 Singapore oh Singapore... It is about how I perceive Singapore.....
Singapore is familiar in my mind where my teacher in my Primary School told that Singapore was named as "Tumasik", under Sriwijaya's rule. Firstly, I came in July 27th 2006 for the first time where I was so enthusiastic and so afraid when my plane landed in Changi Airport smoothly. Day by day, I underwent my life in Singapore. It is already one semester in Singapore...in NTU where all my exams had finished yesterday.
I found how people are so diversed each other and how different it is with my homeland where three main cultures are the symbol of this unique country as chinese is the majority. Interestingly, we cannot directly assume that Singapore is identic with chinese-like white dominates US-because there are so many Asians are here and there is a little or almost zero discrimination here, even there are four official languages,i.e. English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil. Even though Malay language is usually found here, I still felt difficult to understand their language. The funny occurence is when a Malay lady talked to me in Malay and I always asked her to repeat and repeat again until she realized that I didn't understand her usage of words. Talking about that diversity, in many media, I read that many countries were impressed by the ability of Singapore to unite them. Here, during one semester, I really didn't find any form of offfence that the racial issue evolved. It seems from the President of Singapore is an Indian, the governmental structures which seems not to be so racist. It also seems how people here don't think much about the difference each others. For example is in waterloo, where there are many religious places are located in the near distance. Ehm...it isn't strange if Singapore is included the list of "1000 places too see before you die", a book by Patricia Schultz. What I am trying to say here is about even though Singapore is famous with its multiculturalism, I am sure there are still a lot of prejudices, racist beliefs and segregation. I will give an example. My friend told me about this happening when he was in MRT. When a chinese Singaporean girl was in the middle of many old Indian boys and separated from her friends, she suddenly shouted and said," Hey, I am afraid here". Isn't it a form of prejudice and segregation or exactly a nonverbal racism? Yes, in Singapore there is no offence or anything which pertains the physical contact to others but mostly it is about nonverbal attitude toward other race or group. Well, I can say that we can't avoid the racism and prejudice in our mind. We have a tendecy to refuse something which doesn't suit with someone's ideal norm. So it isn't strange if in Singapore, people will tend to make a particular group with the same race like the analogy that the birds will tend to fly together with the same flur birds. Then the question is, is westernization the best way to make them really united? Well, though like that, I am grateful to be able to study here where I am trying to accept another cultures and to respect others who have different traits and background. Then the problem is, should I melt with people here? Ehm...or at least, "loving" Singapore? Err....I still remember when I was in Changi and I wanted to go back to my town, I felt it was so difficult to leave this country. Have I loved this country? |
