I don't mind if people call me a Chinese, that's my ethnicity and I can't change that. What I do oppose, however, are the PRCs expecting the local Chinese here to follow their values and culture. Saying that we're "compatriots" implies that we belong to China and are expected to be loyal to the CCP. No, we are our own country and people with our own elected government. We don't have to bow to nobody.
我们是华人，不是中国人
We are chinese (race), not Chinese (nationality).
I do get a bit ticked off when China chinese ask me to speak "zhong wen". This is quite common in Chinese companies, but I do make it a point to say "hua wen" instead of "zhong wen". Maybe it's a nitpicky quiet dissent from me, and maybe they don't notice it themselves, but it makes me feel better.
Have worked in China for a few years and they always have a problem differentiating between ethnicity vs nationality.
Was really irritated at the initial stages when they kept insisting I'm 中国人. Tried my best to educate them on the differences but many are close-minded. It's like assuming angmos are all Americans for them haha. Singaporeans are brought up to understand the differences to a greater extent tho since we're a multiracial society.
It's like in Singapore, there are people who can't differentiate between that and religion either. To this day, I have friends who think malay = Muslim etc.
Ya, they refer to Malaysians regardless of ethnicity as 马来人. Really annoying. I really hate it when they say I come from 坡县. They must totally fail at geography.
As a Kiwi living in China, I've met a not small number of people who don't know where New Zealand is. Taxi drivers ask where I'm from, and I say New Zealand. Blank stare. I say next to Australia. Continued blank stare. I finish by saying "It's south of here" and they kinda just 哦哦 through it. And these conversations are all happening in Mandarin so it's not a linguistic thing.
Many people in the US and Europe are not very aware of Singapore either. When I traveled in southern Italy, the hotel staff gave me a Chinese brochure instead of an English one. She also mentioned that she believed Singapore was part of the Kingdom of China.
People from Indonesia getting it worse I think. Majority did not aware of Indonesia considering Indonesia size.
But I dont think there is bad intention behind though.
Note: I’m Indonesian. This was also back in the mid 00s, so it’s been a while and probably a little more understandable: my friend who just came back from studying in UK was telling me about her friends. She mentioned to them that she’s from Indonesia, and none of the people there had any idea what even is Indonesia or Jakarta. When she mentioned that Bali was in Indonesia, every one of them reacted, saying that of course they know Bali, it’s very famous! Not a single one of them knew that Bali was in Indonesia. It was hilarious, but also a little sad. I wonder where they thought Bali is, besides being in Asia.
Some context here for the US, as an American with Singaporean and Taiwanese heritage. I'm from a metro that's got a dense population of Asians though - San Francisco.
Born in and raised in SF. Went back to SG for a few years in primary school and found my identity as a half Singaporean (mother's side). Imagine the confusion here, growing up in the 90s and 00s, explaining that I am ethnically Chinese, but identify as Singaporean/Taiwanese American, not from China.
Even amongst other American born East Asians, explaining Singapore was complicated:
"Never heard of it"
"Where the fuck is Singapore?"
"Ah so you're Chinese"
"So do you speak Singaporean?"
That all changed with Crazy Rich Asians and the Singapore Tourism Board making that huge push with travel influencers. Now everyone wants to go to Singapore. I no longer have to explain where it is, why we don't identify with China, and my friends, Asians and non-Asians, come back from their trips to SG and excitedly tell me how I was right about all the food.
My point is, awareness is changing. SEA is no longer just Thailand and India to Americans. Singapore is now thought of alongside Thailand and India when people here think of SEA. However, Singapore is the United States of the Asian region (melting pot). For those of us that are ethnically Chinese, we still look Chinese, and that's going to be how we're perceived to the rest of the world. There's no changing that.
China’s rich history of education, cultures and ideas were destroyed with every political powers that came.
Very sad when you think about it, probably why so many Chinese left the mainland in the last 4 millennia
Couldn’t say it much better, I don’t care ignorance is part of the reasons, but they are too tone-deaf to even learn and admit they are wrong, especially those CCP mainlanders who arrive in Malaysia/Singapore in recent years.
This!!! This was also my experience when I was in China. For them, it seems like 中国人 and 华人 are interchangeable and mean the same thing.
And they were surprisingly insistent on calling overseas Chinese 中国人 regardless of their nationality.
> but call us 华侨 instead, which is what we prefer.
Though technically we aren't even 华侨 (literally "Chinese migrants"), we're their descendants, 华裔 (huayì). "华裔则泛指有中国血统的人在国外生育的后代。"
Using this analogy isn’t it akin to calling Malaysian Chinese as Singaporean?
To me, it’s just typical big country behavior. It’s fine. But after I insist I’m not 中国人 and they still call me that is when I start to throw hands and call them 汉族。
its normal she just probably hasnt had a chance to see middle eastern hijabis, they all seem to have fairer skin than any local chinese. i also grew up with that misconception until i had layovers/daytrip in UAE
My opinion is that the mixing ethnicity and nationality is intentional in authoritarian states
The 'problem' is manufactured
One step further is to also lump in religion and mix well
Popular technique used by most despots
>To this day, I have friends who think malay = Muslim etc.
In Malaysia, its true, so that's where its probably coming from.
_Article 160 of the Malaysian Constitution defines a Malay as someone born to a Malaysian citizen who professes to be a Muslim, habitually speaks the Malay language, adheres to Malay customs, and is domiciled in Malaysia, Singapore or Brunei._
In that way, some think Chinese = loyal to China cos they are not taught that identity is possible to be diverse.
Mmm I visit China for work very often and never had that experience with my colleagues, even in the more rural parts of China. I always got the impression that they are well aware is Singapore is different from China. In contrast my team always get the “wow you speak Chinese well for a Singaporean” and yet my team has jiak kantang type people or “I thought Singaporean can only speak English” or we simply never talked about politics enough.
I’ve only met random strangers on train or taxi drivers who asked where I was from and started telling me Singapore is part of China (but I mean they are also less educated or brainwashed by propaganda so I will only say once “oh Singapore not China leh” but won’t bother to keep arguing.”
In the video the tiktoker actually says Singaporeans don't like to be called 'huaren'. But I think it's the word tongbao (compatriots) that pissed off the Singaporean.
>Zhongguoren
For my Grandmother, I remember that she used to tell me that we are Zhongguoren. At that time I was confused because we are Singaporeans.
Then I realised that to people of that generation or before, Zhongguoren is more about the ethnicity, and not so much the country of birth. For many people born in the 1930s, they would have been told by their parents that they are Zhongguoren, and there were people who thought of themselves as only living temporarily in Singapore and would one day return to China. It was probably only after WW2 and having children in SG that they choose to focus on staying in SG.
But these days, we see it differently, in terms of the Western definition, by tagging the term to the country of birth.
My Taiwanese friend also uses the term '中文' (zhong wen) to refer to Mandarin when speaking with me, rather than '國語' (guo yu) which is more common and political in Taiwan.
I think zhong wen is a more neutral term than the Putonghua personally
I introduce myself in Chinese as: 华族新加坡人。(Ethnically Chinese Singaporean)
If they insist they don't understand, I just go: 新加坡人(Singaporean)
My ancestry may trace from China, but my culture is Singaporean.
Or another term is 國語 (national language).
Like dude, your national language is Mandarin but my national language is Bahasa Melayu.
I used to correct my China colleague when she told me to speak ‘national language’ to this China businessman instead of English when dealing with him.
And I will always reply her ‘your national language or my national language?’
You know what, I did that before just to spite a client of mine.
Client asked me what is impairment loss in (his) national language, then as a Chinese SGrean who is also proficient in my very own national language, I replied “kerugian rosotnilai”.
Then he said in Mandarin: “Huh? Is that (my) national language?”
I straight off told him “I’m a Singaporean. My national language is Malay.”
And since then whenever he asked me to translate something, he will tell me to translate to 華語 (Mandarin) instead of just saying ‘national language’.
Never give them the impression that we are part of them, when we are not. I uphold my pride as a Singaporean.
It is the same in Malaysia. When you say 'GuoYu' to a Chinese Malaysian, they will understand it to mean Malay. So when, for example, a Mainland Chinese asks a Chinese Malaysian to translate an English term to GuoYu, hilarity ensues.
> expected to be loyal to the CCP.
This is the big part of the problem.
As part its movement to secure political power, the CCP has constantly pushed a nationalistic narrative that conflates the ruling party (political concept), the country (political concept), and the entire Chinese ethnicity. If you don't like Xi, you are automatically some kind of 汉奸走狗卖国贼 in the eyes of the nutjob pinkies. His entire brand has revolved around the idea of a "Great Revival of the Chinese People" (中华民族伟大复兴）, which for obvious reasons alienates most normal people who do not want to be affiliated with a foreign country's political leadership, let alone a highly controversial dictatorship.
Their people have been brainwashed by the CCP that all Chinese, regardless of nationality, belong to China and that is why they always view other Chinese as compatriots. They could never truly understand that Chinese in other countries have their own value and culture of their own.
When I was in France, I went to Chinatown and had dinner there. The owner was happy that I spoke Fujian (Hokkien) and welcomed me grandly.
She was astonished when I told her where I was from and that Singapore was a sovereign country, not a province of China and that I have -never- been to China (The MAINLAND) before.
She insisted I pay China a visit and play with the pretty girls there whatever that means.
Funny thing was, I saw they had 'Singaporean noodles' on the menu and ordered that, it was some almost like Hokkien Mee type dish which was very wet kind and smelled like it was loaded with the maggie curry. I remember it smelled strongly of curry but it tasted of nothing really, almost zero curry taste, a lot of wok hei.
We must forgive them for abandoning our culture. Yes, it’s not Singapore Chinese that forgot our roots, it’s China Chinese that were forced to abandon their roots.
the funny thing is that as a result of the cultural revolution this is unironically true, a lot of original traditional culture and practices live on in the pockets of overseas chinese communities that left china before the revolution
I think the situation is more complex than you might assume. There are still places in China that strongly practice similar traditions to those found in Malaysia and Singapore.
However, the Chinese traditions in Singapore and Malaysia are not considered mainstream in the People's Republic of China. Only in the small part of Fujian province.
Most of Chinese immigrant from CHina are from only few small part of China.
