in which this lj is momentarily SRS BSNS
Apr. 3rd, 2009 03:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ambientlightFor 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 bea 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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
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.
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
---
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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Part I of my verbose response!
Date: 2009-04-13 02:58 am (UTC)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!
Date: 2009-04-13 03:10 am (UTC)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.
Re: Part II of my verbose response!
Date: 2009-04-22 11:34 am (UTC)(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.
Eheh, yes -- Singapore and her obsession with education. To be fair, I think this might play out a little in the UK as well, but being from a 'good school' is still more likely to gain you admiration rather than rejection in Singapore, I think.
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".
That's horrible. I'm sorry.
Not just so we can examine our various privileges, but also because doing so will change the whole conversation about race in Singapore.
Yes, this, thank you. You've pinned down the core of that which is problematic about race-related discourse in Singapore and which I was trying to express without quite getting there -- the problem is that racism isn't seen as 'prejudice + power' in Singapore, that privilege isn't talked about.
And yes, the government line on race is useful yet frustrating. We say 'racial harmony' and mean 'racial tolerance', rather than something born of active discussion and a critical, self-searching examination. Singapore prides itself so much on its multiculturalism, and I think this is a huge barrier to discussions about race -- we think we've already solved the problem of racism.
(I definitely concur about the need to examine class privilege as well, and the racial tolerance:racism :: meritocracy:class stratification relation you point out is a really good one -- both problems are hidden behind/hand-waved away via the respective tenets of Singaporean society.)
Thank you, too, for your helpful words, especially this -- 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. I'm still coming to terms with the implications of the relationship, and these words help a great deal.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 02:55 pm (UTC)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". OMG THIS. People have stopped me on the street and asked "what are you" because I'm apparently not black enough to be an Indian, and they insisted I was mixed or something. Or adopted.
And we need to talk about class privilege here. I feel bad because I have an RP-ish English accent and speak the Queen's1, and I feel worse when I hear someone trying it and failing. Or someone using it as a class marker :(
1 - despite living in Singapore for several years, I can't code-switch into Singlish. Hearing me try is quite painful.