Its the same old asian stereotype of westerners - we are all soft touches, we all have lots of spare money and are rich, we are easily fooled and we always fall for sob stories and will fork out money when we feel sorry for someone.
Give em an inch they will cut you to the bone and think nothing of it, probably even just laugh at you.
In their eyes Western = MUG !!
In western culture when we are told to 'help ourselves', we tend to be somewhat embarrassed to do so and may just take a small amount out of politeness or to show our hosts that we appreciate the gesture, but out here if you tell an asian to help themselves, they really do because they believe you're giving the stuff away and that youre soft. Problem is when you tell them off, they take it so personally that it will destroy your relationship to the point where they will hate you .
It really depends. Free for all = breeds
GREED in general. To me, it's not cultural - it boils down to personalities, and sense of manners.
Some people feel entitled, some don't. Some feel bad, some don't. Some feel shy, some are bold. Some come from very deprived backgrounds/upbringing where being the first to grab as much as they can/ the best they can is seen as a winning trait to survive.
I have seen Westerners heap their plates endlessly and gorge so much at buffets the manager had to tell them politely that they'd exceeded the 4h sitting time limit and that there was a line up waiting for tables. Crashing glass walls during out of control line-ups to get freebies is by no means is confined to Singapore either. It has happened on Black Fridays too.
I have had Western guests eat and (esp) drink like there's no tomorrow when it's a buffet-style home invite, and prior abundant supplies completely run out when there were still couple of other latecomer guests after them (and they knew it).
Then there's a notorious couple who brings a generic packet of orange-chocolate cookies to every house, and proceed to do their rounds of turkey dinner at every household. This is in Canada. You get to see who the takers are, in full glory when it comes to gift-giving (expecting and receiving), eating and opportunity for greed situations.
OP: Nothing wrong with being soft (as opposed to being mercilessly-mean or cut and dried calculative) but realize you laos send out the wrong messages on setting boundaries when you're too nice and giving. I empathise because I am also way too soft too and often face the same dilemma as you.
Sama-sama = same-same.
Have once mistakenly treated our family maid as a friend, and ended up being the earlybird person buying the family's takeout b'fasts daily - hers included. She also chose her own snacks too, because I believed in choices.
I believe in natural reciprocity and that nice begets nice ... but sad reality is - natural give and take often does NOT work with the majority of people. It's more give and take, take, take. If you don't mind, fine. If it disturbs you or makes you resentful because the giving is totally taken advantage of - rethink your options.
Your boundaries were set wrong from the start, and for current problem-solving you can perhaps:
- diminish supply of food gradually, sending out a subtle msg to cut down
- put out cheaper alternatives
- seperate her share and give her a cupboard of supplies where hers is hers (but i can foresee it would be hard to stop hr from helping herself though to yours, and you may set up a scenario for stealing). If you start locking up your cup*** now, it won't sit down well with her either.