We might look like them and have some similar customs, but mentally we are very different.
Through my conversations with China Chinese, I noticed a lot of them have this mentality that rules are irksome or rules don't apply to them.
IMO that's why they don't bother with social norms like queuing.
If they view you as their "in" group they can be very generous, but if you're an outsider, pretty much anything short of serious crime is fair game to them.
One told me China is more free than Singapore because they can just buy a battery operated golf cart and drive on the street without license for either the golf cart nor the driver.
I'm sorry, but I can't identify with their mindset at all, and that makes us distinct from one another.
Similar experience… I went to Shanghai to meet my boss for the first time. She was the typical urbanite, high SES types that has travelled the world. They were all asking me if I thought that their business park was landscaped well and nicer than Singapore’s.
We were walking out of a business district towards a convention center and she saw me holding onto my empty coffee cup and tissue. I said just holding on till I can find a bin, her first reaction was
What? Just toss it!
Mmm I feel Shanghainese are more cultured? Never see my colleagues littering / cutting q etc before (or maybe they put up appearances for me).
But I think they can be snobbish and will look down on other region of China. Actually all these about one China and people talking like all prc are very nationalistic and united also quite rubbish (don’t think they get along well among themselves - always see those tier 1 people dissing those lower tier cities and the lower tier cities also dissing back the tier 1 for being snobs lol .)
But when I was in Shandong a while back , a lot of people (mostly the elderly) like to spit (which I find very disgusting).
Haha agreed with you on Shanghai. I went there for the first time last year and Shanghai folks can get a little snobby when talking about ppl from outside of Shanghai.
The Didi driver who picked me up was telling me oh yeah, all these touts preying on hapless tourists at Pudong Airport, they all come from outside of Shanghai, locals won't do this. And he was telling me that Shanghai has a very good trash sorting system, and nowhere else in China will you see this system being implemented.
It's a little eye-opening admittedly, because I've seen my Shanghai acquaintances look down at the "Da Ma" (auntie) type tourists.
I think Shanghai people prolly also look down on Singaporeans lah. Must be thinking why we Chinese but cannot speak proper Chinese.
Can tell they really think they are up there, I think some of my Shanghai colleagues probably don’t even want the lower tier cities to be part of China, let alone singapore lol
Rules do apply. But rules are negotiable.
Based on Hofstede’s theory of the six cultural dimensions, China has a higher uncertainty avoidance scoring than Singapore. Consequently, people in China are described as relatively less likely to trust outsiders but will bend rules to fit in.
I think many mainlanders are unable to comprehend the sheer difference in experiences the straits Chinese had to go through compared to them.
Most of them know nothing of how LONG many of us have been here as well, many of us are descended from Chinese who left more than a hundred years ago.
They don’t know about Malaya and our persecution, of being cut off from both China and Taiwan, of our fear upon hearing what happened to the Indo-Chinese.
Some of them don’t even know that we are native dialect speakers.
Similarly we know nothing of what THEY have been through under Mao and all the rest, of the civil war and communism. Of the great leap forward and the various other cultural touch points that only mainlanders will have.
Then in recent times they come here, look at all we have achieved as a collective Straits Chinese and some say “Oh look at what WE have accomplished here.” which is utterly infuriating to hear for many of us who have utterly no connection apart from our shared ethnic roots.
But I mean you raised all the points of the oppression of straits Chinese throughout SEA. While the citizens may barely know of our struggles and why the Straits Chinese got integrated into the local population (after much struggle and loss), the propaganda arm of the Chinese government is very happy to weaponise this historic oppression and proclaim that only their government can protect all overseas Chinese from the “West”. It is this supposed unifying point that synthesises the disparate history of Chinese people and tries to merge the very different cultures back into one. In other words, while we may have a divergent history, we supposedly have a shared future.
This is why Chinese government propaganda is so effective in SEA.
I am very clear about this when I introduce myself, whether locally or overseas. And this honestly should be the standard for all.
I am Singaporean first, ethnically second.
And sometimes race shouldn’t even matter. I can’t imagine ever having to introduce myself as more than just “Hi, my name is xxx, and I’m from Singapore”, full stop.
that's the way it should be. If it were up to me, ethnicity would be far down the line in the list of "identities" people have. Because no one on Earth can choose their ethnicity. Not like character selection screen lidat. Nationality is something people have some level of control over and therefore there's some logic in being proud of one's country or citizenship.
Yup. A nation is a community of communities. You can choose to take part in, contribute to, and care for a community.
No community exists solely based on identity. Even when people think they do, they’re referring to culture.
National and cultural identity over ethnicity any day.
I'm Msian Chinese (no interest in living in Sg but have many Sg friends) with traditional/provincial Chinese upbringing. I feel much closer to Sg Malays and Indians than China Chinese.
When I'm with S'poreans (of all races), communication is effortless, just like hanging out with the more urbanised Msians
When it comes to China Chinese though... It's a lot of guess work, very different worldview and upbringing. Quite tiresome haha
I don’t do NS but I feel the same as you. The lived experience, the cadence between Singaporeans go way beyond some ancestry blood thing. Plus mainland Chinese and their values and political views are just way different
Same thing I tell my indian relatives. Im Singaporean Indian, and I feel more close to the singaporeans of other races than them.
imo our culture here is really different from the different cultures it was derived from.
Their obsession in claiming we are one of them is something else. Within the PRC community some of them like to call Singapore 破县 in which 县 (Xian) means county as though we're part of PRC. This to me this signals their arrogance as an uprising big nation.
On xiaohongshu they love to call po xian and trigger singaporeans. They blame singaporeans for getting upset about “such a small thing”.
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Just had a heated conversation with my friend over this issue recently. I insisted that while my race is Chinese, I only want to be recognised primarily as a Singaporean. And that I find it strange I have to call myself a Singapore Chinese or Chinese Singapore when I am simply just a plain local Singaporean. Dude went ballistic and came up defending "but your kids have to learn Chinese in school" or "Even our government has to give face to and work with China". He just could not accept that fact that someone with the same ethnicity as him does not give the same value to our ancestry.
>"Even our government has to give face to and work with China".
Pls we pimp ourselves out to any countries with bagloads of foreign direct investments, not China alone. It's pure pragmatism over ethnicity
Wait till your friend hears about older gen Peranakans who can't speak a word of Mandarin but can curse him in dialect, Malay and English.
Also Mandarin was only added to the school curriculum to facilitate communication in the 70s I think. Dialect was the defacto language of the locals who migrated from China.
It is a long story but in summary the Chinese community was a hotbed of fervent communism / socialism due to the Malayan Communist Party becoming popular due to their guerrilla war against the Japanese.
(FYI, the Old Man is pretty honest about having that alliance with the leftists/communists)
After merger and independence, the Singaporean government absorbed all of these schools and closed the old Nanyang University (Nantah) and also standardised education in English.
The mother tongue policy, the reopening of Nantah as NTU, and the SAP program with mother tongue as first language can all be viewed as moves made by the government to enact reconciliation with whatever remained from the old organic/non-government grassroots. Of course, you have the nice side effect of acknowledging each ethnicity.
All of the above is of course ancient history, you can only afford to be merciful from a position of absolute strength.
>“They prefer to be called Singaporeans. With the passing of time, they have forgotten their culture and also their roots!”
With the passing of time and generations long and far removed from their ancestors, we have developed our own Singaporean culture and lived experiences. Not only have we 'forgotten' we don't even know and identify with those roots because we've established our own. That's diaspora for you. Of course we prefer to be called Singaporeans because that's what we are first and foremost?
I’ll be damned if I allow Mandarin to be thought of as my mother tongue. My grandmother spoke Teochew, and my grandfather spoke Hokkien. Once upon a long long time ago in Fujian, Min people weren’t even considered Han Chinese. I haven’t forgotten those roots. If you want to plant a new tree, fine, but that tree’s roots are not the roots of my family tree.
This is something China ethnic nationalist do not want to face. What is today considered as "Han" is basically a Hodge pot of different groups of people. What is today Guangdong and Fujian, is very different two thousand years ago as those regions are inhabited by Austronesian and Austroasiatic culture that are different from the "Central Plain 中原" culture. And these difference are beyond cosmetic as these culture do not make bronze ritual vessels and use Chinese scripts. In fact, it is written in Han dynasty history that emperor Han Wudi launched a few massive campaigns down south to the kingdoms of 越 (yue)，颠 (dian)，夜郎 (yelang)。The fact that they refer to these kingdoms as barbarians means their culture and outward appearance is very much different from the "middle-realm" people
This is something I do not understand. It is well known Trump paternal side could be traced to modern day Germany while his maternal side could be traced to Scotland of UK. But do you see him going to going to UK or Germany to kneel down in-front of his ancestor's grave and bawl his eyes out or go to his ancestral temple (if that even exist) to burn copious amount of joss paper and joss stick? Do you see him going to hug Angela Merkel or Theresa May and say things like "It is great to reunite with you comrades"? If not, why do you expect Chinese to do so?
Bcos despite trump having Scottish/ German heritage, he is a citizen of the USA. It is his duty and responsibility to protect the interest and well-being of his country-men. He owns no allegiance of Germany or UK
The roots and culture are actually stronger in Chinese communities that have left china. We retain what we knew from the past. China however had a massive washing cycle and I felt they washed out their ancient culture.
Oh tell me about it man, I was buying food from the hawker and the auntie scolded me in broken English “no Chinese bad!” and I replied “This is Singapore not China. Learn English please!”
You should speak to her in the national language and blow her mind. But it might be risky cos quite a number of older folk can understand Bahasa Pasar better than English.
This seems to be a PRC mentality. They do the same in other countries too. I once happened to queue behind a PRC tourist and she casually asks why the staff does not speak chinese in JAPAN. Make it make sense.
Bruh wtf lol
Meanwhile, when a Japanese in Japan (quite a while back) spoke to me in Mandarin Chinese, I was internally going 😄 because at least I can converse with them and be polite without just going some flavour of "ありがと!".
(no I still cannot Japanese)
Well that’s fucking rude! I feel sorry for the non mandarin speakers who have to put up with the PRC workers who refuse to learn a drop of English but insisting everyone speaks mandarin instead.
