in which this lj is momentarily SRS BSNS

[ambientlight]

For the Asian Women Blog Carnival.

I thought a lot before deciding to make this post. I don't use this lj for serious posts; I dislike talking about myself before an audience; and I don't know how much my perspective can offer.

But here goes.

This is how it is, for me: I am a Chinese Singaporean. This makes me a majority in my own country, and a privileged one. Some 70-odd per cent of Singaporean residents are Chinese Singaporean. Chinese Singaporeans are overrepresented in government, at the higher levels of education, and in socioeconomic standing. In Singapore, I am the 'default'. There are many, many items of privilege on lists of white privilege that I enjoy.

This is also how it is, for me: I am studying abroad in Oxford University,¹ in a country I first learnt about in school in the context of our colonial past. I have been referred to as 'Oriental'. At a recent party I attended, a British Chinese student complimented me on my command of English. Complete strangers have greeted me with 'Ni hao'; I always reply in English. Once, a white British acquaintance with whom I have had some conversations kept trying to offer me green tea, when I was perfectly happy with my cup of hot chocolate.

At some of the seminars I attend in Oxford, where questions are taken from the floor, not all the attendees are native speakers of English. This is often fairly clear from their speech -- it's not just a question of accent, but of grammar and syntax, etc. For whatever reason, I find myself embarrassed when they speak, and then I am angry at myself for feeling that way. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this sort of thing bothers me most when participants who appear ethnically East Asian have fairly imperfect English.

I can't say exactly why this bothers me. A big part of it is the sense that their imperfect English merely reinforces assumptions the convenors and other attendees may have about foreigners' command of the language. Part of it also is, I think, my unwillingness to be identified with non-native speakers. For all intents and purposes, my native language is English. I may not have a perfect command of it, but neither do many Brits, nor many Americans. The difference is that I can't shake the feeling that people will look at me and assume that I am not a native speaker of English. When walking along the streets of Oxford, past hordes of tourists of different nationalities (as far as I can tell by language use etc.), I sometimes wish I had a sign saying "I am a student at Oxford, not a tourist; my place is here, among other students." I recognise that this is irrational. There's little reason for me to feel uncomfortable; I certainly haven't had much in the way of particular encounters which might cause this. And why should I care whether I'm mistaken as a tourist? And yet I do care, and it annoys me that I do.

Here at Oxford, I am aware, for the first time, of being somehow representative. I have been made, for the first time, to feel as those people may look at me without seeing me; they may look at me and merely see a tourist, a foreigner, one of those 'Orientals'.

The fact that this is the first time I have had to feel this way only underscores the amount of privilege I enjoy back in Singapore.

---

I don't think that my experience as an ethnically Chinese foreign student in Oxford is anywhere near equivalent to that of a British Chinese student in Oxford. I have the luxury of not needing to fit in. My time in Oxford is transitory. I may feel at home here, but this is not my home, and it does not need to be. When someone in Sainsbury's bumped into me and said, very clearly, "Fucking foreigners," I did not need to think But I am as much of a British citizen as you are; I did not need to feel that sort of anger, nor the pain of being a permanent foreigner in one's own country.

Nor is my experience comparable to that of a Singaporean citizen who belongs to an ethnic minority group. As before, my time in Oxford is temporary; my identification with the place is as strong as I want it to be. I have not had to grow up in a country where my ethnicity was not the 'norm'. My ethnic group has not been viewed with suspicion by my very government. (The first Malay fighter pilot in the Singapore Armed Forces was commissioned in 2003.) When I'm out with my friends, I don't have to be worried on my own behalf about whether we'll be eating lunch somewhere that has halal food. When someone chooses not to take a seat next to me on public transport, I don't have to wonder if that is because of my race.

I don't think I have the right to speak on the behalf of Singaporeans who are not Chinese. But I do want, at least, to recognise the privilege I enjoy as a Chinese Singaporean, because that is not something that I have seen many other Chinese Singaporeans do.

When I suggest to other Chinese Singaporeans that Singapore is not as free from racism as we may like to think, I am often met with surprise, or bewilderment, or -- most commonly -- an exhortation to look at how much worse other countries are faring in that respect. And no, we don't have racial riots, at least not anymore. We seldom have hate crimes, or at least not reported ones. I don't think there is very much in the way of racist bullying in school. In my limited experience, I do think that Singapore has a much higher level of racial harmony than most countries, and that this is commendable.

