Causeway in States?

An interesting exchange in class this morning made me realise how much of a Singaporean I am when I literally fought for the reputation of my country, yes me, can you imagine? The usually docile, go with the flow me? Saddled with pregnancy still?

It all started when a fellow classmate of mine from across the causeway commented that he was surprised with the super low uncertainty avoidance index that Singapore had in an academic paper vis a vis other countries. Comments like Singaporeans are risk adverse, can't thrive in chaos and an illustration of the length of time Singapore took to come to terms with having casinos, albeit with 8 years of living in Singapore.

I can't help but rebutted that the index was not a measure of risk adversity. It was a measure of how countries deal with uncertainties. Not that Singaporeans cannot thrive in chaos, we plan in advance how to deal with chaos, hence not that we dislike uncertainties but we try to avoid that by planning for them. As to the length of time we took for the casino decision, weren't Asians a high-context region where implicit signals and thoughts have to be solicited and widely debated before a public decision can be accepted? Surely, the length of time one takes to deliberate upon a decision is not a reflection of one's risk appetite. Else Thailand will be considered more risk adverse than Singapore but how do we explain its higher uncertainty avoidance index then?

In the language of excel, another case of circular references. But still I have to thank my classmate for yet another awakening spark of my identity.