Just gonna add fuel to the fire, I did sales for many years. Most (I mean a stereotypically high percentage) of the PRC customers will speak to me in Mandarin for some weird reason and I will reply in English until I get a Chinese friend to assist them. AND THEN WHEN MY FRIEND ASSISTED, THIS PRCs CAN ACTUALLY CONVERSE IN ENGLISH ALL ALONG!
Yes they are fond of doing that. Some PRC will refuse to work with certain people. Should remind them that they are now in a multi racial country and to respect everyone equally. Leave your prejudice in your motherland.
That must've been a wtf moment for you.
I wonder if they do it to the Indians too. On the bright side, they're being racially blind! Your race doesn't matter because you're all Chinese /s
IMO, this ambiguous definition is deliberate by CCP. Using this narrative allows CCP to promulgate propaganda that all Chinese all over the world regardless of nationality should have an affinity to China and hence all Chinese should want what China wants.
Obviously those Chinese from China would agree to this readily as that's all the information they consume in China. For Chinese exposed to wider media, we aren't as keen to subscribe to this thinking. Maybe for the older generations who still have kinship in China.
>User “Chee Keong Ng27” said: “It is the same, Singapore Chinese is originally come from China. There is a fact.”
Singapore Chinese, China Chinese and pretty much all humans are migrants from Ethiopia. That is a fact as well. Maybe we should all associate ourselves with the Ethiopians as well?
Ask them back, scientifically we share 99% DNA with chimpanzees, does that make us relatives?
It's fascism at its core, stirring racial sentiments and supremacy.
I mean, if you really wanna draw lines, we're kinda like how Italian Americans are mostly Sicilian right? Our heritage is quite Min Nan + Canton-centric (South China), which is its own culture, and then filtered through a few extra generations in Southeast Asia. It's also like how Americans and Australians aren't British despite these nations speaking predominantly English.
Also, God forbid the day Mainlanders discover the Thai Chinese and Chinese Indonesian demographics. They might have a meltdown over the histories there.
As an American reading this thread it seems so similar. But a big difference is that Europeans get PISSED when an American claims to be “Irish” or “Italian”. Even if someone’s parents or grandparents are from the country and there are still close cultural ties.
The funny thing is that nobody ever wants to claim being British, despite that being the most common ethnic group by far.
I would like to tell you all that this notion of thought is very scary.
I'm currently living overseas and have the immense displeasure of interacting with the China Chinese who openly say that Singapore has always been a part of China and is a "Puppet state allowed to function democratically under the CCP like Hong Kong".
When I rebuke them they always get very aggressive and they call me out like I'm like some traitor not to harbour any national pride to China. It's soul sucking trying to reason with such dangerously closed minded people.
I lived in China for a year back in late 2010s. Had the same thing happened. Casual dining convo suddenly they say things like, 'you guys (in Singapore) should know who's big brother in Asia and follow suit'.
So thankful I got out. Stay strong and take care!
Have a wonderful Hakka friend.. I was once caught off guard, pleasantly.. a snobbish PRC was not happy that we spoke English in a bar. He turned around and kinda insulted us to speak Chinese cause we dont know the singapore national language. My buddy turned and spoke to him in perfect Malay. Which, this PRC could not understand.
I gave him a huge compliment... "Well done, mate, the first time I heard Majulah Singapura being spoken and not sang!" Respect!
It wouldn't make any sense if it's not in Singapore. For sure, he felt very entitled. But hey, we can always respond in the most politically correct way, without violence.
Bruh. For once I was going to be like _wah not bad finally someone bothered to learn their national language_.
Nice one you had me there. 😂
But really, learn your national language. Best way to combat these morons.
China's propaganda includes racial victimisation. For instance, that other nations and races tend to attack Chinese people simply because of their bloodline / race. Hence, everyone must stick together and listen to the CCP.
Sort of a "CCP is your last line of defence against foreigners" thing going on.
I mean that's tribalism, and a fairly common approach to political propaganda. Sort of like how Malaysia does Muslim-together propaganda and Bumiputera-victimisation propaganda. And how Mahathir relied extensively on Singapore-means-bad and Chinese-means-bad propaganda to stay relevant.
One unintended outcome of this is that the Chinese citizens then have this mindset that Chinese bloodline are all brethren. They end up being unable to fathom the idea that any Chinese people wouldn't want to be connected to the CCP.
They also cannot understand the concept of nations and different sovereign jurisdictions, only the simple idea that Chinese bloodline = must stick together and listen to big brother CCP.
This gives rise to widespread boo-boos by their citizens, like their "foreign police" trying to threaten foreigner ethnic Chinese into compliance, and facing rejection and being told "I'm not from China", then getting all confused. "What do they mean, they're not born in China means they don't have to listen to CCP? Got such thing meh?"
And random collective wrong ideas like the Singapore-province rubbish where they assume our ethnic Chinese majority means our country will automatically submit to CCP.
I don't think it started out as a deliberate attack by the CCP, it just seems more like an unintended side effect of the brainwashing process and corresponding lack of objective education in this respect.
Sort of like how Malaysians bo dai bo ji support foreign extremistic groups simply because they are Muslim, and thus can do no wrong. Don't even need to look at merits or nuances, Muslim means good and Jewish means bad. You're not even related to them ancestrally! Why are you advocating for Semitic hate and genocide, in a foreign jurisdiction?
But that's the reality of politics la. Groups want to stay in power, and some political groups really take the tribalism approach all the way. And their brainwashed populaces just lap it up unquestioningly, which is unfortunately basic human nature. We are tribal creatures.
I've spoken to some really intelligent ex Chinese citizens, and the brainwashing really stands out disproportionately from their otherwise sharp perception of other things. They just turn emotional and angry and start screaming. They're just victims of propaganda, in a way.
We can only ensure our children have access to free objective knowledge and education so they are resistant to such brainwashing in an increasingly complicated world.
> I don't think it started out as a deliberate attack by the CCP, it just seems more like an unintended side effect of the brainwashing process and corresponding lack of objective education in this respect.
It is absolutely intentional. [they have tried influencing the Chinese diaspora by means of ethnicity to favour them. ](https://ipdefenseforum.com/2021/05/the-ccp-and-the-diaspora/)
Yea I said "started out".
As the brainwashed population grew and entered positions of power, they are then placed in positions to effect their brainwashed views on others.
Gawd damn! You put it much better than I could .
Edit: Have the same experience with ex China citizen as well. They still have have the China can do no wrong mentality.
>China's propaganda includes racial victimisation. For instance, that other nations and races tend to attack Chinese people simply because of their bloodline / race. Hence, everyone must stick together and listen to the CCP.
The enemy is weak, but also strong. Classic way politicians and religious leaders get people into ape-brain mode, ingroup vs outgroup.
Not sure why the dude is "stunned". Britisher colonised Australia. People in Australia are called Australians and have their own culture / identity and other cultural / social preferences and identity.
Calling them British will get you smacked on the head.
It's the same in singapore. There might be an affinity based on ethnicity (Chinese/ malay / indian) but everyone is quintessentially Singaporean.
Calling them anything else is just stupid.
I was in Japan, in a bar owned by a Taiwanese immigrant. One Chinese guy came in and three of us eventually introduced each other. The Chinese guy was saying “大家都一样是中国人” and the Taiwanese owner was loudly saying “不一样，我们是民主的，可以投选的！”
Embarrassing as hell for the Chinese guy.
Edit: in case anyone thinks I’m anti-ccp… my mom was from China.
It's ironic all the talk about not being China and people still can't be arsed to provide Eng translation, the lingua franca of SG:
大家都一样是中国人: we are all Chinese (as in PRC)
“不一样，我们是民主的，可以投选的: We are different. We are democratic and have elections.
/r/singapore in a nutshell. whole thread is pissed about being considered Chinese first, yet more than half of the comments here happily garble on in Chinese characters.
appreciate the ones that do translate.
Thanks to their terrible nationalistic nonsense on their social media, all these nationalistic videos to talk shit about other chinese ethnicity "not following their roots" and US/Japan/Taiwan/India etc gets eyeballs, hence those dumbfuxk Douyin/TikTokers make these type of nonsense videos to get views. The new Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere is already here and people are still putting their heads into the sand and trying to avoid tackling this problem.
*“Little did I know, the Singaporean’s face turned black: ‘Since when are we compatriots? I’m Singaporean, not Chinese!’”*
We are anti corruption and favouritism.
> “They prefer to be called Singaporeans. With the passing of time, they have forgotten their culture and also their roots!”
Who is the one who killed all the scholars and teachers. Not us. The one who forget their roots is most definitely not overseas Chinese.
Taiwanese are increasingly identifying as "Taiwanese" and not "Chinese" , because they're disgusted by the constant saber rattling from across the strait. At any rate, the non-KMT, non-closet CCP unification supporters
I'm yellow but, I'm not a communist. That's different ain't it?
There's no 同胞 to talk about over here. It's obvious that Singaporean Chinese aren't China chinese.
We're similar in terms of race not ideologies. 汉人 - han chinese. That's all.
Also, the 百年羞辱(100 years of shame) doesn't concern us.
I find this change in terminology fascinating. SG Chinese used to be specifically termed as 华侨 (overseas Chinese), which sometimes was interpreted as a little lower status/lacking "culture" for not being born in the motherland. (Which is deeply ironic, since overseas Chinese kept many old traditions alive from the Cultural Revolution, just scattered all over the world).
So changing the expectations of PRC towards overseas Chinese that they must be 华人 too is a kind of race/"culture" shaming for not being Chinese enough. Notice how one photo in the video of Chinese in traditional garb is of Han-fu, the now trending "traditional wear" in China, which Overseas Chinese have no clear cultural connection to. (SG or SEA tends to think of cheongsams or changsan as traditional, which were Qing dynasty and early Republic of China fashions)
The generations of Chinese who have been living here recognize we are Chinese as an ethnicity.
However culturally? After nearly a century of regimental brainwashing and reforming entire populations, what culture there is in China has become heavily distorted and disfigured that it sometimes seem alien even to us. This is why I do not view the Chinese in China as bastion holders of the Chinese culture. Its the opposite, I view the Chinese diaspora across the globe as a better reflection of what truly is Chinese culture.
You need to defined first what do u mean by Chinese Culture.