But precisely because racism in Singapore takes a subtler form, it is easier for us to be self-congratulatory and hence ignore the racism that does exist. Racist jokes are still not taboo, racist stereotyping even less so. Chinese Singaporeans enjoy institutionalised privilege. There is racism in Singapore, and it may be a soft and* an unthinking brand of racism rather than a vitriolic or extremist one, but it is still there.

---

Here is another thing. This feels like a confession, and I wish it didn't have to, but: I am in a relationship with a white male British student.

(Tangent: Since I learnt the term many years ago, I have mostly identified as asexual. Since entering this relationship, I've questioned this a bit, but am still settling for "probably asexual, probably hetero-romantic." I don't feel the need to think too deeply about this; I think this is probably because of my asexuality.)

Here are some things I have had to do:
- Worry if he had 'yellow fever'.
- Explain that worry to him. (Apparently 'yellow fever' is not as well known a phenomenon in the UK as it is in the US?)
- Be asked by Singaporean friends whether he had 'yellow fever'.
- Wonder if I would be seen as a 'traitor' by fellow Singaporeans, or as having some sort of colonial complex. The stereotype of a certain sort of Singaporean Chinese 'Sarong Party Girl' who flings herself at Caucasian men is very much alive and vilified in Singapore. It does have an accompanying empirical phenomenon. I do not think I need to point out the many ways in which the whole situation is problematic. The shadow of Singapore's past as a British colony also hangs over Singaporean-Brit relationships in particular, I think.
- Explain that worry to him.
- Wonder what my parents, friends, and relatives would think -- more so than if he had been Singaporean Chinese, anyway.
- Wonder if I should feel guilty for perpetuating the sexist, racist myth that 'Asian girls love white men'. But surely refusing to get into a relationship just because it might be reinforcing a stereotype is itself an act of surrender. Surely avoiding x, just becaue x is a component of some stereotype, is a way to disempower oneself. Why should I have to deconstruct the implications of my relationship solely in light of our respective ethnicities and nationalities? Why should I have to wonder if it makes me a bad feminist -- or even a bad Chinese Singaporean woman?

---

English -- nominally, British English -- is my first language. Mandarin is my mother tongue, and I studied it for ten years in school, but I wouldn't call myself fluent in it. For the most part, English is the language I think in.

But my English is not the Queen's English. I am most comfortable speaking in a mild mesolect of Singlish -- I stress the wrong syllables, lapse into imperfect syntax, drop particles, and so on. My speech takes on a different cadence. It's not as simple as having a different accent. I speak 'proper English' when I need to, of course, and it never feels uncomfortable. But it is a shade more formal than my most relaxed and natural way of speaking. And it is strange to feel unable to speak with my British friends -- let alone my boyfriend -- in the voice I consider most my own.²

---

I love being at Oxford, and I know that am incredibly fortunate to be here. This does not mean that my life as a foreign, ethnically Chinese student in Oxford has been free of any uncomfortableness arising from my being foreign and ethnically-Chinese. I think that Singapore has gotten a lot of things right, as far as race relations are concerned; this does not mean that I think Singapore has gotten nothing wrong, or that there is no racism in Singapore. There is. I only wish that those in the privileged majority would admit it.

---

¹I feel obliged to note that I am doing this on a sponsorship, not on my family's money, so while I am also extremely privileged by virtue of growing up in a fairly well-off middle-income family, I am not that far from the median as far as financial status goes.

²I don't code-switch to the degree that many other Singaporean students in Oxford do; adopting a British RP accent never came naturally to me, so I don't try. The 'proper English' I speak is the acrolectal form of Singlish, and my accent still marks me out very clearly as a foreigner.

---

edit: I should probably also note that I think being a diasporic Asian in a country where one's in the ethnic majority not only privileges one vis-a-vis minorities in that country, but also vis-a-vis other members of the various Asian diasporas. It's not just about the institutional privilege of being in the majority; I think the question of identity also comes up. I don't feel any tension in the identity 'Chinese Singaporean', nor do I think of parts of my identity as distinctly Chinese or distinctly Singaporean. 'Chinese Singaporean' is a single label, not a hyphenated one.

