~ By Terry Xu ~

The recent spate of incidents involving Chinese immigrants has cast a pretty bad impression in the eyes of many Singaporeans. Some Singaporeans may have already fallen into an emotional trap to bunch all new Chinese immigrants into a stereotyped racial group commonly referred to as PRCs (short for People’s Republic of China, the name of the country from where the Chinese immigrants come from). More than often, people would jump to the predetermined conclusion that anything that goes wrong in Singapore is the immediate result of employing PRCs.

Even as news in recent days have covered new Chinese immigrants being involved in various offences and incidents, one needs to step back and think about the number of law-abiding and hardworking Chinese immigrants (against the selected few who are highlighted in the news) who are working day and night to feed themselves and their family while contributing to the growth of our country. Apart from ingrates like the student who made a degrading comment on Singaporeans, it does no justice to the workers taking up jobs which locals would probably shun. I have seen people who are clearly Chinese immigrants being overly cautious of their behaviour and fearing that they would be seen as rude and uncivil. Is this the way we want them to feel in a foreign country which prides itself as a developed and civilised nation?

New immigrants and foreign workers of different nationalities – including Chinese immigrants – have contributed greatly to Singapore’s economic success of today (and more so in the recent past) by taking up jobs which many locals would not want to, as well as serve as a source of low-cost labour which enables companies to keep their operating expenses down. 

Anger or Frustration?

This anger directed towards new immigrants, and especially the Chinese immigrants, apart from being the consequence of recent negative incidents, may also come from the pent-up frustration over the overnight surge of new Chinese immigrants seen all over Singapore – from the residential areas to the workplace environment. Proudly or stubbornly – as different people see it, maintaining their own lifestyle habits and particular mannerisms, Singaporeans undoubtedly feel the disturbance to the once stable and established multicultural lifestyle.

This phenomenon is not unique to Singapore though as such issues of having vast differences in the culture of the immigrant workforce (who hail from the suburban and rural areas of the country) to the city-folk exist even in the cities of China such as Beijing and Shanghai. Why Singaporeans generally view Chinese immigrants as a stereotyped racial group may be due to the way our government lumps these new immigrants as a whole entity to begin with.

The early Chinese immigrants whom most modern-day Singaporean Chinese descended from were mainly from the Teochew, Cantonese, Hokkien and Hainanese dialect group. Not too long ago, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Long called upon the local clans to be part of the integration process for new Chinese immigrants to blend into our community ('Chinese clans' role still vital, says PM Lee', Channel NewsAsia, 25 Jan 2012).

True enough, that it seems like a legitimate request for something to be done for this new group of immigrants so that they can be assimilated into our multi-racial society.

New Immigrants vs Forefathers

But what may be an oversight is that we are not be talking about the same Chinese immigrants whom our forefathers were. Immigration from China today is no longer what it was in the early days of seafaring migration where various sorts of individuals with different cultural backgrounds and ways of life descended from all over China. Chinese from China as we know it, is not a single community of like-minded individuals living in a massively huge country. We are talking about a big cultural pot of 56 recognised ethnic groups with the majority Han-speaking together with various of dialects as well.

Getting our Chinese clans to assimilate the modern Chinese immigrants might be a tall order as we do not really know the exact make-up of all these Chinese immigrants in terms of their culture and lifestyle since there has never been a straight answer to how many new Chinese immigrants there are in Singapore and where they come from. From what former Mininster Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has said about the worrying birth rate – especially in the Chinese segment of the population ('Lee Kuan Yew calls for understanding towards immigration policy', Channel NewsAsia, 03 Feb 2012), a bold assumption often comes up that this mass influx of new Chinese immigrants will defray the dwindling birth rate of Singaporean Chinese. However, like how the famous Thai phrase goes 'same-same, but different'.

