Because personality has taken a backseat here. (The original post mentions 'character' which is essentially the same as what I refer to as 'personality' here.)

Hmm I think I don't have to say much more on this. Just my two cents :)

Oh I wish to add that closed culture communications between total strangers are also very limited and only done when something is expected - you can very well say nobody talks to a stranger in a closed culture if they are not expecting anything. If you're from an open culture, it might be normal for you to complement a lady beside you on her nice bag, and an open culture lady will likely respond positively by smiling and saying thank you, perhaps even complementing something back or making small talk about the bag or bags in general (this easily establishes if you have a common interest in bags with almost zero effort!). But neither party is expecting anything from the other. It's merely small talk. A closed culture lady will give you a strange stare in shock and look/move away from you. She will take out her phone and act busy or message someone. Unless she is in a bar and she's expecting you to buy her a drink! Then comes the smile and the thank you! Urgh!

Another example is in the service industry. I have worked at McDonalds counter in my younger days and the occasional Western tourist appears and says *at the very least* (sometimes they greet by name first) "Could I have a Big Mac sandwich with fries, and.. perhaps a cup of Iced Tea?" "Would you like it upsized, ma'am?" "Sure, that would be great!". But most customers are locals or Asians, and here's the same conversation: "ONE Big Mac meal, I want Ice Tea." "Upsize?" "Ya, upsize!". Notice the difference? Open cultures have conversations to build rapport (even if they are constructed to obtain something like the Big Mac meal). Closed culture conversations are constructed merely to obtain what one desires (selfish, you are not caring about the other person, you just want what you want). There is no rapport building. In a gist, what this does is that short selfish conversation system of closed cultures build a selfish mentality in people in such cultures. They only think about what they want, and don't care about strangers. They will only be nice to strangers when they want something for free. Otherwise it's all stares and silent judgements or abbreviated conversations when you're buying something.

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