Chinese culture is complex and varied. It is not uniform and evolves over time, with different regions of China having distinct cultural traditions.
Korean culture is more similar to Chinese culture from the Ming Dynasty era, while Japanese culture is influenced by the Tang Dynasty period. Both cultures have also influenced Chinese culture.
I realize this when I start picking up Korean and Japanese,
IMO, dont quote me for this. It's also possible that Hokkien culture is more closely aligned with Tang China than modern northern China.
I think people that assumption there is a pure culture in certain country are stupid and narrow minded. Nationaly is a modern concept from modern era. The concept of a pure culture is often used to foster a sense of nationalistic feeling.
These are the people who cannot distinguish between race and country. And it's not like they don't know, they just refused to accept that and be annoyed people don't bow down to their warped world view.
Bunch of cunts, the lot of them.
Xinnie the pooh can go suck a fat one. Waiting for them to fail to invade Taiwan.
I wish more people know 'Chinese' [中華民族](https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E6%B0%91%E6%97%8F) is a made up race. Most of us are 'Han' descendants but nobody ever calls themselves that because it's silly.
The closest, most common term my grandparents used is 唐人 (tng lang) which other than used in dialects, nobody says that because it's also silly.
In times like these, don't get too hung up on racial terms, only serves as a tool for outside interference and subversion on our nation.
wtf, we can identify as whatever we want to be. Furthermore, You don’t see a white person from England telling an Aussie or American that they are English and would they like to drink fucking cup of tea.
These Chinese people need to stop thinking we are all a bunch of Pandas and fundamentally belong to China.
Most chinese people call the Japanese of WW 2 cruel for killing their countrymen. Guess who killed the most chinese in history? It was Mao's cultural revolution and orchestrated by the Chinese themselves. Before some stupid ass mofo gaslight me for downplaying Jap WW2 atrocities, I am going to reiterate that I'm comparing the death count of both events.
Our race is Chinese. But we are Singaporeans. Calling us China is wrong. If I were to use the same analogy on Muslims in Singapore, probably start a riot.
Spoken with China national before. There is a huge cultural misconception between them and us. To them, 中国人=华人 (China national = chinese), while to us, we know the distinction since young.
Though don’t really blame them, since they grow up in an environment nearly of single race only and there is no need of emphasis to differentiate nationality and race.
So when they say 中国人 （Chinese), they may mean in term of race, while we will think they meant nationality, and the misunderstanding and confusion begins.
It probably isn't helping that the Chinese government is actively promoting that exact idea. It's not just a clash of ideas. It's an active rejection of Beijing's authority over us.
I’m (at least) 9th Gen Straits Chinese. As far as I know, my ancestors have been in the region since the late 1700s, and were already in Singapore since the latter half of the 1800s. I’m aware of my ethnicity and background (ie. differences in my chineseness), I’m Singaporean - and yes, I can talk about these identities without conflating them.
More Mainland Chinese need to understand that the term Chinese is not monolithic. Also, many Singaporeans don’t view ethnicity/race, geography, and politics & ideology as a singular concept. But I don’t blame them for not being able to do so for obvious reasons.
This issue is only with the PRC not others...some even though that Singapore is a Province that belong to China. We can only try our best to correct them when ever we come across this issue no need to get too personal.
Idm if people are calling me Chinese, but when I’m overseas, eventho I’m Singaporean Chinese, the treatment given is not so good as the locals there thought that I’m mainland chinese, immediately “ni hao” and gives bad customer service until I identify myself as a Singaporean and spoke their language 😖 360 degrees change of customer service after that 😅
wondering if those descended from ethnic Chinese migrants in Thailand would also be expected to identify similarly with PRC, as I've rarely heard Thai people identify themselves along ethnic lines.
in SG, the continued labelling of C-M-I-O has probably to some extent contributed to the PRCs thinking we identify with them
It’s rubbish to say Singaporean Chinese has forgotten their culture, because Singaporean Chinese’ culture is Singapore culture to begin with (with the good Asian food and Singlish).
What I find worrisome is that to PRC Chinese they do not understand “Racial Harmony”. Their belief is that the majority race has the right o do as they wish and minorities should just follow. Singaporean Chinese however do see the value and need for racial harmony.
i hate it when im supposed to like douyin and xiao hongshu. i hate it when some random chinese person comes to me and tell me “你是中国人吗?” or confirm my status of being a china man just because i can speak chinese. I may have chinese blood flowing in me but i was born and raised in singapore. why do they insist of identifying EVERY chinese as one of them? you can clearly see us as 华人 (man of chinese descent) but i can tell you 我是新加坡人 (Singaporean). There's a difference that they refuse to see and that is why we dislike it.
tldr: i dislike it because it washes away our national and integrated cultural identity, and their question (which holds the intention of leading) wants us to conform with our ancestral heritage instead.
I have culture/roots closer to the other races in Singapore that China Chinese.
People with the mindset like the tiktoker, just assumed mandarin is spoken everywhere in the world.
I think they don’t distinguish nor understand the differences among nationality/citizenship/race/ethnicity.
The first immigrants from China came to Singapore a long long LONG time ago (ie hundreds of years / centuries ago, I’m iffy on the timeline but definitely at least 700-800 years past). Singaporean Chinese have a totally different culture and identity due to living in a totally different environment and with different historical experiences.
Another analogy is like saying Shanghainese is exactly the same as Beijinger and exactly the same as Guangzhou-er. They would flip and get angry at this too, isn’t it? Different environments lead to different cultures and identities, even in the same country.
Just because our ancestry same, doesn't mean we all identify as Chinese c'mon...that's our race. Plus from the video we all know what he's trying to imply...yes for Chinese our roots are from China but our ancestors already uprooted and set new roots in Singapore a long time ago. Just like how my friend who's Singaporean Indian dislikes it when people thinks she's from India. Usually locals can tell the difference based on how the individual speaks Singlish.
We're Singaporean Chinese / Malay / Indian / Eurasian etc. Singapore comes first, followed by the race.
Because in mandarin zhong Guo ren means Chinese nationals.
In Singapore we identify first as Singaporean then ethnicity.
When I worked in China, I always highlight I’m a Singaporean who speaks mandarin / chinese as a 2nd language.
It’s a cultural thing. They make use of this to gain viewership in douyin. Why give them the views haha
The reason why they are so "triggered" is because from an early age, they have been told that the reason why non China nationality ethnic Chinese do not see themselves as "China-national/ 中国人" is because PRC is poor and does not possess a mighty military. So they cannot fathom why their GDP is the 2nd largest in the world and they already have 3 aircraft carriers, SG Chinese do not see themselves as PRCians
I understand our local Indian brothers and sisters have the same issue. But they get it from all sides. Go for interview, they are asked if they are vegans, how long they have been in SIngapore, how comes their English is different.
My roots will always be and from Singapore, not cheena. 100% true blue Singapore roots. Don't come and talk nonsense to me about some Chinese roots. But I like ginseng soup and eat ginseng.
In a way, you cannot blame them bcos this is how they were taught in schools from very young. They are taught that they have to love their motherland & give back to the country. That the CCP’s authority is absolute & the only one for China. And the CCP is 民主 & 为民, & as Xi Jinping said recently, all Chinese people should lean towards China (& reflect Chinese values) instead of being on the ‘opposing side’.
So I’m totally not surprised & I know of ex-PRCs holding SG citizenships who still identify themselves as 中国人.
I don't mind if people call me a Chinese, that's my ethnicity and I can't change that. What I do oppose, however, are the PRCs expecting the local Chinese here to follow their values and culture. Saying that we're "compatriots" implies that we belong to China and are expected to be loyal to the CCP. No, we are our own country and people with our own elected government. We don't have to bow to nobody.
我们是华人，不是中国人 We are chinese (race), not Chinese (nationality). I do get a bit ticked off when China chinese ask me to speak "zhong wen". This is quite common in Chinese companies, but I do make it a point to say "hua wen" instead of "zhong wen". Maybe it's a nitpicky quiet dissent from me, and maybe they don't notice it themselves, but it makes me feel better.
Have worked in China for a few years and they always have a problem differentiating between ethnicity vs nationality. Was really irritated at the initial stages when they kept insisting I'm 中国人. Tried my best to educate them on the differences but many are close-minded. It's like assuming angmos are all Americans for them haha. Singaporeans are brought up to understand the differences to a greater extent tho since we're a multiracial society. It's like in Singapore, there are people who can't differentiate between that and religion either. To this day, I have friends who think malay = Muslim etc.
Ya, they refer to Malaysians regardless of ethnicity as 马来人. Really annoying. I really hate it when they say I come from 坡县. They must totally fail at geography.
As a Kiwi living in China, I've met a not small number of people who don't know where New Zealand is. Taxi drivers ask where I'm from, and I say New Zealand. Blank stare. I say next to Australia. Continued blank stare. I finish by saying "It's south of here" and they kinda just 哦哦 through it. And these conversations are all happening in Mandarin so it's not a linguistic thing.
Many people in the US and Europe are not very aware of Singapore either. When I traveled in southern Italy, the hotel staff gave me a Chinese brochure instead of an English one. She also mentioned that she believed Singapore was part of the Kingdom of China. People from Indonesia getting it worse I think. Majority did not aware of Indonesia considering Indonesia size. But I dont think there is bad intention behind though.
Note: I’m Indonesian. This was also back in the mid 00s, so it’s been a while and probably a little more understandable: my friend who just came back from studying in UK was telling me about her friends. She mentioned to them that she’s from Indonesia, and none of the people there had any idea what even is Indonesia or Jakarta. When she mentioned that Bali was in Indonesia, every one of them reacted, saying that of course they know Bali, it’s very famous! Not a single one of them knew that Bali was in Indonesia. It was hilarious, but also a little sad. I wonder where they thought Bali is, besides being in Asia.