The government needs to seriously address this issue of directed anger towards this particularly large group of immigrants.  Preventing the growing sense of xenophobia towards the Chinese immigrants and other nationalities through measures such as decisive amendments to the lax immigration policies which has caused this mass influx of foreigners that threatens the country’s delicate social fabric is the first step. Looking towards a fairer employment environment which encourages jobs be given to locals first and then to foreigners only when no locals are available, would also dispel the notion that Singapore is all for foreigners but not for Singaporeans.

And, last but not least, it should acknowledge that Chinese individuals from China are uniquely special and very different from the Singaporean Chinese, so that the misguided notion that integration of immigrants into Singapore culture is going to be a walk in the park can be corrected. Only then can newly introduced cultures be slowly assimilated over time – just like how Singapore has come over decades to be the Uniquely Singapore of today.

___________________________________

Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
You May Also Like

Global economic slowdown induced by Covid-19 may render Singapore safe haven no more

In an opinion piece by South China Morning Post written by Nicholas…

经济师下调对我国全年经济增长预测至0.6巴仙

新加坡金融管理局,在上月13日向27位经济学家和分析师发出问卷,咨询他们对新加坡经济前景的看法。 其中23位经济师给予当局反馈,在该局今日公布的经济师调查报告(Survey of Professional Forecasters),他们预测我国今年全年经济仅增长0.6巴仙,低于三个月前预测的2.1巴仙。 而在三月份,他们提供的预测为2.5巴仙。报告中指今年第二季国内生产总值增长不如预期。至于经济师预测,今年第三度年比增长达到0.3巴仙。 这也和上月贸工部下调对今年国内生产总值(GDP)经济成长预测,至“0.0至1.0巴仙”之间,不谋而合。 中美紧张局势仍是参与民调的经济师首要关注的议题,也有超过一半的经济师,关注中国因外部不确定因素和国内金融市场不稳定的风险。 不过,他们看好我国GDP在2020年将回升至1.6巴仙。对来年新加坡经济成长的预估平均在1至1.9巴仙。但是,比起前一次民调的2至2.4巴仙来得低。 对于盈利的不确定性产生的上行风险,有70.6巴仙经济师认为贸易紧张减缓居首,不过有鉴于当前局势似乎不太可能,经济师的预测已下调至61.1巴仙。 但对于新加坡和其他地区可能落实经济刺激政策的上行风险,则调高至44.4巴仙;以及舒缓经济情况的措施也达到33.3巴仙。

PSP’s Brad Bowyer shares photo of him and Lee Hsien Yang, says it requires nationwide effort to “recover Singapore”

The Progress Singapore Party (PSP) on Thursday (18 June) announced six of…

毕丹星:欣慰年轻一代走出舒适圈 应对族群议题

工人党党魁毕丹星,欣慰年轻一代挺身而出,走出舒适圈面对族群议题,“他们的主动令我感到振奋,因为他们期许准备好为更强大、团结的新加坡行动。” 昨日(21日)是种族和谐日,尽管校园都有举办纪念活动,但毕丹星也提醒在社会和职场上,是否也能你对族群和谐,给予更多认可。 “我想,近期我们一些年轻国人特别是针对族群的对话,都说明他们渴望建立一个更善解人意,更善良的社会。” 也是阿裕尼集选区候任议员的毕丹星坦言,种族主义时不时地暴露出丑陋的一面,甚至有时以缺乏敏感或是特权作为掩饰。而一些人士特别是少数群体,在面对这种种族主义的伤害就大于他者。 他在脸书贴文分享一张照片,那是他的儿时玩伴:Khairul Anwar,Christopher Woo,Jonathan Wan,也指出他们毫无困难就玩在了一块。 “关于族群的对话,杯子是半满的,而不是半空(应是意指较正面的观点)。我们不是从弱势地位去讨论种族问题,为此,我们面前的许多人,包括政府中的人,为维持多种族社会所作的努力,不应被低估或削弱。” 他也强调深入对话通常由友谊开始,“更好的新加坡,需要来自各界的努力、同理心和理解,最重要的,愿意为不同的人设身处地。”