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THE KOREAN
…has posted the best of the worst emails he received in 2009.
via Friends of Type
As a result I exercised my stomach muscles for the first time in 2010.
Dear Korean,
When people think “white” they tend to picture an American, or at least, a westerner.
But obviously people can be Asian-American, or African-American.
So that said, I was wondering if a white person born in, say, Japan or Taiwan would be considered a white asian?
- Elizabeth C.First, you tell the Korean how many angels can dance on top of a pin.
PUHAHAHA!
On the contrary… Despite healthy amounts of migration and intermarriage, people in S’poreville aren’t hung up on summing up ethnicity and nationality in one phrase.
I suppose you’ve got Asian-American, [insert country] gyopo, British-Born Chinese, Indonesian Chinese etc. etc. outside this Isle of Eyeball-Melting Humidity, but hardly anybody here is going to shake hands and declare themselves Anglo-Chinese, Hong Kong-Singaporean, Italian-Indian Singaporean or whatever double barreled label you could patent.
Simplistically genomed types like myself (Chinese Singaporean, ie. nothing exotic in the motherland) aren’t used to the distinctive identifier of ‘race + nationality’ either.
Resulting in the occasional mix-up in Korea:
Non-S’porean: “So where are you from?”
Me: “Singapore.”
NS: “Ah! Your English is really good!”
Me: “Uh thanks? I’ve grown up speaking English. Don’t really speak anything as often. My parents speak to me in English and so do my friends.”
NS: “Wait so you’re Chinese? But you live in Singapore?”
Me: “I’m Chinese. Chinese Singaporean.”
NS: “When did you move to Singapore?”
Me: “Born and raised there.”
NS: “Oh but your parents are Chinese? Which part of China?”
Me: “Yeah my parents are Chinese but they were born and raised in Singapore too. As were my grandparents. One set of ‘em.”
NS: “Oh so you’re a third generation Chinese?”
Me: “Nah I’m Singaporean.”
I never like being asked about my tolerable English but the ensuing race-nationality interrogation is always a hoot. Yes I am a third-generation Chinese who grew up in Singapore and is studying in Korea at this point of introduction, thank you very much good sir and mam! Sounds better than ‘one of 74.2% of 5 million people crammed into a small town masquerading as a city’.
But back to labels. Why would anyone make it simple? It’s a lot more exciting to deceive people into thinking you are merely, say, ‘Chinese’ (in ethnicity) or ‘Singaporean’ (in nationality), and then slipping in some rojak gene-splicing when they think they’ve got you figured out.
Sampling from friends, we have
- Muslim Chinese who is Portuguese, Dutch, British, Malay and I think I’m missing one out, and come to think of it I don’t remember how it worked 6 ways
- Dutch who went to international school in Switzerland and has lived in Seoul and Beijing and now wants to live in Singapore
- Scottish-Chinese who grew up in Singapore and lives in Canada
- Caucasian American-Japanese parentage, grew up in Australia
etc.
Why kill the flavour with just one phrase! Epic tales of trans-ocean (trans-airspace maybe) love and incubation. Though identity cards like Leon’s do cut away the romance— “race: OTHER”. Wow. The bureaucracy has no humour for terms like Changmoh and Chindian.
But I do digress. Back to our man, THE KOREAN.
—update— A new ruling in Singapore forces parents to pick a single race for their children. No more ‘OTHER’.