“What?? You’ve never had Mala before???”
My friend from the Czech Republic was in complete shock. As she chattered on about how wonderful the dish was and how widely popular it had become in Singapore, I became more and more amused. It was interesting to me how a foreigner could be more local, than a local like myself.
As I happily indulged in my first and hearty Mala meal, it slowly dawned upon me that I was indeed unexposed to much of the new diversities of local cuisine in Singapore, along with many other aspects of Singaporean culture. I take more interest in the political landscapes of other countries rather than that of my own and, growing up, have read more foreign literature than local works. I’m no Singaporean foodie. I’m still not familiar with some of Singapore’s most classic dishes, like rojak, Ice Kachang, otak, amongst many others. The first time I tried Laksa was not even in Singapore — I had my first taste of the Malaysian Laksa during on my RCX trip to Kuching, Sarawak. I can’t say that I know Singapore’s history in and out, and I know I have more to learn about our Little Red Dot’s present and future.
My mother calls me a “banana” — yellow on the outside, white on the inside. I’ve been accused of being overly westernized in my upbringing, which has in many ways made me unfamiliar with the history and culture of my own country. What does Singapore speak, sound, and taste of? How has it evolved over time, and what discourse have these changes brought? What is the state of my nation, and how may I better call it my own?
Perhaps, by considering these things now, at the age of 22, I’m just becoming local for the first time.
For some, home is one that has kept changing, and feeling like an outsider has become a new norm. Qian Hui shares her experience growing up in two cities, and how it has impacted her sense of place and identity:
Growing up, I’ve shuttled constantly between two different cities and cultures –- a fast-paced city life in Singapore during the semester, and a quiet rural hometown in Malaysia during the semester holidays. If life in Singapore is defined by relentless change, then life in my hometown would be defined by the absence of change –- nothing changes, and perhaps nothing ever will.
Over the years, while I would learn the customs of these two communities, I felt that I never truly belonged. In Malaysia, I am a Malaysian until someone asks about where I went to secondary school, which prompts a predictable stream of “Singapore very clean right?”, “Isn’t it expensive to study there?!”, “Oh scholarship is it, wah you very lucky leh, confirm very smart right!” Conversely, in Singapore, people assume I am Singaporean, until someone asks me why I don’t go home on the weekends (answer: because home is a 13 hour car ride away). Instead of North Malaysia, I’ve learnt to describe home as the Thai border, to give my friends a sense of the distance, both physical and cultural, that I’ve learnt to bridge over the years. If our identities are forged by the environments we live in, then perhaps mine is a strange blend of contradictions –- urban versus rural, discriminated versus privileged, English versus Chinese.
I wish I can say that I’ve found the perfect balance between these opposites, that I’ve somehow melded these contradictions together into one coherent whole. In truth, however, I still feel like one of those physics pendulums, constantly oscillating from one end to another, establishing a new equilibrium each time. To this day, my identity is something I constantly re-evaluate, something that constantly changes, and something that may remain in-between forever.
Qian Hui is a rising Senior at Yale-NUS College who is passionate about oncology research. She loves Skyping her adopted cat at home, and is still figuring out which timezone her body clock has decided to be in.
In other instances, generational differences can alienate individuals in their own land. Ryan shares his renewed understanding of his country, Singapore, after reconciling the ways that different generations exist in this nation:
It’s hard to imagine a world you were never acquainted with. Excuse the obvious, but that’s why history often emotionally eludes me.
When you’re a kid, the whole world is only everywhere you’ve been, and as far as you can see. Primary school field trips to heritage sites and museums were categorized together with my Grandpa’s Merdeka stories: Good To Know, But Not Very Relevant.
I think I grew up claiming complete ownership of my country, perhaps something incoherently snobbish to do so early on. However, after browsing through ‘Pictures of Singapore from the same spots, 30 years apart’ (Part 2 post on /r/Singapore) recently, this familiarity of this ground disappeared for a bit.
So it struck: I can’t tell you how the Singapore River was cleaned up, or when the East-West Line was built. I wasn’t there when chewing gum was a national problem, nor was I there on the first Total Defence Day. Hyper-globalised millennials such as myself are a sort of intruders. Does that make us… chronological immigrants?
While we are in many ways successors to the new world, this ‘takeover process’ (in my experience) is often pegged with a rebellious and ageist anti-establishment rhetoric. Singapore’s fair share of archaic fundamentals have been prodded with exponential frequency. Perhaps the conversations haven’t always been as smooth as we’d like. It feels unfair at times to have to endure an 82.8 year average expectancy of unimposing and inoffensive changes, and for the new generation to inherit a conservative-cultured, psychosomatically suffering, global-but-local faux democracy.
I find myself wanting to shift paradigms, though it is awfully arrogant to want to change a nation you know only 21 years about. I won’t excuse 奶奶 (Grandmother) and her blatant distaste for black skin, but she nursed the country through three foreign rulers and its independent infancy, at a time when open-mindedness wasn’t a luxury she could afford.
At a time when inter-generational dissent is high, it is both an ethical and practical necessity to be courteous to our seasoned natives. And in turn, we hope that they will be hospitable to us — us time travelling outsiders.
Ryan is a vague, self-proclaimed combination of Adventure Time and Beach House.