This was an issue I'd never engaged with until I met Asian friends of other nationalities online; I had the privilege of not recognising the advantages enjoyed by Chinese Singaporeans over others in the Chinese diaspora.

*belated edit: As bravecows pointed out in comment, describing racism in Singapore as 'soft' encourages the very thing I'd intended on speaking out against, the view that some sorts of racism just aren't dangerous or important. Apologies for that.

Comments

where are you from?

[feeshbowl.livejournal.com]

herein lies a reason why I continually refuse to identify as Asian-American: my experience growing up as a Chinese Singaporean in Singapore was not that of a minority. I am not acutely conscious of my minority status in America as many of my Asian-American friends are. I do not understand aznpride because I do not know what it is to be azn; I identify with a very specific ethno-national group - Singaporean Chinese - and find it difficult to understand pan-Asian pride. Asian-American stereotypes confuse me, because they do not exist in Asia.

My African-American roommate looks in the mirror and the first thing she sees is "black" and then "woman"; while I am not sure what I think of first upon looking in the mirror, it sure ain't "Asian" or even "Chinese". And my privilege lies in this freedom from race as a defining factor of my life.

Re: where are you from?

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

ah! when we were talking about this during the trip of epicness, it hadn't really occured to me that the minority/majority thing would have been a large factor in terms of how your school life differed from those of your US peers. sorry. more signs of privilege. >_.

i definitely take your point re: asian-american stereotypes. i think, on a lower level, that there's also the fact that one grows up in a household that is, at least in some ways, 'typically chinese' -- a concern with academic success, some overprotectiveness, some chinese superstitions, chinese food on the table -- but the difference is that most of one's friends, if chinese, have similar experiences.

I always make other peoples' concerns turn into babble about myself!

[wao.livejournal.com]

I'm just going to barge in here and pretend nobody saw but: needless to say, that was a very fascinating post :D

Seeing as I hardly read any srs bzns stuff from you, too :D It got me thinking despite it being 8-something (when's the last time I woke up before 9?)

I sometimes consider writing about my oh-so-special experience as a visible minority but with a relatively normal, majority-like experience/lifestyle in Singapore (Without ever fitting into either group, really) ...and then quash the thought because there's no way I can write all that without sounding really dumb.

It's only when I went to America that I ever really started seriously thinking about my labels, and how I've taken my rather comfortable feeling in Singapore for granted. I guess it's 'cos I generally forego offline interaction with people and interact mostly over the 'net where I honestly feel quite raceless. I guess I group myself as belonging more to a particular subset of culture than a particular race. But in another way I guess I also subconsciously forced myself to ignore all these issues and just continue living life as it is - otherwise I wouldn't know where to start. It's worked reasonably well for me so far...
But I suspect like you, I'll only really feel different if I move to a non-Asian country. I'm lucky to be a mainly English speaker yet I keep forgetting that it is far from a widely-received pronunciation. Hence why I feel so very odd hearing a recording of my voice. :|

The 'traitor' thing is definitely something that I've never worked out my response to though.

but i find the thoughts of other people far more interesting than my own! :O

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

i'm glad you thought so! and i'm impressed that you were awake at 8-something. o_o

if you ever get around to writing that post, i'd definitely, definitely be interested in reading that. do you mind if i ask you some questions on that issue? i'm sorry for being presumptuous. >_.

wow, i'd no idea that the america trip had that effect on you. i get what you mean about feeling raceless on the internet... though i don't interact all that much on the internet anymore. and the subset-of-culture thing is interesting. i take it that you mean the anime/manga subculture? or am i reading this terribly wrongly? even in the UK, i don't define myself chiefly by ethnicity or even nationality, i think -- but rather by not-being-the-clubbing-kind/being a geek. (i have membership of two geek societies! ahahaha um.)

