Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble
Racism in Singapore: The sequel
I didn’t expect to have such a strong reaction from Jimmy Mun, a fellow SAP graduate over my comments. My discussion with him can be found here.
I shall highlight some things I found to be interesting:
My question:
“Why can’t we have institutions where people of all races sit together in the same class and then have teachers teach about the heritage of everyone’s race all in one sitting?â€
Jimmy’s reply:
“Because people dont want to. You will have to force them, with quotas, just like HDB flats, or the racial mix will never be right. Birds of a feather flock together.”
Two other quotes:
“You cant hate people you dont have to spend time and share space with.”
“I spent a total of ELEVEN years in my all boys SAP school, from Pre-Primary to Sec 4, but I had no problem befriending Malays and Indians (or girls) in JC, because I have no prior racial prejudices to speak of. In fact, I feel I have more racial prejudices today than when I was 17, as the bad experiences accumulate.”
Jimmy admitted to having racial prejudices due to accumulation of bad experiences. I do wonder such prejudices would have develop later on in his life if he had the chance to interact with other races when he was younger.
See the following 3 videos (from YouTube) to further understand my point. Thanks to my dear fianceé for providing me the information!
The first video
The second video
The last video
| Print article | This entry was posted by Aaron Ng on 19/10/2006 at 2:11 am, and is filed under Perspective. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 2 years ago
Good one Aaron. You are the first truly empathetic person I’ve encountered. If there were more of you, this article wouldn’t exist.
Keep well bro,
ed
about 1 year ago
I’m from malaysia, a malay. Can be said as the main rival to singapore in South East Asia. Been working in singapore for the past 1 months. Very beautiful city, clean and high tech. However i wonder how could the citizens stand the jet fighter noise every single day.
After completing my work, went to Suntec shopping center for window shopping, came across a stall which sells a rotating metal thingy. Quite unique. There is no price tag. I ask the saleperson the price, this is his response:
“You better spend your money on something else more important, this is very expensive”
I answered, “What?” (I heard him the first time btw)
He replied “This is very expensive, you dont want to buy this”
I asked again, “Ok, what is the price, i want to know?”
“The price for the small one is 65 dollars, big one is 75-85 dollar”
I then left, thinking of how stupid this person could be without saying anything.
My outstation allowance is SGD 150/day. I really wanted to get that thing, but now i dont.
Guess what the race of that saleperson?
about 1 year ago
Chinese i bet.
about 8 months ago
Despicable. These are the everyday racisms that add up and chip away at the psychological well-being of minorities. In psychology, they’re called racial microaggressions; will Singaporeans ever admit that what they’re doing is wrong?
about 7 months ago
I’m a Singaporean woman of indian heritage, married to a Scotsman and living in a nice town in Scotland. In a place where its predominantly – white scots , I’ve always been welcome wherever i went. Shops, Pubs,Eateries, you name it. Yeah sure you get the occasional idiots who utter racist comments at you, and are usually told off or floored by the locals for being a racist towards the minority.
I come from a Multi racial background. . I feel homesick sometimes and when i do come back to Singapore, I want to run back to Scotland. Why?
Example : -
Bus – I sat next to this chinese lady who kept covering her nose and giving me odd stares. For a second there, i thought i had inadvertantly farted. and mind you, she wasn’t smelling of roses either. And to make things worse, she got up and muttered a racist remark at me. All because i sat next to her. I did what comes to me naturally and gave her a bollocking. She of course didn’t realise i knew hokkien! lol.
Racism is alive everywhere, but i never thought i’d get dissed in my own home country. My neices and nephews back in Singapore battle racism everyday of their young lives , though i admire their courage , they don’t NEED to be defending themselves and their heritage. We’re Singaporeans for god’s sake. We’re supposed to stand as one. ”REGARDLESS OF RACE, LANGUAGE OR RELIGION”.
And what’s shocking is that there is no policy of dealing with racism in Schools!
Its sad. Because I don’t ever want to move back to Singapore. I find it a pleasure to be around the Scots in my town. They don’t take it as an insult , if i sat with them, beside them, have a drink with them or anything… They treat me like a human.
Less can be said of certain fools in my own country.
about 7 months ago
@S.Robertson
Its refreshing and sad to hear your experiences. Refreshing ‘coz you feel good and being well treated in SCots. Sad because you dont feel home in your own country.
Being an Indian myself living in U.S. I sense that Chinese (most of them I would say or to be exact almost all I came across rather) somehow feel superior to their other immigrant counterparts (from Asia). You can feel that the way they look at you, their body language, their attitude and behavior is totally different with their Asian counterparts versus the “Whites”.
I call myself as a liberated liberal with almost no prejudices but one thing I just cant convince myself is that I dont care for Chinese folks( the bad ones, I just f* hate them, the bad ones I mean), I understand its still wrong. But bear in mind respect is a two way street and Iam no Gandhi to show my other cheek to be slapped.
So when I go on with my daily life and I come across a cocky Chinese or an Asian for that matter I dont mind ‘showing the bird’.
Lastly, is very very unfortunate to know that your nieces and nephews still come across bad behavior and experiences, deplorable. No policy to deal with racism in schools = promoting racism in schools. Singapore govt should be ashamed of this. Just have a minority as a president or a PM is not good enough. Iam glad I didnt move to Singapore, I would rather be in a no mans land.
In the 10+ years I have been here in the U.S., I swear that I have never come across a situation that had really left a bitter taste excluding some stares from some hill billies which I cant really include them as you can understand they are bunch of red necks who belong in the hills.:)
But, trust me US is not perfect either, neither is India but I think as long as we can co exist with respect thats good enough for me