Braineochurn’s Weblog

Week 8, Politics of Identity and Globalisation

The Great Walls between Chinese

Since centuries, Chinese, mainly from Fujian, Guangdong and Hainan have been migrating out to the world i.e. Chinese Diaspora, whereby they form a significant number in almost every continent but more focused in Asia, with 28millions as of 2001. In south-east Asia, there are about  3.4 million Singaporean Chinese, 7.5 million Indonesian Chinese, 7.1milion Thai Chinese, 7 million Malaysian Chinese. Many of these Chinese migrated out of China for centuries and some are well-assimilated into their new countries as they are already the 3rd of 4th generation of Chinese to be born outside of China. The assimilation process itself however, is long and difficult as proven by bloody clashes between races e.g. 1964 Race Riots in Singapore where Malays and Chinese kill each other and the killing of Indonesian Chinese in Indonesia few years back.

However, in Singapore, Chinese immigrants that planted themselves centuries ago are pretty well assimilated into the Singapore society such that Singaporean Chinese form the largest racial group. Due to the urban and developmental program implemented where Chinese dialects like Hokkien are discouraged whereas Mandarin and English are encouraged and the removal of the Mandarin medium schools that focuses on Chinese values and tradition, it is now rare for the younger generation of Singaporeans to identify themselves as ‘I am a Hakka’ or ‘I am a teochew’ like how the older generations of Chinese Singaporeans do. Singaporean Chinese have stopped seeing themselves so much as their race too, such that when asked who they are, they would most likely answer ‘I am a Singaporean’ rather than ‘I’m a Chinese’. Such an identification of self along Nationalistic lines could be due to the efforts of the government in building up a National identity through means like teaching ‘Social studies’ and ‘National Education’ in public schools. Here, I am not saying that Singaporean Chinese do not see themselves as Chinese, but to identify themselves more along Nationalistic lines is stronger than along racial lines that the government has been trying for years and successfully shifted the focus away from.

This could explain the following phenomena in Singapore which is not as strikingly observed in Malaysia and Indonesia despite having a larger population of Chinese, that is of ‘Chinese Bashing’ as described by a Chinese National blogger in his blog -xiawubei.blogspot.com- who has completed his University studies in Singapore and experienced numerous unpleasant incidents of hostility and discrimination from Singaporean Chinese. Personally, I do know of a friend, also a Chinese, my age who viewed all Chinese Nationals as uncouth, rude and ‘greedy bastards’ according to him. Such negative sentiments are reflected in the article ‘China workers rude, so are we‘ and the Nationalistic divide between China Chinese and Singaporean Chinese are also seen in the following youtube(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSn9U4dYyP4) video where it is clear that Singaporean Chinese identify themselves with their China counterparts to the extent that a brawl could break out anytime. In NTU, within the engineering faculty where there’s large numbers of PRCs (as Chinese Nationals are called) and Indian students, Singaporeans would sit as a group in lectures, the PRCs as another separate group and the Indian students as another group. The divide between Chinese Singaporean and China Chinese is so great that they are like on two sides of a wall.

The media itself, plays a role in exaggerating this divide by portraying more negative sides of China than their positive. With China steadily rising to have more global influence and international recognition, would Singaporean Chinese learn to have more Chinese pride and identify themselves more kindly with their China counterparts under the praises that MM Lee showered on China recently.

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Citations

“Distribution of Ethinic Chinese population around the world” , retrieved from http://cicdatabank.library.ohiou.edu/opac/population.php on 6th Oct 2008.

“Overseas Chinese”, retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Chinese on 6th Oct 2008.

“Communal Riots of 1964″, retrieved from http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_45_2005-01-06.html on 6th Oct 2008.

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