Heard of the word "Discimination"?

Case I: The Squash court

The other week during our weekly squash practice, Søren and I invited a good friend along to play with us, i.e. we were three people playing in one court, which normally should pose no problems as squash can be played as double as well, i.e. at four people.

However, after 15 minutes of intense game, the sport vigilator knocks the door and politely asks us to stop playing as we are NOT allowed to play at three people in one squash court. We go: "Say what? Why not?" Sport vigilator: "Sorry, school policy", and we of course start arguing which obviously does not work. She insists, despite we claim and explain that the Chinese who use the squash courts normally play at three or four, and that the school squash team, which even played with, plays up to 8 players in one court at the time. So we go again: "How come we suddenly are not allowed to play at three?" And she merely replies, school rules and points to a sign, and YES we not allowed to at more than two, but all the local chinese are allowed anyways... clearly discriminating. Let's go to case II

Case II: Assignment gradings

In a course that I have been following for the 4 months here at CityU, we had a graded assignment hand-in, which we received back last week from the instructor. Pleased with my result (83%), I still had one question regarding one question in the assignment which I scored low in, and so I went to the professor to ask. He replied to my question, and said that I could not get more points, despite my answer was correct (simple math mistake pulled me down), but anyway, as I was standing there feeling kind of stupid to have made such a mistake, I overheard a conversion between the professor and another student in Cantonese, which I obviously did not understand, but the result turned into the student was able to raise her grade from 73% to 100% on the assignment with out questionning. Puzzled as I was, I asked whether or not my assignment would in light of that improve slightly? But "NO", I did not qualify for any improvement....discriminating I felt.

Case III: Price Discrimination

Another example where discimination sneaks in and affects your life in Asia... Take a look at the picture below, taken in Cambodia:

As you can see, foreigners are forced to pay more than locals. Why? = Discrimination

Case IV: Hall security guards

In case you did not know, at the university residence we are "protected" by a corps of guards (see picture beneath), which enforces school regulation, and checks entrance to all residence halls by signing visitors in and out (quite similar to an open prison really!) Anyhow, school regulation states that after midnight you are not allowed to have visitors from other halls in your hall. The security guards enforces this rule by performing ID checks all night of all people entering the hall. As exchange student there is not much you can do about it, but as local students, who can speak with the guards, the rules seem much more easy going and can even be bent as far as their visitors may enter after midnight... you get the picture?!