Who am I? 1/4 malay?
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My dad is Swiss. His dad is German. His mother is Polish. My mom is Chinese, her dad is Chinese, her mom is a Baba.
It's good to know/find out about your roots, heritage and culture. But what's more important is being human and true to yourself, no matter what colour you are.
I personally feel that "embracing their heritage" is very subjective. It is a matter of interest, to find out more about it, to live it in that way, and to pass it down. You can 'embrace' it in so many ways (or not even, if your interests are elsewhere), like how you portray yourself, ettiquecy, knowledge of culture, etc.
And about a "tree without it's roots", so long as you know of your heritage, and have certain characteristics or aspects to make you who you are today, as a human being, is good enough. There will never be a tree to start with if the roots are missing in the first place.
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Originally posted by viciouskitty74:
Who still here holds NRIC that has blood group on it?
That one you have to go to my grandmother's grave and force her to let go of her red IC. -
That is why I always say Singapore should review it's 'race' on the IC
This topic came up before during the PSLE for this Eurasian boy
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I think have to agree. Maybe in like a few 1000 years time, everyone will look the same cause everyone would have married one another from different races.
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Originally posted by Short Ninja:
That one you have to go to my grandmother's grave and force her to let go of her red IC.
Errr.......you never heard the phrase "Giao Deng Gee"?Pass up your ic?
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Originally posted by Keii:
My dad is Swiss. His dad is German. His mother is Polish. My mom is Chinese, her dad is Chinese, her mom is a Baba.
It's good to know/find out about your roots, heritage and culture. But what's more important is being human and true to yourself, no matter what colour you are.
I personally feel that "embracing their heritage" is very subjective. It is a matter of interest, to find out more about it, to live it in that way, and to pass it down. You can 'embrace' it in so many ways (or not even, if your interests are elsewhere), like how you portray yourself, ettiquecy, knowledge of culture, etc.
And about a "tree without it's roots", so long as you know of your heritage, and have certain characteristics or aspects to make you who you are today, as a human being, is good enough. There will never be a tree to start with if the roots are missing in the first place.
No wonder I was thinking how come your family name sounds German when your dad is Swiss.
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Originally posted by elindra:
That is why I always say Singapore should review it's 'race' on the IC
This topic came up before during the PSLE for this Eurasian boy
I think even if we are all mixed up we should come to terms with what is written in our IC/ID but for the SIngapore Eurasians,I think this is the only part of the World where there is such an official race where most of these people ...excuse me,aint got any European features on there colorful faces.1/2 of their population would look more like Malays,1/4 like Indians and 1/4 Chinese or others.So I think they have a genuine identity problem.
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singapore like to follow black n white.
what does your ic say of u?
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THere is no "pure" Singaporean race as of now; and to say that being singaporean is a race is quite dangerous.
To the confused person who started this thread, you are identified by many factors and it's up to you to be who you want- having said that, it doesn't mean you can claim to be German if you are not.
Racial identity means NOTHING today. I am sure people from Malaysia will disagree since Malays get preferential treatment based on their race, and so would Jewish people or Neo Nazis. But I am saying in the rest of the modern civilized liberal world, i.e. europe your ethnicity is not the only thing that determines who you are.i find that sometimes Singaporeans can be so shallow when they assume a Brit HAS to be blonde, blue eyed, wears a top-hat, carries a cane, speaks in received pronounciation and tells the other wogs to get back to work, which is why they are so baffled to find Black/Jamaican/Pakistani British people today. You can be Chinese but your upbringing may be American or Aussie, your ethnicity has little identity in the modern world, but sadly in SIngapore you're looked on as being Chinese, indian, mongrel/rojak and other crude terms, but they're all wogs anyway (i apologize, that was a joke) ;)
Your upbringing and culture forms your identity. You mentioned being 1/4 malay, indonesian and a lot of other entities. But what makes you who you are is how you were brought up, what language you speak, what your mother tongue is (malay? Mandarin?), what your eating practices are, culinary methods, speech patterns, where you have lived, how you behave and so on. All this is what forms identity - Upbringing.
You are considered part of the heritage of your ancestors ONLY if you actually embody elements of what they represent, or what they did- which is kind of a hard thing to do, considering you mentioned Malaya, China, north India haha. There will definitely be some culture that is going to be lost over the years with migration and the passing of generatons.
