diversity & i

thought i'd write a bit about how i see diversity. and i thank john who made a comment in this post. his comment gave me the inspiration to write this post. i will narrowly define "diversity" in terms of culture, race and religion in this post. here's my reflections, read on...

i was born in 1966. it was the period not too long after the racial riots of the late-50's and early-60's and the aftermath was still vividly carved into everyone's consciousness. everyone was highly aware of how intolerance could lead to fights and disharmony and thus made the extra effort to coexist as peacefully as we possibly could. and in this environment, i learned about celebrating our common areas, accepting our differences and respecting each other's space to practise what we practice. we agree to disagree and we never see any of these differences in negative light, at least not to the point of doing things that would jeopardise the harmonious nature of our co-existence. here're some snippets my growing years to illustrate the environment of diversity that i grew up in:

• i grew up in a kampong in paya lebar. my landlord was chinese, i had an indian neighbour. when my family moved to marine parade in 1974, my immediate neighbour was malay. and next to this neighbour lived an eurasian family. in all instances, we lived harmoniously and we had an opened door policy. we took care of one another and protected one another from strangers. we even celebrated each other's festivals. sure, we do have different cultural/ religious practices (my family was buddhist/ taoist, my malay neighbours were muslim, and the eurasians were roman catholics) and we might sometimes not agree with their practices, but we learned how to accommodate these differences as we respected each other's space to exist. 

• from my malay neighbours, i learned how to make satay, ketupat, play malay traditional games such as the congkat, enjoy their cooking. also, through them, i got to practise my malay language, learned a few arabic words, dance the malay joget and appreciate the malay culture. i learned many other things from my eurasian and indian neighbours too. for a certain duration, i even wore the sarong at home. i must also add that i was also partly influenced by my mum's peranakan roots.

• i went to a primary school in lorong tai seng and later telok kurau east school. in these schools, many of my classmates were of different races/ religion/ culture but these never stopped me from interacting with them. similarly, i attended a malay secondary school and, just like how it was in my primary school, some of my best friends were non-chinese. and during my school days, apart from english and our mother tongue, we also learn our national language, malay. for that matter, we were made to recite our national pledge in english, malay and chinese.

in short, i grew up in a multi-cultural, -religious and -racial environment. it was an environment where i learned to embrace, respect and celebrate each other's culture, religion and race. and this was possible becos there was so much emphasis and belief in the overall good of the country when we accept the need to have as broad a common space as possible. there was no need for a formal curriculum about harmonious living. our living environment in itself was the best classroom for us. and to me, i enjoy this multi-faceted environment so much so that when planted in an environment where it heavily dominated by one particular race (such as china), i felt awkward, i miss my non-chinese peers.

such harmonious coexistence had become a very interesting and characteristic of singapore. it is also, sadly, something that is taken for granted and often, undervalued. and if you ask me how we have come to such a state, i can perhaps suggest this as possible effects of the housing policy (& design), the ever decreasing common space that we now celebrate together, the increased stratification of the society as different racial groups progress at slightly different rates, the constant reminder of (racial, cultural, religion) differences (which is ironic, right?), and perhaps the larger strategic reality of an emerging china and india, and the ever increasing racial politics of our neighbouring countries.

agree?