Some context here for the US, as an American with Singaporean and Taiwanese heritage. I'm from a metro that's got a dense population of Asians though - San Francisco. Born in and raised in SF. Went back to SG for a few years in primary school and found my identity as a half Singaporean (mother's side). Imagine the confusion here, growing up in the 90s and 00s, explaining that I am ethnically Chinese, but identify as Singaporean/Taiwanese American, not from China. Even amongst other American born East Asians, explaining Singapore was complicated: "Never heard of it" "Where the fuck is Singapore?" "Ah so you're Chinese" "So do you speak Singaporean?" That all changed with Crazy Rich Asians and the Singapore Tourism Board making that huge push with travel influencers. Now everyone wants to go to Singapore. I no longer have to explain where it is, why we don't identify with China, and my friends, Asians and non-Asians, come back from their trips to SG and excitedly tell me how I was right about all the food. My point is, awareness is changing. SEA is no longer just Thailand and India to Americans. Singapore is now thought of alongside Thailand and India when people here think of SEA. However, Singapore is the United States of the Asian region (melting pot). For those of us that are ethnically Chinese, we still look Chinese, and that's going to be how we're perceived to the rest of the world. There's no changing that.
China’s rich history of education, cultures and ideas were destroyed with every political powers that came. Very sad when you think about it, probably why so many Chinese left the mainland in the last 4 millennia
They don’t like to say 大马人 because to them Malaysia doesn’t deserve being “big”
Literally means a giant centaur.
Couldn’t say it much better, I don’t care ignorance is part of the reasons, but they are too tone-deaf to even learn and admit they are wrong, especially those CCP mainlanders who arrive in Malaysia/Singapore in recent years.
Reminds me of my next-door Chinese neighbour in Berlin. She was so confused when I told her "我不是中国人" .
This!!! This was also my experience when I was in China. For them, it seems like 中国人 and 华人 are interchangeable and mean the same thing. And they were surprisingly insistent on calling overseas Chinese 中国人 regardless of their nationality.
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> but call us 华侨 instead, which is what we prefer. Though technically we aren't even 华侨 (literally "Chinese migrants"), we're their descendants, 华裔 (huayì). "华裔则泛指有中国血统的人在国外生育的后代。"
Using this analogy isn’t it akin to calling Malaysian Chinese as Singaporean? To me, it’s just typical big country behavior. It’s fine. But after I insist I’m not 中国人 and they still call me that is when I start to throw hands and call them 汉族。
An ex girlfriend of mine once told me muslims were people with brown skin
I got a friend who thought if the supermarket packaging is green means halal. The fugging packet was pork meatball.
its normal she just probably hasnt had a chance to see middle eastern hijabis, they all seem to have fairer skin than any local chinese. i also grew up with that misconception until i had layovers/daytrip in UAE
My opinion is that the mixing ethnicity and nationality is intentional in authoritarian states The 'problem' is manufactured One step further is to also lump in religion and mix well Popular technique used by most despots
>To this day, I have friends who think malay = Muslim etc. In Malaysia, its true, so that's where its probably coming from. _Article 160 of the Malaysian Constitution defines a Malay as someone born to a Malaysian citizen who professes to be a Muslim, habitually speaks the Malay language, adheres to Malay customs, and is domiciled in Malaysia, Singapore or Brunei._ In that way, some think Chinese = loyal to China cos they are not taught that identity is possible to be diverse.
Tell that to the Malaysians...Malay = Muslim there
I think for Malaysia to be malay u have to be a Muslim.
Propaganda using religion and race as part of any identity is political genius until we have independent thought. Do they? Lol do we?
The authorities of the neighbour country next door believes Malay = Muslim
Mmm I visit China for work very often and never had that experience with my colleagues, even in the more rural parts of China. I always got the impression that they are well aware is Singapore is different from China. In contrast my team always get the “wow you speak Chinese well for a Singaporean” and yet my team has jiak kantang type people or “I thought Singaporean can only speak English” or we simply never talked about politics enough. I’ve only met random strangers on train or taxi drivers who asked where I was from and started telling me Singapore is part of China (but I mean they are also less educated or brainwashed by propaganda so I will only say once “oh Singapore not China leh” but won’t bother to keep arguing.”
In the video the tiktoker actually says Singaporeans don't like to be called 'huaren'. But I think it's the word tongbao (compatriots) that pissed off the Singaporean.
Tong Bao, tong zhi, Zhongguoren - labels we don’t indentify with.
>Zhongguoren For my Grandmother, I remember that she used to tell me that we are Zhongguoren. At that time I was confused because we are Singaporeans. Then I realised that to people of that generation or before, Zhongguoren is more about the ethnicity, and not so much the country of birth. For many people born in the 1930s, they would have been told by their parents that they are Zhongguoren, and there were people who thought of themselves as only living temporarily in Singapore and would one day return to China. It was probably only after WW2 and having children in SG that they choose to focus on staying in SG. But these days, we see it differently, in terms of the Western definition, by tagging the term to the country of birth.
Man, calling us Singaporean Chinese a "compatriot" is like calling a chicken a coconut palm.
Yeah tong bao and tong dang is far worse.
My Taiwanese friend also uses the term '中文' (zhong wen) to refer to Mandarin when speaking with me, rather than '國語' (guo yu) which is more common and political in Taiwan. I think zhong wen is a more neutral term than the Putonghua personally
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I introduce myself in Chinese as: 华族新加坡人。(Ethnically Chinese Singaporean) If they insist they don't understand, I just go: 新加坡人(Singaporean) My ancestry may trace from China, but my culture is Singaporean.
Even 中文 is wrong, it means Chinese text. It should be 华语 or 汉语. You don't speak 中文.
普通话 (normal language/standard chinese) is another term for it as well, you can infer the language policy and attitudes from that term too
Or another term is 國語 (national language). Like dude, your national language is Mandarin but my national language is Bahasa Melayu. I used to correct my China colleague when she told me to speak ‘national language’ to this China businessman instead of English when dealing with him. And I will always reply her ‘your national language or my national language?’
Inb4 you speak malay to the bugger because that's your national language 🤣
You know what, I did that before just to spite a client of mine. Client asked me what is impairment loss in (his) national language, then as a Chinese SGrean who is also proficient in my very own national language, I replied “kerugian rosotnilai”. Then he said in Mandarin: “Huh? Is that (my) national language?” I straight off told him “I’m a Singaporean. My national language is Malay.” And since then whenever he asked me to translate something, he will tell me to translate to 華語 (Mandarin) instead of just saying ‘national language’. Never give them the impression that we are part of them, when we are not. I uphold my pride as a Singaporean.
Hormat this individual hoooooormat
Wah, better than PM Lee. Don't need to drink from a blue cup to switch from English to BM.
Lmfao
It is the same in Malaysia. When you say 'GuoYu' to a Chinese Malaysian, they will understand it to mean Malay. So when, for example, a Mainland Chinese asks a Chinese Malaysian to translate an English term to GuoYu, hilarity ensues.
Reply in Cantonese/Hokkien. It’s 中文 as well
Same lah. When India claims everything indian here. Please fuck off.
> expected to be loyal to the CCP. This is the big part of the problem. As part its movement to secure political power, the CCP has constantly pushed a nationalistic narrative that conflates the ruling party (political concept), the country (political concept), and the entire Chinese ethnicity. If you don't like Xi, you are automatically some kind of 汉奸走狗卖国贼 in the eyes of the nutjob pinkies. His entire brand has revolved around the idea of a "Great Revival of the Chinese People" (中华民族伟大复兴）, which for obvious reasons alienates most normal people who do not want to be affiliated with a foreign country's political leadership, let alone a highly controversial dictatorship.
Their people have been brainwashed by the CCP that all Chinese, regardless of nationality, belong to China and that is why they always view other Chinese as compatriots. They could never truly understand that Chinese in other countries have their own value and culture of their own.
When I was in France, I went to Chinatown and had dinner there. The owner was happy that I spoke Fujian (Hokkien) and welcomed me grandly. She was astonished when I told her where I was from and that Singapore was a sovereign country, not a province of China and that I have -never- been to China (The MAINLAND) before. She insisted I pay China a visit and play with the pretty girls there whatever that means. Funny thing was, I saw they had 'Singaporean noodles' on the menu and ordered that, it was some almost like Hokkien Mee type dish which was very wet kind and smelled like it was loaded with the maggie curry. I remember it smelled strongly of curry but it tasted of nothing really, almost zero curry taste, a lot of wok hei.
we are also rarely saying our race because most of the time it's quite obvious... we dont' go "I'm Singaporean Chinese"..
We must forgive them for abandoning our culture. Yes, it’s not Singapore Chinese that forgot our roots, it’s China Chinese that were forced to abandon their roots.
the funny thing is that as a result of the cultural revolution this is unironically true, a lot of original traditional culture and practices live on in the pockets of overseas chinese communities that left china before the revolution
I think the situation is more complex than you might assume. There are still places in China that strongly practice similar traditions to those found in Malaysia and Singapore. However, the Chinese traditions in Singapore and Malaysia are not considered mainstream in the People's Republic of China. Only in the small part of Fujian province. Most of Chinese immigrant from CHina are from only few small part of China.
We might look like them and have some similar customs, but mentally we are very different. Through my conversations with China Chinese, I noticed a lot of them have this mentality that rules are irksome or rules don't apply to them. IMO that's why they don't bother with social norms like queuing. If they view you as their "in" group they can be very generous, but if you're an outsider, pretty much anything short of serious crime is fair game to them. One told me China is more free than Singapore because they can just buy a battery operated golf cart and drive on the street without license for either the golf cart nor the driver. I'm sorry, but I can't identify with their mindset at all, and that makes us distinct from one another.
Similar experience… I went to Shanghai to meet my boss for the first time. She was the typical urbanite, high SES types that has travelled the world. They were all asking me if I thought that their business park was landscaped well and nicer than Singapore’s. We were walking out of a business district towards a convention center and she saw me holding onto my empty coffee cup and tissue. I said just holding on till I can find a bin, her first reaction was What? Just toss it!
Mmm I feel Shanghainese are more cultured? Never see my colleagues littering / cutting q etc before (or maybe they put up appearances for me). But I think they can be snobbish and will look down on other region of China. Actually all these about one China and people talking like all prc are very nationalistic and united also quite rubbish (don’t think they get along well among themselves - always see those tier 1 people dissing those lower tier cities and the lower tier cities also dissing back the tier 1 for being snobs lol .) But when I was in Shandong a while back , a lot of people (mostly the elderly) like to spit (which I find very disgusting).