Hence why I feel so very odd hearing a recording of my voice. :|
i always find it odd hearing recordings of my voice, but that is mainly because my voice sounds lower in my head. :D;;

the traitor thing gets me too, partly because it was an instinctive reaction i had -- even before anyone else knew, i was asking myself whether i was being a traitor. but what is there to betray? :|

[anappletree.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I'm one of those guilty of code switching, but only because I cannot stand the dissonance of the Singaporean accent in the midst of the various British accents. I have not been complimented on my command of English, I think perhaps because my college is not predominantly white, and there are a good number of Asians and Orientals :p

I agree that Singapore is not free of racism. I was in a class in a free period (ie nothing to teach) during my teaching stint at a boy's school last summer, I saw them sharing racist jokes targeted at a certain minority ethnic group. There were boys from that group present, and I asked them (in general) whether they considered it rude/offensive. They said they didn't (minority included). But I think this is sowing the seeds for racial insensitivity. Oh well :( And it sucks to hear that the older generation are even less tolerant than ours; I've heard of some elderly Chinese people refusing to see non-Chinese/Caucasian doctors...

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

ah, i don't think code switching is something to feel guilty about at all! it's a perfectly useful skill to have. i don't think i felt the 'whiteness' of oxford in terms of being 'the only asian' or anything -- there are quite a few ethnic minority students in my college, though probably still a small proportion -- but yes, london is probably much, much more diverse.

(i found the term 'oriental' very surprising when i first heard it; it seemed so 19th century.)

wasn't that a secondary school? that's really depressing. did you push the issue? (i can see why you wouldn't have wanted to do so, mind.) and that anecdote about elderly chinese people is saddening -- though if it were for language reasons (i.e. they want someone who can speak dialect... although if they don't mind seeing caucasian doctors that doesn't seem to apply) then it would be understandable.

[evilstorm.livejournal.com]

If...the boys from that minority group didn't find it offensive, what's the problem? Mutual taking-the-piss can work as well as, or sometimes better, than mutual extreme-politeness. Courtesy is always preferred, but having the license to poke each other can mean you don't end up in an emperor's-new-clothes situation. If the minority lads were comfortable enough in their own skin to take shit and not let it affect them, that's hardly a bad thing, is it?

(Fwiw, I regularly make jokes about myself being a slanty-eyed fisheater, so...yeah.)

[drelfina.livejournal.com]

Another Singaporean! And i totally feel what you're going through - I went through this in NZ during my undergraduate years, and am feeling it vastly in USA.

Um. Not much else to say,really, other than yes. Leaving Singapore really opened my eyes to the privilege I had in Singapore.

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

Hello! I saw your blog entries linked from ciderpress's post, and they were part of the catalyst for my writing this one, so -- thank you for writing them. ^_^;; (And sorry for not commenting; I tend to feel a bit awkward commenting in the ljs of people I don't already know.)

Thanks for this comment, too. It's curious -- some other Singaporeans who are studying here have said that they do feel like a minority for the first time, but I've not heard them tie it back explicitly to their position as a privileged majority in Singapore. I should probably try to engage more people in this sort of conversation offline.

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

It's not intrusive at all, no worries. :) I'm glad if this post was of some worth to you. Congrats on the place, and good luck for the A Levels! (Which college are you headed for, if you don't mind my asking?) Oxford's certainly less diverse than London, and it does have its issues, but it's still a lovely place to spend one's undergraduate career.

wanting to distance myself from Chinese non-native speakers of English
This. I wonder if it's partly because of the apparently strong emphasis placed on accent as an indicator of identity, in the UK..? Though if you're from London, at least you've got that bit sorted. ^_^;;

[jolantru.livejournal.com]

Directed from the Asian Women Blog Carnival...

I am also Chinese Singaporean and I studied in Australia for 6 years. Never adopted the Australian accent. When I spoke, (white) Australians always commented on my English and that I spoke well, for an Asian. When I went to England, I received subtle hints of racism (again, that English thing), that "there are people in the bus (we were on a one-day tour) who do not understand English". :P

Good one on privilege and advantages enjoyed by Chinese Singaporeans. We need to address that.

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

Yes, the whole "you speak well" phenomenon is frustrating (though I'm lucky that it's only happened to me once, during uni). Your tour bus anecdote is so depressing...

I wish some of the more prominent Singaporean political blogs would address the question of majority privilege; if they've done so, I haven't seen it.

By way of the Asian Women Blog Carnival

[kelene.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this.

