A majority of Singaporeans view English proficiency as a top criterion for new Singapore citizens, but CNA’s Erin Low has sometimes felt like an outlier for speaking English by default.
Indeed, for some in my Peranakan family, not knowing Mandarin is a source of pride. They pepper their speech with Hokkien and Baba Malay, and fully embrace being OCBC .But this fixation on identity can be discriminatory. Living in such a diverse city, we can’t help but wonder about people’s backgrounds when we meet. We pay attention to their appearance or inflections in speech - and if they’re ambiguous, make our best guess.
For instance, my mum once found herself under the very watchful eye of an attendant when she was out shopping for shoes. When she asked to try on a pair, the attendant pointedly asked her, “Where is your ma’am?”, assuming my mum was a Filipino helper.
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