My fellow Singaporeans… especially Mr Sivaraj Pragasm

If you look at my profile, it’s stated clearly that I’m a Chinese Singaporean. Since this open letter is written by an Indian Singaporean addressed to Chinese Singaporeans, I’m well qualified to comment.

I’ve left some comments on the author’s FB. I’ve invited the author to read my blog with at least three or more articles regarding Malay and Indian topics. None of them are offensive or racist in nature. Some of my best friends are Indians, Malays and Sikhs. I’ve even written that since Malay is our National Language, we should promote it as a non-exam subject in school.

I wish to say that the open letter is written in a rather witty way with no intent to stir up racial hatred. It attempts to point out the helplessness faced by the minority races in Singapore. I can understand the author’s resignation to some of the racist jokes directed on them quoted by the author using that retard university student as an example. What’s happening to our educated youngsters? It’s really bad taste to post such jokes on FB and circulate around the Internet even though we know such jokes have been around for a long time.

I just want to say that generally, we like to stereotype different races to their particular traits, habits or practices. Actually, they are quite harmless and not racist in nature.

In my previous life as a PO, I came across all races of Singaporeans on a daily basis. From my experience, the Indians like to drink and they become quite vocal after that. They often end up with disorderly behaviour charges. The highly educated are mostly lawyers. If we conduct road block on them especially when they are with Chinese girlfriends, they could be quite difficult to handle. They become extremely hyper sensitive whenever we stop them. They feel that we are targeting on them.

For the Malays, it’s usually drug related offences. It’s true that among the races, the Malays are quite high in number of DRC cases. They like to play guitar and gather around at void decks in the middle of the night leading to complaints of noise pollution by residents.

The Chinese on the other hand are notorious for gambling offences. Especially on weekends at hawker centres and coffee shops where they would congregate for horse betting. Their preoccupation with mahjong over the weekend right into the wee hours causes much complaint of noise pollution.

I must qualify that the above refers to the general perception of the different races in Sg. They are exceptions within the community of course.

We live in a multi-cultural society with three major races i.e. Chinese, Malays and Indians. They cannot be the same in terms of their unique characteristics and features. We must understand their differences to appreciate their diversity. By highlighting their differences, am I being a racist? On the contrary, it helps me to be more open minded when we interact.

It’s clearly stated in our constitution that all races are equal. We even have a presidential council protecting minority rights. The state protects and safeguards all the races’ rights. No race shall be victimized.

Nevertheless, as humans we are not perfect. We do have our own prejudices, bias and weaknesses. Those innate traits are manifested in our so called ‘racist’ jokes we share among ourselves privately. Even myself was guilty in my youth. We mature as we grow older. But to publicize ‘racist’ jokes on FB is rather unbecoming.

I hope I won’t be accused of being a ‘racist’. I am not and will never be. Notwithstanding our different races, we are all fellow Singaporeans.

Pls feel free to share your views and comments here.

Source

Sivaraj Pragasm’s Notes

Dear Singapore Chinese friends,

This letter may come as a surprise to you but don’t worry, we don’t mean any harm. You see, recently, thanks to the Internet, we have come across a lot of incidents where Chinese Singaporeans are caught making racially insensitive remarks to the Indians and Malays here. This letter is to let you know that it’s okay, we don’t mind.

You see, we grew up as minorities and being that way, we have already grown accustomed to the apu neh nehs and the mat bodoh jokes. Back when we were younger, our parents had already warned us about this. They told us that on paper, we are a multicultural society but deep down, some forms of racism still linger. We already know all that, we already got ourselves mentally prepared. So you don’t have to be guilty about it. But why am I telling you all this?

Let me cite the example of that SIM Student, Joshua. He was at some party in NUS, got himself pissed drunk and his friend thought it would be funny to let Joshua ramble on and on about the Indians and Malays and then upload it on Facebook. You see, there’s a saying that a person reveals his true colours when he is drunk. We all know deep down that Joshua represents a lot of fellow Singaporeans. We are also guilty of it, we have drunk Indians making fun of you guys all the time, the only reason why it’s not reported is because we are already the minority so it doesn’t stir up an issue as huge as yours, where you make fun of the minority.

You see, we all know everybody is racist. There’s really no need to flame Josh, we understand where he comes from and we understand what he did but seriously, life goes on. We have experienced much much worse incidents than this. Our Malay friends would know how it’s like to be labelled slow and stupid even though there are many Malay professionals who are much more successful and earning much higher than you are. Our Indian friends know what it’s like to be labelled dirty, smelly and full of cheats, we grew up on that mate. It’s nothing new for us already.

We know you secretly curse the old Malay lady walking really slowly in front of you, we know you secretly cover your nose when an Indian man stands beside you in the train, we know that when you are female, and when you turn 50, and an Indian guy gets into the lift with you, deep down you will have this sense of worry that he might reach out to grab your jade necklace and pinch your backside.

The reason why we don’t ever retaliate is simple. Because we find it extremely cute that now when there are so many new immigrants from China coming in, and they bring with them really bad social ettiquette like speaking loudly, spitting all over the place, etc. It just makes you look bad. Admit it, you absolutely HATE it when we mistake you for one of them. We know you despise them because they look down on you for not being Chinese enough. We find it cute because now, finally. You are starting to get a sense of what we have been living all our lives. That’s why we never do or say anything. I say, go on with your apu neh neh roti prata nasi ayam makchik tudung hari raya ketupat jokes. Some of them can be really funny, we admit but don’t worry, we won’t hold a grudge against you.

We have, for the past few generations co-existed peacefully and we will continue to do so because even after all this namecalling, we still love you and we know you guys love us too. So let’s keep this momentum going. We all definitely feel sorry for you, having to convince people half the time that you are Singaporean and not PRC, we understand your pain but we will still continue supporting you.

So don’t worry my Singaporean Chinese friends, life goes on.

Sincerely,

The “Other” races of Singapore.

Click to read my Malay colleague’s wedding.

Click to read about my Malay buddy.

Click to read South Indian Pongal Festival.

Click to read my favourite Indian banana leaf curry.

Click to read Spicy Curry Chicken recipe.