I'm British Chinese, and have experienced a lot of what you describe. So many people take a look at my face and my colour and assume a multitude of false things. A lot of the time, it's hard to get past that and prove I'm me, with decided non-Chinese quirks, and some Chinese-quirks too.

I admit, I don't really identify with my Chinese roots at all (something which I facilitated every way I could when younger and still am facilitating, if I'm honest with myself). This is confusing for me and others; no one really knows where to class me. Am I Chinese just because of my looks? But I'm don't look 'white' enough to be assumed British.

It doesn't help that I don't really fit in in China either. The few times I've gone there to visit family, people have looked at me strangely because I dress differently, and have different mannerisms. My family laugh at my poor command of the Chinese language, and children of family friends find it difficult to communicate with me because I don't understand anything they're saying. It's just doubly frustrating that I can't get taken seriously in the place that I consider home, but neither will I be taken seriously in the place where my supposed roots are.

I've noticed that it gets harder the older I get. Mostly because I start to notice that I get treated differently. At school (and at university to a lesser extent), the environment is so insular. I'm surround by people who know me for who I am, not for the colour of my skin. They know that I speak perfect English, and that I like indie bands and that I don't fit the Chinese stereotype. But outside of that, there are people who tell me about British customs in slowed-down English at bus-stops, people who assume I'm all about the Asian-pride. I used to be sure about who I was, but the older I get the harder it is to put a label to myself.

And gosh, this has become long. Sorry! But yes, thank you.

Re: By way of the Asian Women Blog Carnival

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

I'm glad if you found something in this post; thanks so much for sharing your experiences, too. It must be a lot harder, being British Chinese... I haven't really broached the subject with my BBC friends at uni, since I don't feel I'm close enough to them to have such conversations.

The bus stop encounters sound terrible. I had a similar experience (someone holding a long conversation with me in talking-to-idiots English) once, and I didn't know how to point out that I had a perfectly decent grasp of English, thanks, so I didn't.

[bravecows.livejournal.com]

Hah! Pretty much a giant "me too" to everything in this post, with only minor deviations -- Malaysian rather than Singaporean, Cambridge rather than Oxford. (Come to think of it, I probably know people who know you and vice versa, the S'porean student population here being so small. Everybody is from Raffles!)

For whatever reason, I find myself embarrassed when they speak, and then I am angry at myself for feeling that way. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this sort of thing bothers me most when participants who appear ethnically East Asian have fairly imperfect English.

I recognise this, though I got over feeling embarrassed a long time ago and now go straight into defensive mode. One of the worst fights I've had with my white British boyfriend had its source in the British (a word I use deliberately instead of 'white', as some non-white Britons do it too) tendency to view people who have certain kinds of accented English as not entirely human or intelligent.

I've escaped the brunt of this because I code-switch like crazy, and having spent a couple of years in the US as a child makes that easier for me. But ... I don't know. I admire people who don't code-switch, but I wonder whether I would've got my job offer if I hadn't done.

Wonder if I would be seen as a 'traitor' by fellow Singaporeans, or as having some sort of colonial complex

This still worries me, though my concern is less about whether people see me as a traitor etc. and more about whether I do genuinely have a colonial complex.

I think the point about the privilege attached to being Chinese Singaporean -- and to a lesser extent, being Chinese Malaysian -- is an important one. In many ways I enjoyed the privilege of being the majority, or at least of not feeling like a minority in terms of being the only one in the room, and it's been a salutary experience coming to England and realising what "ethnic minority" means here. If only because it helps me to see things I did not see before -- what it is like for my friends who are less privileged minorities back home.

Perhaps the only thing I would really take issue with in your post is the description of racism in Singapore as "soft and unthinking". Unthinking maybe, but it's dangerous to describe any racism as soft, because that suggests that it does not have serious effects on people's lives. I'm not just talking about the psychic harm of not seeing positive portrayals of people like you in the media or of always being the only one in the room -- I'm talking about the racism of the Chinese businessmen which meant that my Indian Singaporean friend's father eventually had to give up trying to make a go of his business in Singapore, because nobody would do business with him.

I don't mean to imply that racism is worse in Singapore than it is in Malaysia (hah!). Just ... yeah. These are the stories we need to learn and remember.