So you need to examine your own way of life and see if that conforms to the set patterns of whatever heritage you claim to be a part of. I'm not going to tell you what culture you are or not, that's up to you. And don't let local people here disparage you, unless you're claiming to be Chinese when you're lifestyle and culture definitely isn't. haha
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i learnt b4 in sch dat spore is da oni country in da world dat calls ethnic groups as "race". n the law states dat generally u must be classified into any of the 4 race. indians, malays, chinese, others
most peranakans haf chosen unwillingly to label themselves as "chinese" in the past when the "standardization" occurred. but aniwae i still see many people with ICs state things like Pakistani, Boyanese, Javanese... i dun noe why
aniwae Pakistani or Indian if reflected on the IC has more to do with "Nationality" instead of ethnicity or race. the subtle difference between "Pakistani" & "Indian" is that, for people of Pakistan, whether be they are Sindhi, Baluchi, Panjabi, Pashtun or any other minority they are in fact very similar in their culture and the religion thus their closeness in the ethnicity to relate to one umbrella term "Pakistani" which in turns promotes an image of national unity. these people identify themselves as pakistanis affectionally
for Indians a little bit different bcos the potpourri of people in India makes it vastly so different from pakistan that we can't really call them ONE ethnic group. the term "Indian" is a successful product of nationalism. you can find a staunch vegetarian Gujarati-speaking Rajput Hindu who looks tall, fair and beardy in Gujarat while you may find Telugu-accented Urdu-speaking Muslim that is brownish in skin colour in Andhra Pradesh while you may find a whole Christian State in the State of Nagaland where the people there looks more like Tibetans and also a large Christian community in Kerala where they look very dark and you will also find very tribal people like the Santals and the Mundas who still lives like their ancestors for thousands of years in the forest and practice animal husbandry to basic Hindu beliefs. therefore i find the Indians will identify themselves as indians for the sake of simplicity not to confuse other peoples
singapore thus has more of common with the demographics of india. the country haf to limit itself to a few denominations or else we will break down into thousands of split community
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Originally posted by Bangulzai:
i learnt b4 in sch dat spore is da oni country in da world dat calls ethnic groups as "race". n the law states dat generally u must be classified into any of the 4 race. indians, malays, chinese, others
most peranakans haf chosen unwillingly to label themselves as "chinese" in the past when the "standardization" occurred. but aniwae i still see many people with ICs state things like Pakistani, Boyanese, Javanese... i dun noe why
aniwae Pakistani or Indian if reflected on the IC has more to do with "Nationality" instead of ethnicity or race. the subtle difference between "Pakistani" & "Indian" is that, for people of Pakistan, whether be they are Sindhi, Baluchi, Panjabi, Pashtun or any other minority they are in fact very similar in their culture and the religion thus their closeness in the ethnicity to relate to one umbrella term "Pakistani" which in turns promotes an image of national unity. these people identify themselves as pakistanis affectionally
for Indians a little bit different bcos the potpourri of people in India makes it vastly so different from pakistan that we can't really call them ONE ethnic group. the term "Indian" is a successful product of nationalism. you can find a staunch vegetarian Gujarati-speaking Rajput Hindu who looks tall, fair and beardy in Gujarat while you may find Telugu-accented Urdu-speaking Muslim that is brownish in skin colour in Andhra Pradesh while you may find a whole Christian State in the State of Nagaland where the people there looks more like Tibetans and also a large Christian community in Kerala where they look very dark and you will also find very tribal people like the Santals and the Mundas who still lives like their ancestors for thousands of years in the forest and practice animal husbandry to basic Hindu beliefs. therefore i find the Indians will identify themselves as indians for the sake of simplicity not to confuse other peoples
singapore thus has more of common with the demographics of india. the country haf to limit itself to a few denominations or else we will break down into thousands of split community
I agree with all you say.
Although i dont really agree with this system of standardisation. It kinda blanket the fact that singaporeans can be grouped more diversely instead of just the four races.
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Originally posted by Babelfish:
I agree with all you say.
Although i dont really agree with this system of standardisation. It kinda blanket the fact that singaporeans can be grouped more diversely instead of just the four races.
Grouped diversly? I thought 4 was good enough and one even better.Singaporeans only for one Singapore. -
i hate it how people divides themselves as races...
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Just be what you are now, you still have a long way to go. Forget about it.