On January 11, an uproar occurred over remarks by the DJs of radio station Kiss 92 FM when they joked that Chinese people get less sleep compared to Malays and Indians because they have <a href=" send their kids to school and leave early for work" while Malays and Indians <a href=" less and go out and party". To me, that sounded like Malays and Indians lead a much better life compared to us Chinese but jokes aside, this insinuates that the minority races are lazy and unwilling to work, and naturally, it drew a chorus of outrage from Malays and Indians alike on social media. Of course, a quick scroll through the comments revealed that some still thought the outrage was ridiculous and all part of the stupid PC culture propagated by Western lib-tards, and that the minority in Singapore has been spoilt.

Not the first time, not the last

Such an incident is reflective of the underlying social framework which privileges Chinese culture over all other races in Singapore. This isn't the first time it's happened and it certainly won't be the last. There was the blackface controversy on Toggle last year, along with the tasteless video by theSmartLocal where they tried Indian food as if it were the food of an uncontacted tribe. Let's not forget one of the most egregious incidents by the <a href=" themselves 2 years ago, when the playing of music got banned at Thaipusam festivals, complete with the flimsy reasoning that lions dances are allowed because they are "often held during social, community events" and are "non-religious", while "the risk of incidents is considered to be higher" for Thaipusam. It speaks volumes that the Chinese lion dance has achieved the vaunted secular status of "non-religious" while the Thaipusam foot procession is deemed to carry significant risk, and must therefore be devoid of music. Shanmugam even adds that "<a href=" Hindus are actually in a privileged position. There are many other religious groups which have asked to be allowed to hold foot processions. These appeals have generally been rejected." Come on man, we tolerate the long Buddhist and Taoist chantings of Chinese funerals and the raucous drummings of Malay-Muslim weddings at our void decks. I don't see why we can't do the same for Thaipusam. Unless those two things are also somehow "non-religious", which is just ridiculous.

Roots of Chinese Privilege

Several articles have been written on the topic of Chinese privilege, including those by Cher Tan on VICE news, Hydar Saharudin on <a href=" Mandala  and <a href=" Thanapal's interview with Adeline Koh on b2o - the place where the term 'Chinese Privilege' was first coined. All three are unanimous in stating that the PAP played a large part in this entrenchment of Chinese culture as superior. After all, Lee Kuan Yew's definition of Asian values was essentially Confucian values. On top of that, there is LKY's statement that: "Anybody who decides to take me on needs to put on knuckle-dusters. If you think you can hurt me more than I can hurt you, try. There is no way you can govern a Chinese society." Most of us probably remember this sentence as emblematic of his confrontational approach in dealing with his political opponents but what is also worth noting here is his use of 'Chinese society'. Much of Singapore's national consciousness is conceptualized as a primarily Chinese consciousness, with a smattering and sprinkling of Indian and Malay-Muslim bits here and there. We have our Special Assistance Plan (SAP) schools with their sprawling social networks and predominant emphasis on Chinese culture, which usually also happens to be where many of our ministers also come from. There is the 'Speak Mandarin Campaign' because China will supposedly overtake the US any minute now. I doubt there will ever be a 'Speak Malay' or 'Speak Tamil' campaign, on the grounds that there is little economic use for such languages given our state's pragmatism-driven mentality. This limits the space for such languages to the public space at arts festivals and the domestic sphere. Further back in time, there was also the liberalisation of immigration policies for people of East Asian origin <a href=" Chinese birth rates fell below those of Indian and Malay in 1989, which happened in order to maintain Singapore's racial balance. There was also the disturbing <a href=" incentive of $10,000 for women without O levels below 30 years of age who already had 1 or 2 children. This doubly impacted our racial minorities as education levels have always been the highest among the Chinese, thanks to the SAP schools. And finally, who can forget the criticisms and stereotypes leveled at Malays that plagued the 90s and 00s: Malay students did not do as well because their cultures lent themselves to laziness, hence the need for Singapore to adopt a primarily Chinese work ethic. All in all, far from being the multi-religious CMIO, in Singapore, it has always been Cmio - with a Capital C. The next question then, is how do we make the Chinese majority aware of this? I personally think it will be extremely challenging, in no small part because the majority is always disinclined to listen to the minority... Because we can afford to.