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your comment! (Ahaha, I admit to being guilty of Rafflesianhood being-from-Raffles-ness.)



I think the colonial complex thing particularly applies if one grows up on British (children's or otherwise) classics, or British literature in general, or even old British comedies. I had some friends who were strong Anglophiles, and I may have been an unthinking one in my Misspent Youth, so.

Thanks for pointing out the problem with my use of 'soft' -- yes, in using that adjective I was probably playing into the very view that some forms of racism are not important. That's a shocking story (perhaps it says something that I find it shocking and not just depressing), and I'm sorry for your friend's father. I didn't realise that racism was that entrenched in Singapore.

[evilstorm.livejournal.com]

Another Sgian Chinese here! In Australia, though. Some random thoughts, in no particular order:

I had that "fucking foreigners" experience in Heathrow; my response was to crack the hell up and laugh for a minute straight. Perhaps I am just comfortable in my skin, no matter what other people think.

I see the privilege we live in. Nonetheless, I'm not going to feel bad about it. I should be ashamed because there's more yellow people at home? Nah, doesn't work. I do see racism against Malay and Indian people, and it's massively pissed me off, especially when friends and family do it; I need to learn how to tell them to stfu and diaf and work that into the conversation. That I acknowledge.

I codeswitch hugely, though I can't get rid of my Singaporean accent entirely, and believe me, I've tried. I've never found it to be an issue of race, but rather aesthetics: the Singaporean accent sounds goddamn ugly to my ears, because that's just not how English was meant to be spoken. Singlish has its own fun rhythm, but I wouldn't use it all the time, and really only fall back into it when I'm trying to communicate to another Sgian because it's just easier.

I'm...not sure I'm entirely comfortable applying white concepts of privilege to me/us. That there is racism and sometimes marginalization in Singapore, I have no doubt. But some of the implications that come with white privilege, such as cultural appropriation, I don't think that clicks quite so strongly with Sgian-Chinese.

I don't think I'll be going to live at home for a long, long while, but that's because we're a small red dot and damn I want to see the world.

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

I don't think one has to be ashamed simply because one's in a majority, but I do think that one has to be aware of the privilege that comes with majority status -- it's not just about individual acts of overt racism.

I do agree that the privilege enjoyed by Chinese Singaporeans in Singapore =/= white privilege, largely because white privilege is global in a sense -- Hollywood's international reach coexists with its often problematic treatment of race, for instance. By bringing up white privilege, I mainly wanted to point out that majority privilege can exist for majorities that aren't white, as well.

I definitely hear you re: wanting to see the world, though. :D

From the Asian Women Blog Carnival

[learnalilgivinanlovin.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Thank you for writing this post. It hit a lot of buttons with me; partly because my parents are Chinese Singaporean, and partly because I'm married to an Australian. (I'd call myself an Australian Born Chinese.) My comment to your post is basically one big "YES".

Your mention of the "Sarong Party Girl" stereotype is painfully true. Some people from Singapore assume I'm that sort of girl based on my Australian accent. Because of this stereotype, I dread visiting Singapore with my husband- which is ridiculous. Like you said, "[s]urely avoiding x, just becaue x is a component of some stereotype, is a way to disempower oneself". I wish it wasn't so hard to forget about what others think.

And why should I care whether I'm mistaken as a tourist? And yet I do care, and it annoys me that I do.

This! I feel like this too, even though I know it's irrational. I studied for a term over in London and found that I wanted to differentiate myself from the flocks of tourists taking pictures and talking amongst themselves. I didn't want to be the "fucking foreigner" who couldn't speak English. I find myself doing it at popular attractions in my home city, then chastising myself for doing so. And because of my loose ties with Singapore, I find myself doing the same even though I am truly a tourist. Thinking about the similarity of response across different countries made me realise that I'd be considered a tourist wherever I go- and that makes me frustrated. The benefit of Singapore is that I have the same privilege that you talked about; I am considered "from Singapore" by strangers that I meet. Shop assistants might greet me in Mandarin, for example, and I'm generally treated with courtesy. I blend in- that is, until I open my mouth and an Australian accent comes out. XD I noticed this response but didn't think of it in terms of privilege. Thank you for giving me another point of view.

sorry for the late reply!