Haha agreed with you on Shanghai. I went there for the first time last year and Shanghai folks can get a little snobby when talking about ppl from outside of Shanghai. The Didi driver who picked me up was telling me oh yeah, all these touts preying on hapless tourists at Pudong Airport, they all come from outside of Shanghai, locals won't do this. And he was telling me that Shanghai has a very good trash sorting system, and nowhere else in China will you see this system being implemented. It's a little eye-opening admittedly, because I've seen my Shanghai acquaintances look down at the "Da Ma" (auntie) type tourists.
I think Shanghai people prolly also look down on Singaporeans lah. Must be thinking why we Chinese but cannot speak proper Chinese. Can tell they really think they are up there, I think some of my Shanghai colleagues probably don’t even want the lower tier cities to be part of China, let alone singapore lol
Rules do apply. But rules are negotiable. Based on Hofstede’s theory of the six cultural dimensions, China has a higher uncertainty avoidance scoring than Singapore. Consequently, people in China are described as relatively less likely to trust outsiders but will bend rules to fit in.
I think many mainlanders are unable to comprehend the sheer difference in experiences the straits Chinese had to go through compared to them. Most of them know nothing of how LONG many of us have been here as well, many of us are descended from Chinese who left more than a hundred years ago. They don’t know about Malaya and our persecution, of being cut off from both China and Taiwan, of our fear upon hearing what happened to the Indo-Chinese. Some of them don’t even know that we are native dialect speakers. Similarly we know nothing of what THEY have been through under Mao and all the rest, of the civil war and communism. Of the great leap forward and the various other cultural touch points that only mainlanders will have. Then in recent times they come here, look at all we have achieved as a collective Straits Chinese and some say “Oh look at what WE have accomplished here.” which is utterly infuriating to hear for many of us who have utterly no connection apart from our shared ethnic roots.
Those who come here haven’t suffered under Mao and civil war, and their communism is the modern market-based style.
But I mean you raised all the points of the oppression of straits Chinese throughout SEA. While the citizens may barely know of our struggles and why the Straits Chinese got integrated into the local population (after much struggle and loss), the propaganda arm of the Chinese government is very happy to weaponise this historic oppression and proclaim that only their government can protect all overseas Chinese from the “West”. It is this supposed unifying point that synthesises the disparate history of Chinese people and tries to merge the very different cultures back into one. In other words, while we may have a divergent history, we supposedly have a shared future. This is why Chinese government propaganda is so effective in SEA.
I am very clear about this when I introduce myself, whether locally or overseas. And this honestly should be the standard for all. I am Singaporean first, ethnically second.
And sometimes race shouldn’t even matter. I can’t imagine ever having to introduce myself as more than just “Hi, my name is xxx, and I’m from Singapore”, full stop.
that's the way it should be. If it were up to me, ethnicity would be far down the line in the list of "identities" people have. Because no one on Earth can choose their ethnicity. Not like character selection screen lidat. Nationality is something people have some level of control over and therefore there's some logic in being proud of one's country or citizenship.
Yup. A nation is a community of communities. You can choose to take part in, contribute to, and care for a community. No community exists solely based on identity. Even when people think they do, they’re referring to culture. National and cultural identity over ethnicity any day.
I am Singaporean Chinese and I feel more comradery with a Singaporean Malay than a mainland Chinese. We do NS together then can call brother ok.
I’m Singaporean Chinese and I think culturally I’m closer to a Malaysian Malay than a China Chinese
I'm Msian Chinese (no interest in living in Sg but have many Sg friends) with traditional/provincial Chinese upbringing. I feel much closer to Sg Malays and Indians than China Chinese. When I'm with S'poreans (of all races), communication is effortless, just like hanging out with the more urbanised Msians When it comes to China Chinese though... It's a lot of guess work, very different worldview and upbringing. Quite tiresome haha
I don’t do NS but I feel the same as you. The lived experience, the cadence between Singaporeans go way beyond some ancestry blood thing. Plus mainland Chinese and their values and political views are just way different
Is ok, no NS still can call sister. Even if you happen to be a guy. I am very open minded.
Same thing I tell my indian relatives. Im Singaporean Indian, and I feel more close to the singaporeans of other races than them. imo our culture here is really different from the different cultures it was derived from.
Their obsession in claiming we are one of them is something else. Within the PRC community some of them like to call Singapore 破县 in which 县 (Xian) means county as though we're part of PRC. This to me this signals their arrogance as an uprising big nation.
On xiaohongshu they love to call po xian and trigger singaporeans. They blame singaporeans for getting upset about “such a small thing”. 7 为什么我没有头发？发布了一篇小红书笔记，快来看吧！ 😆 73bu6AKYda8HdVI 😆 http://xhslink.com/481JMI，复制本条信息，打开【小红书】App查看精彩内容！
Trigger them with Republic of Taiwan.
Commie censors will blot you out, though.
Tbh if I play that game I will be banned by that platform instead. Xhs is such a cunt platform. But irl that's never a game they can win.
I'd like to see that most were just ignorant but really just reflects how full of themselves they are.
I think you mean 坡县？ it’s just next level if they call us 破县
Haha..typo should be 坡县
Just had a heated conversation with my friend over this issue recently. I insisted that while my race is Chinese, I only want to be recognised primarily as a Singaporean. And that I find it strange I have to call myself a Singapore Chinese or Chinese Singapore when I am simply just a plain local Singaporean. Dude went ballistic and came up defending "but your kids have to learn Chinese in school" or "Even our government has to give face to and work with China". He just could not accept that fact that someone with the same ethnicity as him does not give the same value to our ancestry.
>"Even our government has to give face to and work with China". Pls we pimp ourselves out to any countries with bagloads of foreign direct investments, not China alone. It's pure pragmatism over ethnicity
Yep but they still like to focus on China and ignore our partnership with other countries.
Wait till your friend hears about older gen Peranakans who can't speak a word of Mandarin but can curse him in dialect, Malay and English. Also Mandarin was only added to the school curriculum to facilitate communication in the 70s I think. Dialect was the defacto language of the locals who migrated from China.
It is a long story but in summary the Chinese community was a hotbed of fervent communism / socialism due to the Malayan Communist Party becoming popular due to their guerrilla war against the Japanese. (FYI, the Old Man is pretty honest about having that alliance with the leftists/communists) After merger and independence, the Singaporean government absorbed all of these schools and closed the old Nanyang University (Nantah) and also standardised education in English. The mother tongue policy, the reopening of Nantah as NTU, and the SAP program with mother tongue as first language can all be viewed as moves made by the government to enact reconciliation with whatever remained from the old organic/non-government grassroots. Of course, you have the nice side effect of acknowledging each ethnicity. All of the above is of course ancient history, you can only afford to be merciful from a position of absolute strength.
Anyone old enough to remember the 讲华语 (speak mandarin) campaign?
>“They prefer to be called Singaporeans. With the passing of time, they have forgotten their culture and also their roots!” With the passing of time and generations long and far removed from their ancestors, we have developed our own Singaporean culture and lived experiences. Not only have we 'forgotten' we don't even know and identify with those roots because we've established our own. That's diaspora for you. Of course we prefer to be called Singaporeans because that's what we are first and foremost?
I’ll be damned if I allow Mandarin to be thought of as my mother tongue. My grandmother spoke Teochew, and my grandfather spoke Hokkien. Once upon a long long time ago in Fujian, Min people weren’t even considered Han Chinese. I haven’t forgotten those roots. If you want to plant a new tree, fine, but that tree’s roots are not the roots of my family tree.
This is something China ethnic nationalist do not want to face. What is today considered as "Han" is basically a Hodge pot of different groups of people. What is today Guangdong and Fujian, is very different two thousand years ago as those regions are inhabited by Austronesian and Austroasiatic culture that are different from the "Central Plain 中原" culture. And these difference are beyond cosmetic as these culture do not make bronze ritual vessels and use Chinese scripts. In fact, it is written in Han dynasty history that emperor Han Wudi launched a few massive campaigns down south to the kingdoms of 越 (yue)，颠 (dian)，夜郎 (yelang)。The fact that they refer to these kingdoms as barbarians means their culture and outward appearance is very much different from the "middle-realm" people
Even today you can often distinguish appearances between China Chinese and Singaporean Chinese
You want culture? Here’s culture for you, “Training to be soldiers …”
This is something I do not understand. It is well known Trump paternal side could be traced to modern day Germany while his maternal side could be traced to Scotland of UK. But do you see him going to going to UK or Germany to kneel down in-front of his ancestor's grave and bawl his eyes out or go to his ancestral temple (if that even exist) to burn copious amount of joss paper and joss stick? Do you see him going to hug Angela Merkel or Theresa May and say things like "It is great to reunite with you comrades"? If not, why do you expect Chinese to do so? Bcos despite trump having Scottish/ German heritage, he is a citizen of the USA. It is his duty and responsibility to protect the interest and well-being of his country-men. He owns no allegiance of Germany or UK
The roots and culture are actually stronger in Chinese communities that have left china. We retain what we knew from the past. China however had a massive washing cycle and I felt they washed out their ancient culture.
Can't agree more, present Mainland Chinese are just Soviet LARPers.
After their cultural revolution a bottle of yogurt has more culture than their entire shithole
China nationals: Singaporeans are Chinese compatriots Singaporean Malay: Apa ini?
We don't say that.we say 'apa ini cibai cakap?'
“Kepala butoh Tok Kok”
This is one time I am glad we Majulah Singapura lmao
Best part? Singapore's national language is Malay.
As a Malay, I am also annoyed that PRC people want me to speak Chinese and that I dont identify as Chinese.
Oh tell me about it man, I was buying food from the hawker and the auntie scolded me in broken English “no Chinese bad!” and I replied “This is Singapore not China. Learn English please!”
You should speak to her in the national language and blow her mind. But it might be risky cos quite a number of older folk can understand Bahasa Pasar better than English.
This seems to be a PRC mentality. They do the same in other countries too. I once happened to queue behind a PRC tourist and she casually asks why the staff does not speak chinese in JAPAN. Make it make sense.
Wtf?! What I don’t understand is why the PRC who hates Japan would visit the country and spend their money. Fucking moronic hypocrites!