Coming to understand my privilege

I will admit, I was completely clueless to any of these concepts or of my privilege until I spent 6 months in the US in the first half of 2015. No, it did not stem from the feeling of being a minority in the West - when you spend 6 months in a country on exchange, it's still a very long holiday and you are still primarily a student-tourist. Neither did it come from spending my secondary school years in a typical neighbourhood school, where I was constantly in contact with students from minority groups. Instead, I only became aware of it when I took a class on African-American authors. It was kind of a Social Studies class on African-American history and society, since the days of slavery. Much was made about the constant belittling of black culture by various white politicians, the structural faults of the political system that discriminated against them and even the internalization of their own stereotypes which gave rise to the perception within their own  black community that a hardworking black person was essentially a white person with black skin. Since most of the students in that class were black, class discussions were often lively and vivid with examples of annoying and exhausting micro-aggressions they faced on a regular basis. One of them shared, "In high school, once slavery and segregation is brought up, everyone turns to look at me." And then, LKY passed away and there was much mourning back in Singapore, along with the publishing of his many statements. As I looked through the things he said, a sense of unease grew within me as I realised many of the statements he had made as the basis of his policies bore striking resemblance to what many of my African-American classmates were calling out their politicians for. One example is the aforementioned 'Chinese society' statement. And then there was this: “We could not have held the society together if we had not made adjustments to the system that gives the Malays, although they are not as hardworking and capable as the other races, a fair share of the cake”. And this: "<a href=" neighbors both have problems with their Chinese. They are successful. They are hard working and, therefore, they are systematically marginalized." In fairness to the first statement, LKY apologized about this afterwards, but since the lazy Malay stereotype had gone out, the damage was done. With regards to the second statement, my first thought was the model minority stereotype of Asians propagated in the US. In a sense, this sentence effectively buys into that rhetoric. In SE Asia however, this sentence had the dual effect of elevating the superiority of Chinese culture while putting down other regional cultures. Taken in conjunction with the first statement, there is little wonder Chinese culture has been touted the cornerstone of our state's success. The problem is that being part of the Chinese majority in Singapore makes us blind to these problems because these are problems that only affect the people lying on the edges of our national consciousness. That, however, doesn't make it less real to those who suffer them, and if anything, it is an issue that has the potential to unravel our "multi-racial", "multi-religious" country if not adequately addressed. The way I see it, there are only two ways out of this: either through education at the school level or through larger minority representation in our arts and culture scene. Thankfully, within our arts scene, there are already prominent voices who do a fantastic job of bringing out the voices of their respective groups such as Alfian Sa'at for Malays and Pooja Nansi and Marc Nair for Indians, to name a few. Also few things on Facebook are as entertaining as watching them, especially in the case of Alfian Sa'at, eviscerating some of the stupider moments of racism in Singapore and calling out problematic statements by our ministers. With regards to education, the problem is much more critical. A change to the syllabus is needed, along with a redefinition of the whole point of that totally-not-a-means-of-social-engineering Character and Citizenship Education. An hour spent illustrating why Chinese, Malay and Indian kids have different headstarts in life is infinitely more useful in raising awareness and stamping out long-running stereotypes than that useless 好公民 textbook that only tells us to do our homework, greet our teacher and obey our parents. <a href=" Image Credit

Try as we might, it will always haunt the children. Just as it's been over the past few years, so this year's release of PSLE results has come with the same dramatic tropes. There were calls, platitudes and ST letters urging parents to remember that "it's just an exam", and "it doesn't determine your child's future". There was the standard scandal of parent punishing their child for not scoring high enough--this time, it involved <a href=" confiscated Nintendo DS. There was the outraged reactions, with one of the top rated comments reading <a href=" is the kind of thing that make our young children jump down from buildings". Topping it all off was the viral movement where Singaporeans shared their PSLE results, along with where they are in life now, which amounted to a whole lot of humble-bragging. Perhaps next year, the Government will announce yet another departure from the PSLE system towards the new favourite phrase--a more <a href=" development", as was announced this year, along with the announcement that a new PSLE grading system will be implemented from 2021 onwards. Sports, character and volunteer work will become new potential criteria for admission into top schools, and all this on top of grades. Honestly, I am cynical that all this will amount to any significant change.

Kiasu Mentality Reigns Supreme

Instead, we will probably see parents pushing their kids to excel in all kinds of sports, trying to get them into the national teams so they can become the next Joseph Schooling. Children will be signed up for all kinds of leadership programmes in a bid to develop their character. Perhaps there will be an explosion of volunteer work at various homes and hospices, as kids rush to prove their hearts for the disadvantaged members of the community. All that while having to do well in their studies. My point is that while we can try to turn the focus away from grades and onto the child's non-academic merits, at the end of the day, the Kiasu mentality reigns supreme. We've become so obsessed with grades that our only alternative to grades are even more grades. If our children are not multi-talented, Renaissance-type boys and girls, they will not thrive as productive members of society. Instead of decreasing stress levels, we give children more areas they must perform well in, hammering in the notion that at the end of the day, a child's worth and sense of identity are tied to what he can or cannot accomplish. Woe to the child who learns more slowly than the rest and is unable to excel yet in sports or their studies in time for Primary 6 or Secondary 4; a lacklustre school certificate from his first ten years of education now potentially determines where he can go from here. At this point, most roads already lead down.