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

Thank you for commenting! I'm sorry to hear about how some Singaporeans react to your accent.

And thanks -- I haven't properly broached the subject with my Singaporean friends who are studying overseas, so it's heartening to know that other people share that aversion to being seen as a tourist. It must be particularly hard being considered a tourist wherever you are, though.

Part I of my verbose response!

[absolutelt.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for posting this! I came across this entry at the Asian Women Carnival. Permission to repost this on my own LJ? I'm Indian Singaporean and I've never heard a Chinese Singaporean acknowledge majority privilege, so it was so wonderfully refreshing to read your post!

I should point out, since we're talking about privilege, that even though I am a woman and an ethnic minority, I have my own share of privilege. I enjoy relative class privilege. I'm heterosexual. I'm able-bodied. (I also have that seemingly-unique-to-Singapore privilege attached to being able to say I went to one of Singapore's elite secondary schools. Never mind that my grades were tragically (in the Greek sense) mediocre and that I ended up going to a "lousy" JC. Somehow, this doesn't seem to matter so much to people.) I probably also have "race" privilege relative to my class of the oppressed ethnic minorities.*

*I'm Christian, I'm relatively fair-skinned, I have no discernible accent; basically any markers of Anglo-Saxon culture or attributes absolve me from the unspeakable crime of being Indian. I've actually been told things like "You must be mixed, you're not like.. them", "but you're different, you're a high class Indian". And these people didn't seem to understand why I wasn't falling over myself with delight at these "compliments".

As a teenager, I used to be so so so frustrated (to the point of completely demonising all of Singaporean society) without understanding why. It was a complete love-hate relationship. Despite having spent most of my life there, I was adamant that I would leave as soon as I could. I couldn't understand why I felt like a second-class citizen in my own country and declared that I'd rather be treated like a foreigner in a foreign country than be treated like a foreigner in my own country. I would never call any of my friends Racists (but then again, how many people actually *are* Capital-R racists?), and yet, the attitudes of some of my Chinese Singaporean friends only served to compound my feelings of otherness.

I remember reading about race relations in the US and integration policies in Europe, and yet, none of my experiences seemed to fit within those narratives of racism. The issue of race in Singapore seemed to me, to be entirely unique to Singapore. I read about white privilege. And then I read about privilege. And then I left Singapore for uni, and it was only then that it all really clicked. It wasn't Singaporeans that pissed me off. It was privilege - unacknowledged - and entitlement, as tools of oppression, that I was so virulent against! Racism plays out differently in Europe, it plays out differently in Australia, but the narrative of privilege is always so strikingly concordant.

Part II of my verbose response!

[absolutelt.livejournal.com]

So yes, I'm with you, I think we desperately need to be talking about privilege in our discussions about race in Singapore. All forms of privilege, be it gender-based, race-based, heterosexuality-based, class-based. (Oh, especially class-based! Class privilege is becoming increasingly problematic in Singapore.) Not just so we can examine our various privileges, but also because doing so will change the whole conversation about race in Singapore. I know how empowered I, personally, felt when I was able to frame my own experiences in the broader framework of privilege and entitlement as tools of oppression, and I think Singaporeans desperately. I think this is all the more true in Singapore, where it is even harder for the various oppressed classes to make their grievances heard. Take for example, public conversations about race. The authorities seem to think that a honest, open discussion about race will automatically spiral into race riots. Mind you, this isn't a complete indictment of the official policies of racial integration and tolerance that we've had in Singapore. I've never had to worry about racially-motivated violence or anything, and it's true, in terms of racial tolerance, we are doing so much better than many other societies. But that's all it is - racial tolerance. If we want to move from racial tolerance (which we do so well!) to true racial harmony, then we need to start having honest, open, and often uncomfortable discussions, starting with privilege.

And I've seen many instances of the resentment brewing under the calm waters of racial tolerance (in terms of racism) and meritocracy (in terms of class stratification) and the only way we can deal with these tensions is to acknowledge privilege.



