The present study investigates realization of refusal speech act by Malay, Chinese and Indian undergraduate university students. As the groups belong to different cultures and speak their own distinct languages as their mother tongues, the refusal strategies they employed may be different since speech acts are culture specific. The study intends to identify the refusal strategies employed by the three ethnic groups when they refuse their higher status interlocutor’s request to work extra-hour in English which is learnt as a second language. Four Malay, four Chinese and four Indian students of a Malaysian university were involved in the study.  Data on refusal interactions were obtained through an open role-play based on a request initiating act and also from an interview conducted at the end of the role-play. Data were then transcribed and classified into semantic refusal strategies. Results indicate that the three ethnic groups exhibited high awareness of the status and power factors of the given situation and thus employed conciliatory approach as not to offend their interlocutor. Similar to the findings of previous studies, substantial reasons/justifications and apologies/regrets were used to mitigate the threat of their refusal and to show to their interlocutor that their refusal was inevitable. Their use of direct strategy was limited to the lesser degree of directness i.e. negative willingness and was used sparingly. The similarities in the strategies might be due to the fact that all the three ethnic groups originate from Asia, hence they share many common eastern values such as being respectful and tactful towards their superior.