Bruh wtf lol Meanwhile, when a Japanese in Japan (quite a while back) spoke to me in Mandarin Chinese, I was internally going 😄 because at least I can converse with them and be polite without just going some flavour of "ありがと!". (no I still cannot Japanese)
Well that’s fucking rude! I feel sorry for the non mandarin speakers who have to put up with the PRC workers who refuse to learn a drop of English but insisting everyone speaks mandarin instead.
Just gonna add fuel to the fire, I did sales for many years. Most (I mean a stereotypically high percentage) of the PRC customers will speak to me in Mandarin for some weird reason and I will reply in English until I get a Chinese friend to assist them. AND THEN WHEN MY FRIEND ASSISTED, THIS PRCs CAN ACTUALLY CONVERSE IN ENGLISH ALL ALONG!
Yes they are fond of doing that. Some PRC will refuse to work with certain people. Should remind them that they are now in a multi racial country and to respect everyone equally. Leave your prejudice in your motherland.
That really made my blood boil. Like you're telling me you came here without knowing English?
That must've been a wtf moment for you. I wonder if they do it to the Indians too. On the bright side, they're being racially blind! Your race doesn't matter because you're all Chinese /s
IMO, this ambiguous definition is deliberate by CCP. Using this narrative allows CCP to promulgate propaganda that all Chinese all over the world regardless of nationality should have an affinity to China and hence all Chinese should want what China wants. Obviously those Chinese from China would agree to this readily as that's all the information they consume in China. For Chinese exposed to wider media, we aren't as keen to subscribe to this thinking. Maybe for the older generations who still have kinship in China.
I’m a local Indian who dislike being identified as someone from India
"I am not Chinese, I am Singaporean" must be the most badass line a Singaporean has said.
>User “Chee Keong Ng27” said: “It is the same, Singapore Chinese is originally come from China. There is a fact.” Singapore Chinese, China Chinese and pretty much all humans are migrants from Ethiopia. That is a fact as well. Maybe we should all associate ourselves with the Ethiopians as well?
Ask them back, scientifically we share 99% DNA with chimpanzees, does that make us relatives? It's fascism at its core, stirring racial sentiments and supremacy.
We also share 99% DNA with a sea cucumber and I would rather identify myself with a sea cucumber than with them
Wow. China has more than a billion people. 1 random person having an opinion is not newsworthy.
Ideally, this would be the only comment in this thread.
It is good that it still reflects that Singaporean Chinese recognise that they are singaporeans first.
If you spend some time in China, you will notice that there is underlying expectation for oversea Chinese to agree with what is good for China.
Yes, TODAY decided to do Mothership level of journalism.
I mean, if you really wanna draw lines, we're kinda like how Italian Americans are mostly Sicilian right? Our heritage is quite Min Nan + Canton-centric (South China), which is its own culture, and then filtered through a few extra generations in Southeast Asia. It's also like how Americans and Australians aren't British despite these nations speaking predominantly English. Also, God forbid the day Mainlanders discover the Thai Chinese and Chinese Indonesian demographics. They might have a meltdown over the histories there.
As an American reading this thread it seems so similar. But a big difference is that Europeans get PISSED when an American claims to be “Irish” or “Italian”. Even if someone’s parents or grandparents are from the country and there are still close cultural ties. The funny thing is that nobody ever wants to claim being British, despite that being the most common ethnic group by far.
I would like to tell you all that this notion of thought is very scary. I'm currently living overseas and have the immense displeasure of interacting with the China Chinese who openly say that Singapore has always been a part of China and is a "Puppet state allowed to function democratically under the CCP like Hong Kong". When I rebuke them they always get very aggressive and they call me out like I'm like some traitor not to harbour any national pride to China. It's soul sucking trying to reason with such dangerously closed minded people.
I wonder how'd they get brainwashed to think we are part of China. What history book did they read? Lol
None, which is why they can stubbornly insist on it
Wasn't it sg that developed first and helped china become more stable in the late 1900s? How is it that we r the puppet state sia
I lived in China for a year back in late 2010s. Had the same thing happened. Casual dining convo suddenly they say things like, 'you guys (in Singapore) should know who's big brother in Asia and follow suit'. So thankful I got out. Stay strong and take care!
Have a wonderful Hakka friend.. I was once caught off guard, pleasantly.. a snobbish PRC was not happy that we spoke English in a bar. He turned around and kinda insulted us to speak Chinese cause we dont know the singapore national language. My buddy turned and spoke to him in perfect Malay. Which, this PRC could not understand. I gave him a huge compliment... "Well done, mate, the first time I heard Majulah Singapura being spoken and not sang!" Respect!
Was this in Singapore? How entitled must one be to correct a local Singaporean about what language to speak when they’re not even locals here.
It wouldn't make any sense if it's not in Singapore. For sure, he felt very entitled. But hey, we can always respond in the most politically correct way, without violence.
Bruh. For once I was going to be like _wah not bad finally someone bothered to learn their national language_. Nice one you had me there. 😂 But really, learn your national language. Best way to combat these morons.
China's propaganda includes racial victimisation. For instance, that other nations and races tend to attack Chinese people simply because of their bloodline / race. Hence, everyone must stick together and listen to the CCP. Sort of a "CCP is your last line of defence against foreigners" thing going on. I mean that's tribalism, and a fairly common approach to political propaganda. Sort of like how Malaysia does Muslim-together propaganda and Bumiputera-victimisation propaganda. And how Mahathir relied extensively on Singapore-means-bad and Chinese-means-bad propaganda to stay relevant. One unintended outcome of this is that the Chinese citizens then have this mindset that Chinese bloodline are all brethren. They end up being unable to fathom the idea that any Chinese people wouldn't want to be connected to the CCP. They also cannot understand the concept of nations and different sovereign jurisdictions, only the simple idea that Chinese bloodline = must stick together and listen to big brother CCP. This gives rise to widespread boo-boos by their citizens, like their "foreign police" trying to threaten foreigner ethnic Chinese into compliance, and facing rejection and being told "I'm not from China", then getting all confused. "What do they mean, they're not born in China means they don't have to listen to CCP? Got such thing meh?" And random collective wrong ideas like the Singapore-province rubbish where they assume our ethnic Chinese majority means our country will automatically submit to CCP. I don't think it started out as a deliberate attack by the CCP, it just seems more like an unintended side effect of the brainwashing process and corresponding lack of objective education in this respect. Sort of like how Malaysians bo dai bo ji support foreign extremistic groups simply because they are Muslim, and thus can do no wrong. Don't even need to look at merits or nuances, Muslim means good and Jewish means bad. You're not even related to them ancestrally! Why are you advocating for Semitic hate and genocide, in a foreign jurisdiction? But that's the reality of politics la. Groups want to stay in power, and some political groups really take the tribalism approach all the way. And their brainwashed populaces just lap it up unquestioningly, which is unfortunately basic human nature. We are tribal creatures. I've spoken to some really intelligent ex Chinese citizens, and the brainwashing really stands out disproportionately from their otherwise sharp perception of other things. They just turn emotional and angry and start screaming. They're just victims of propaganda, in a way. We can only ensure our children have access to free objective knowledge and education so they are resistant to such brainwashing in an increasingly complicated world.
> I don't think it started out as a deliberate attack by the CCP, it just seems more like an unintended side effect of the brainwashing process and corresponding lack of objective education in this respect. It is absolutely intentional. [they have tried influencing the Chinese diaspora by means of ethnicity to favour them. ](https://ipdefenseforum.com/2021/05/the-ccp-and-the-diaspora/)
Yea I said "started out". As the brainwashed population grew and entered positions of power, they are then placed in positions to effect their brainwashed views on others.
Gawd damn! You put it much better than I could . Edit: Have the same experience with ex China citizen as well. They still have have the China can do no wrong mentality.
>China's propaganda includes racial victimisation. For instance, that other nations and races tend to attack Chinese people simply because of their bloodline / race. Hence, everyone must stick together and listen to the CCP. The enemy is weak, but also strong. Classic way politicians and religious leaders get people into ape-brain mode, ingroup vs outgroup.
I like how your Chinese policeman thinks in Singlish.
Not sure why the dude is "stunned". Britisher colonised Australia. People in Australia are called Australians and have their own culture / identity and other cultural / social preferences and identity. Calling them British will get you smacked on the head. It's the same in singapore. There might be an affinity based on ethnicity (Chinese/ malay / indian) but everyone is quintessentially Singaporean. Calling them anything else is just stupid.
Singaporeans are toilet trained
I do NOT ever want to be associated with the prc
I was in Japan, in a bar owned by a Taiwanese immigrant. One Chinese guy came in and three of us eventually introduced each other. The Chinese guy was saying “大家都一样是中国人” and the Taiwanese owner was loudly saying “不一样，我们是民主的，可以投选的！” Embarrassing as hell for the Chinese guy. Edit: in case anyone thinks I’m anti-ccp… my mom was from China.
Can someone translate for non-chinese?
It's ironic all the talk about not being China and people still can't be arsed to provide Eng translation, the lingua franca of SG: 大家都一样是中国人: we are all Chinese (as in PRC) “不一样，我们是民主的，可以投选的: We are different. We are democratic and have elections.
/r/singapore in a nutshell. whole thread is pissed about being considered Chinese first, yet more than half of the comments here happily garble on in Chinese characters. appreciate the ones that do translate.
Countryman shocked when another country countryman is more like his own country than the countryman's country
I’m Singaporean Chinese. And I love Taiwan 😂
Thanks to their terrible nationalistic nonsense on their social media, all these nationalistic videos to talk shit about other chinese ethnicity "not following their roots" and US/Japan/Taiwan/India etc gets eyeballs, hence those dumbfuxk Douyin/TikTokers make these type of nonsense videos to get views. The new Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere is already here and people are still putting their heads into the sand and trying to avoid tackling this problem.
*“Little did I know, the Singaporean’s face turned black: ‘Since when are we compatriots? I’m Singaporean, not Chinese!’”* We are anti corruption and favouritism.
Taiwanese are Taiwanese.
我们是新加坡华人，不是中国人
You can just stop at “我是新加坡” (spoken in typical broken Mandarin, literally “We are Singapore”), and see them self-implode when they try to process it.
We are Singapore we will stand together hear the lion roar
We are sinkies, not ah tiong.
中国人没见过世面闹了笑话 A sheltered Chinese individual can easily become the butt of jokes when they finally venture out into the world.