Btw, re: your relationship with British man, yes, we do not operate in a vacuum and everything we do has implications but I don't think anyone could accuse you of being a bad feminist or a bad Asian woman for being in this relationship! It's one thing if your relationship with each other was in fact racialised but it's not. He's not with you because you're Chinese and you're not with him because he's white. And you're not reinforcing the stereotype that Asian women like white men, because in truth, Asian women do like white men, just like Asian women like East Asian men and South Asian men and black men and brown men. Asian women like men (and women) all across the board and if people have difficulty understanding that, that's their problem and not yours. Stereotypes are not your cross to bear.

[dmp.livejournal.com]

I completely relate to how you described your conflicts about being an Asian woman dating a Caucasian guy. I'm currently in a long0term relationship with a Caucasian partner, and that issue had been brought up several times in the course of our relationship between ourselves and myself and friends/family. I just hope it works out with you.

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the comment -- it's heartening to hear from those who've been through similar experiences. All the best to you, too.

[onlacienega.livejournal.com]

I hope you get email notifications for this, because it's a year late!

I remember communicating with you briefly a long time ago, on The Internet, because you were in fandom and from the same area as I am (I'm Malaysian). I knew you through 'bri, of course.

I'm just struck by the odd parallel in our lives! I seem to remember that you went to school in the US (though I could be totally wrong). I went to school there too, and just graduated this June. I studied abroad in Oxford too. And I have a bit of a complex about dating a series of white Americans (one of whom I met at Oxford), particularly because one of them has self-proclaimed yellow fever. I abhor the sexual fetishization of Asian women, which seems so prevalent among many of my friends in America, but at the same time all the men I've dated have been white, and two of them have had what appeared to me to be a serious case of yellow fever.

About code-switching, I actually find it weird and unnatural to code-switch to the typical British accent, and wouldn't, but find myself saddled with an American accent, which is much closer to my natural accent anyway. My parents were very disdainful about the Malaysian Chinese accent and wouldn't allow me to speak that way in the house (I was never allowed to say "lah", etc.).

Finally, it's interesting to read about racism in Singapore and the fact that Chinese Singaporeans are the norm, which of course I knew already, but... it's interesting because in Malaysia it's completely the other way around. It completely changes and colors the way I feel about my country, and is part of the reason I am moving off to work in America for as long as possible.

This is a very long-winded way of saying "You are interesting and I would like to be friends. Or at least talk more." I have a number of Singaporean friends, mostly from Raffles Junior College or ... was it Victoria? I say this only because literally everyone from Singapore at my school went there ;) and I thought there was a good chance you might have too?

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

I do indeed get email notifications! But I'm very tardy when it comes to replying to comments - sorry. orz

Thanks for sharing so much. I don't think I could ever date someone with self-proclaimed yellow fever, but I guess it depends where a simple preference for certain physical features ends and fetishization of specific ethnicities begins?

I've pretty much overcome my personal issues about my relationship with my boyfriend, now, but I don't really want to think about what will happen when I return to Singapore for good (as I must, due to my scholarship bond and general familial pressures). I wouldn't want to inflict Singapore on someone who's only ever lived in London, so to speak.

Ah, and I didn't go to school in the US; my undergrad degree at Oxford was my first experience of studying abroad. And my extended family pretty much converses in Singlish. :D;; I am, however, guilty of being from RJC.

I don't know as much about race relations in Malaysia as I should, sadly (besides the most basic things), but I'm sorry to hear that.

I'm happy adding you as an lj friend (and have just done so, eheh), but I confess that I barely post on lj anymore, though I do read my friendslist. ^^; Sorry this comment has been so disjointed!

[azuire.livejournal.com]

But precisely because racism in Singapore takes a subtler form, it is easier for us to be self-congratulatory and hence ignore the racism that does exist. Racist jokes are still not taboo, racist stereotyping even less so. Chinese Singaporeans enjoy institutionalised privilege. There is racism in Singapore, and it may be a soft and* an unthinking brand of racism rather than a vitriolic or extremist one, but it is still there. Yes. This. I have had to talk to several classmates explaining that racist jokes are wrong, and they say, "but it doesn't happen here! you have no sense of humour."

Thank you for writing this. I hope you enjoy your time at Oxford!

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

Heh, I know those conversations all too well. One just has to keep having them, I guess.

Thanks for reading, and for your comment! Sadly, my time at Oxford came to an end this summer - it was a good three years, though. :)