Happy Racial Harmony Day!
From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Race_Riots:"The 1964 Race Riots were a series of riots that took place in Singapore during two separate periods in July and September between Chinese and Malays groups. The first incident occurred on 21 July during a Malay procession that marked Prophet Muhammad's birthday. In total, the violence killed 36 people and injured another 556."
As a reminder that race and religion are potential areas of tension in multi-cultural, multiracial Singapore, 21 July has been marked as Racial Harmony Day.
I decided to "celebrate" Racial Harmony Day in my own silly, unique and probably insignificant way. For dinner, I had Paper Massala Thosai with Mango Lassi at Causeway Point. Mmm...
Ok, so it's not really anything great, but in my own little way, I'm paying tribute to one of the greatest benefits Singapore has due to our multi-racial make-up. Food!
To be completely honest, I have never celebrated Racial Harmony Day before. I don't have many friends who are of different races. Most of my friends are ethnic Chinese. Come to think of it, off-hand, I can only recall two Indian friends, two Malay friends, and three Eurasian friends. I remember going for one Malay friend's wedding with my fellow ex-councillors and we had no idea what to do - all of us were Chinese. Eventually, a helpful (and rather observant) relative of my friend told us what we were supposed to do.
Compared to a Chinese/Christian wedding, Malay weddings are really different. You arrive at any time, say hello to the couple and then help yourself to the food. It's sort of like an open house. In Singapore, it's usually held in the void decks of HDB apartment blocks. And I think that it's usually held on Sundays, so that more people can make it. There's a joke somewhere that I heard, talking about how Sunday's "sure to have wedding in void deck".
I'm deeply aware that I don't understand many of the customs of the Chinese culture, much less Malay, Indian or Eurasian culture. Could this be that most Singaporeans never interact with people from a different race? Do we not care?
If you're a Singaporean Chinese, then you've probably never experienced the feeling of being a minority race. It's a whole different feeling when you're made to feel as if you're not part of the group. I had this experience when I was in Sydney when I was one of the few Chinese people in my course and amongst my friends. I guess it was kind of a self-inflicted experience because I decided from the onset that I would make an effort to get to know Australians and not do the typical hang out with the Singaporean students thing. Over the years that I stayed in Sydney, my friends didn't treat me any differently. However, due to our different growing-up experiences, I was left out a few times during the conversations. All of them shared a common childhood, with the same tv programmes, cartoons, shows, outings etc. When conversations like that took place, I did feel a little left out, and the difference between me and my Aussie friends stood out. I really like my Aussie friends but there were times when I felt exactly what the song Hip City by Electrico is trying to say:
"I've been away to some far out place
Where you can drive and get some
snow in your face but
It wasn't long before I could see
There's no one out there smiling back at me"
Well, not that drastic, but sort of. My experience was one of the factors in me wanting to return to Singapore. I felt lonely and left out.
In my four years in Sydney, I only experienced one incident of racism. I was walking along Darling Harbour with Estee when this young punk called out to us, "Go back to where you came from, go back to f**king China". Ironically, this person was obviously an immigrant as well, not Caucasian but Lebanese or of another Middle-Eastern ethnicity. In fact, unless you are an Aboriginal Australian, you are also an immigrant. Secondly, he got it wrong, I'm from Singapore, not China.
I was kind of taken aback when I heard the comment. I didn't know how to react. I guess cos Sydney's a pretty cosmopolitan place and I never encountered any form of racism before. But more so, I think because in Singapore, I'm part of the majority. I'm sure that there is some level of racism in about 50% of Singaporean Chinese. It's further encouraged by the fact that we're the majority race. I'm sure that most of you who are around my age remember some parents telling their kids to behave, or else "the Indian man will come and catch you and take you away." Other racist remarks I've heard over the years are that Chinese are stingy, Malays are lazy and Indians are smelly.
My sis is working in Raffles Junior College and she recently had to make an announcement at assembly. There was going to be a talk in Mandarin in the hall and an alternative talk was going to be held in a Lecture Theatre for non-Mandarin speaking students. She went up on stage and said something to the effect of - "Will all Chinese-speaking students stay in the hall for the assembly talk and all non-Chinese-speaking students proceed to LT X." Based on this statement, she found out later that some students had complained to their tutor that they felt it was a racist remark. I would love to hear your comments on this, dear readers.
What is racism? Does it have to be with the intent to hurt or discriminate? Or can racism be unintentional? Does the organising of a Racial Harmony Day help racial harmony or does it actually highlight our differences even more? If people were truly not racist, would we view each other differently? Or the same?
I don't know the answers. But I hope that I never become racist, either intentionally or unintentionally. Happy Racial Harmony Day.
By the way, did you know that if you're Chinese but don't speak Cantonese, the Chinese people (who are mainly Cantonese-speaking) working in Chinese restaurants in Sydney give you dirty looks?
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