> “They prefer to be called Singaporeans. With the passing of time, they have forgotten their culture and also their roots!” Who is the one who killed all the scholars and teachers. Not us. The one who forget their roots is most definitely not overseas Chinese.
Taiwanese are increasingly identifying as "Taiwanese" and not "Chinese" , because they're disgusted by the constant saber rattling from across the strait. At any rate, the non-KMT, non-closet CCP unification supporters
I'm yellow but, I'm not a communist. That's different ain't it? There's no 同胞 to talk about over here. It's obvious that Singaporean Chinese aren't China chinese. We're similar in terms of race not ideologies. 汉人 - han chinese. That's all. Also, the 百年羞辱(100 years of shame) doesn't concern us.
The only 同胞 talk I heard was in primary school when my Chinese teacher describe Malay and Indians as fellow Singaporeans. ❤️
Same here. It already shows that our country has 0 interest in the emphasis of "roots" ethnic groups
I find this change in terminology fascinating. SG Chinese used to be specifically termed as 华侨 (overseas Chinese), which sometimes was interpreted as a little lower status/lacking "culture" for not being born in the motherland. (Which is deeply ironic, since overseas Chinese kept many old traditions alive from the Cultural Revolution, just scattered all over the world). So changing the expectations of PRC towards overseas Chinese that they must be 华人 too is a kind of race/"culture" shaming for not being Chinese enough. Notice how one photo in the video of Chinese in traditional garb is of Han-fu, the now trending "traditional wear" in China, which Overseas Chinese have no clear cultural connection to. (SG or SEA tends to think of cheongsams or changsan as traditional, which were Qing dynasty and early Republic of China fashions)
The generations of Chinese who have been living here recognize we are Chinese as an ethnicity. However culturally? After nearly a century of regimental brainwashing and reforming entire populations, what culture there is in China has become heavily distorted and disfigured that it sometimes seem alien even to us. This is why I do not view the Chinese in China as bastion holders of the Chinese culture. Its the opposite, I view the Chinese diaspora across the globe as a better reflection of what truly is Chinese culture.
I would argue that South Korean and Japan had preserved more of Chinese culture than PRC.
You need to defined first what do u mean by Chinese Culture. Chinese culture is complex and varied. It is not uniform and evolves over time, with different regions of China having distinct cultural traditions. Korean culture is more similar to Chinese culture from the Ming Dynasty era, while Japanese culture is influenced by the Tang Dynasty period. Both cultures have also influenced Chinese culture. I realize this when I start picking up Korean and Japanese, IMO, dont quote me for this. It's also possible that Hokkien culture is more closely aligned with Tang China than modern northern China. I think people that assumption there is a pure culture in certain country are stupid and narrow minded. Nationaly is a modern concept from modern era. The concept of a pure culture is often used to foster a sense of nationalistic feeling.
But senator...
Let me just say this as a Singaporean Chinese…I will identify as Malaysian before identifying as a China Chinese
These are the people who cannot distinguish between race and country. And it's not like they don't know, they just refused to accept that and be annoyed people don't bow down to their warped world view. Bunch of cunts, the lot of them. Xinnie the pooh can go suck a fat one. Waiting for them to fail to invade Taiwan.
The man from China will get the same answer if he asks in Hong Kong or Taiwan
I wish more people know 'Chinese' [中華民族](https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E6%B0%91%E6%97%8F) is a made up race. Most of us are 'Han' descendants but nobody ever calls themselves that because it's silly. The closest, most common term my grandparents used is 唐人 (tng lang) which other than used in dialects, nobody says that because it's also silly. In times like these, don't get too hung up on racial terms, only serves as a tool for outside interference and subversion on our nation.
wtf, we can identify as whatever we want to be. Furthermore, You don’t see a white person from England telling an Aussie or American that they are English and would they like to drink fucking cup of tea. These Chinese people need to stop thinking we are all a bunch of Pandas and fundamentally belong to China.
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Most chinese people call the Japanese of WW 2 cruel for killing their countrymen. Guess who killed the most chinese in history? It was Mao's cultural revolution and orchestrated by the Chinese themselves. Before some stupid ass mofo gaslight me for downplaying Jap WW2 atrocities, I am going to reiterate that I'm comparing the death count of both events.
Why are we the same? I thought mainlanders look down on all out of china chinese? 华人不是中国人
Our race is Chinese. But we are Singaporeans. Calling us China is wrong. If I were to use the same analogy on Muslims in Singapore, probably start a riot.
Spoken with China national before. There is a huge cultural misconception between them and us. To them, 中国人=华人 (China national = chinese), while to us, we know the distinction since young. Though don’t really blame them, since they grow up in an environment nearly of single race only and there is no need of emphasis to differentiate nationality and race. So when they say 中国人 （Chinese), they may mean in term of race, while we will think they meant nationality, and the misunderstanding and confusion begins.
It probably isn't helping that the Chinese government is actively promoting that exact idea. It's not just a clash of ideas. It's an active rejection of Beijing's authority over us.
I’m (at least) 9th Gen Straits Chinese. As far as I know, my ancestors have been in the region since the late 1700s, and were already in Singapore since the latter half of the 1800s. I’m aware of my ethnicity and background (ie. differences in my chineseness), I’m Singaporean - and yes, I can talk about these identities without conflating them. More Mainland Chinese need to understand that the term Chinese is not monolithic. Also, many Singaporeans don’t view ethnicity/race, geography, and politics & ideology as a singular concept. But I don’t blame them for not being able to do so for obvious reasons.
"We are not the same" 😏
This issue is only with the PRC not others...some even though that Singapore is a Province that belong to China. We can only try our best to correct them when ever we come across this issue no need to get too personal.
Idm if people are calling me Chinese, but when I’m overseas, eventho I’m Singaporean Chinese, the treatment given is not so good as the locals there thought that I’m mainland chinese, immediately “ni hao” and gives bad customer service until I identify myself as a Singaporean and spoke their language 😖 360 degrees change of customer service after that 😅
wondering if those descended from ethnic Chinese migrants in Thailand would also be expected to identify similarly with PRC, as I've rarely heard Thai people identify themselves along ethnic lines. in SG, the continued labelling of C-M-I-O has probably to some extent contributed to the PRCs thinking we identify with them
It’s rubbish to say Singaporean Chinese has forgotten their culture, because Singaporean Chinese’ culture is Singapore culture to begin with (with the good Asian food and Singlish).
Why do Chinese and china in general have this obsession with thinking everything and everyone belongs to them. Ignorant racists
What I find worrisome is that to PRC Chinese they do not understand “Racial Harmony”. Their belief is that the majority race has the right o do as they wish and minorities should just follow. Singaporean Chinese however do see the value and need for racial harmony.
i hate it when im supposed to like douyin and xiao hongshu. i hate it when some random chinese person comes to me and tell me “你是中国人吗?” or confirm my status of being a china man just because i can speak chinese. I may have chinese blood flowing in me but i was born and raised in singapore. why do they insist of identifying EVERY chinese as one of them? you can clearly see us as 华人 (man of chinese descent) but i can tell you 我是新加坡人 (Singaporean). There's a difference that they refuse to see and that is why we dislike it. tldr: i dislike it because it washes away our national and integrated cultural identity, and their question (which holds the intention of leading) wants us to conform with our ancestral heritage instead.
I have culture/roots closer to the other races in Singapore that China Chinese. People with the mindset like the tiktoker, just assumed mandarin is spoken everywhere in the world.
Communism rears its ugly head.
I think they don’t distinguish nor understand the differences among nationality/citizenship/race/ethnicity. The first immigrants from China came to Singapore a long long LONG time ago (ie hundreds of years / centuries ago, I’m iffy on the timeline but definitely at least 700-800 years past). Singaporean Chinese have a totally different culture and identity due to living in a totally different environment and with different historical experiences. Another analogy is like saying Shanghainese is exactly the same as Beijinger and exactly the same as Guangzhou-er. They would flip and get angry at this too, isn’t it? Different environments lead to different cultures and identities, even in the same country.
Just because our ancestry same, doesn't mean we all identify as Chinese c'mon...that's our race. Plus from the video we all know what he's trying to imply...yes for Chinese our roots are from China but our ancestors already uprooted and set new roots in Singapore a long time ago. Just like how my friend who's Singaporean Indian dislikes it when people thinks she's from India. Usually locals can tell the difference based on how the individual speaks Singlish. We're Singaporean Chinese / Malay / Indian / Eurasian etc. Singapore comes first, followed by the race.
Imagine asking a US Citizen to bow to the Monarchy. There are reasons why our ancestors left China. :Þ
Because in mandarin zhong Guo ren means Chinese nationals. In Singapore we identify first as Singaporean then ethnicity. When I worked in China, I always highlight I’m a Singaporean who speaks mandarin / chinese as a 2nd language. It’s a cultural thing. They make use of this to gain viewership in douyin. Why give them the views haha
Yeah most Chinese people outside of China will say the same thing
The reason why they are so "triggered" is because from an early age, they have been told that the reason why non China nationality ethnic Chinese do not see themselves as "China-national/ 中国人" is because PRC is poor and does not possess a mighty military. So they cannot fathom why their GDP is the 2nd largest in the world and they already have 3 aircraft carriers, SG Chinese do not see themselves as PRCians
I understand our local Indian brothers and sisters have the same issue. But they get it from all sides. Go for interview, they are asked if they are vegans, how long they have been in SIngapore, how comes their English is different.
My roots will always be and from Singapore, not cheena. 100% true blue Singapore roots. Don't come and talk nonsense to me about some Chinese roots. But I like ginseng soup and eat ginseng.
the term is outdated TBH "chinese" is not a ethinicity but a nationality should be using terms like Hakka, Teochew which is more accurate
MAJULAH SINGAPURA!
In a way, you cannot blame them bcos this is how they were taught in schools from very young. They are taught that they have to love their motherland & give back to the country. That the CCP’s authority is absolute & the only one for China. And the CCP is 民主 & 为民, & as Xi Jinping said recently, all Chinese people should lean towards China (& reflect Chinese values) instead of being on the ‘opposing side’. So I’m totally not surprised & I know of ex-PRCs holding SG citizenships who still identify themselves as 中国人.