It All Boils Down To Socio-Economic Status

Crucially, a mere change in the PSLE marking scheme or the way children are streamed fails to account for the biggest problem that plagues Singapore's meritocracy: the uneven playing field produced by socio-economic inequality, as well as a system of meritocracy that more deeply entrenches this inequality. Both Donald Low, a senior lecturer at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Andrew Yeo, a research assistant at the Institute of Policy Studies, have written extensively on this particularly pernicious problem. Low has talked about how it is important to ensure equal access to opportunities, given that people start out with different talents and resources. He warns against a "Wall Street Meritocracy", where a "self-justifying, entitlement narrative" emerges and "inequality is [seen] as a natural consequence of an efficient and normatively desirable system". Yeo states that "students who score well in the Primary School Leaving Examination, are disproportionately populated by students staying in private housing." He goes on to say, "<a href=" than half the students in the top secondary schools have fathers who are university graduates, while this is only the case for about 10% of those in neighbourhood schools". Essentially, parents with greater income because of greater educational status give rise to children with greater access to high quality tuition services and who then have greater opportunity to enter the top schools, and this cycle continues. This problem is not exclusive to academic achievement. Sports in Singapore doesn't exactly have a reputation for being the most well-funded; Schooling's parents had to make heavy financial sacrifices in order to send him to the USA to train, <a href=" selling their house. As such, children who come from more well-to-do families will undoubtedly have an unfair advantage in ensuring their success, whether in their studies or extra-curricular activities. On the flip side, those lower down the socio-economic ladder not only do not have access to fancy tuition classes, they are saddled with other responsibilities, like having to work to support their parents. How then, do these children explore their talents in sports or art? The school you go to also has a part to play in the programmes you're exposed to. You can't expect the same breadth or quality of programmes from a sprawling elite school like Hwa Chong Institution as say, Damai Secondary School, a neighbourhood school that is set to disappear once it merges with Bedok Green in 2018; the funding and budget of Damai simply pales in comparison. Now that the emphasis no longer rests on grades alone, the disadvantages of going to a neighbourhood school is accordingly amplified. It doesn't matter whether we emphasise the child's grades, his sporting abilities or his artistic talents; as Low argues, without "redistributive measures, meritocracy rests on increasingly shaky and tenuous foundations".

Recognizing The Flip Side Of Meritocracy

In a country like ours, where everything is judged by Key Performance Indicators, a measure of inequality is to be expected because people are not equal in their abilities. But the issue here is that this inequality can carry on to the next generation, granting the children of parents higher up on the socio-economic ladder an advantage over others, rendering meritocracy just as guilty as race/religion/gender/caste systems of entrenching inequality. The key assumption that meritocracy is the best means of social mobility must therefore be re-examined. Otherwise, we risk deluding ourselves into thinking we have a perfect system when what we have in place instead, is one that creates a permanent underclass. <a href=" Image Credit

Since Hollywood realised the Chinese was the audience to make profits from by virtue of sheer numbers, there have been numerous cringe-worthy attempts to make many of its big blockbuster offerings more "appealing" to China. There is the China-exclusive version of Iron Man 3, where Tony Stark decides to go to China for a medical operation to remove the shrapnel in his chest, an operation performed by Fan BingBing in a doctor's costume. She is never brought up again for the rest of the film. And who can forget Michael Bay's Transformers: Age of Extinction, with its blatant Chinese product placement in the middle of Texas, or the final battle in Hong Kong where the Beijing government vows, "The central government will defend Hong Kong at all costs!" Finally, you have the shiny Chinese base on the Moon in Independence Day: Resurgence, relevant for a grand total of 20 minutes in the 2 hour-long movie, before the alien mothership blows it away like it is some annoying fly, after which it is promptly forgotten. Such attempts reek of laziness and ignorance. Most of us Chinese viewers cringe at what we see as a blatant propagation of Asian stereotypes, something that further, seems to indicate that movies must be stripped of artistic merit and be severely dumbed down in order to appeal to an 'Asian' audience. C'mon, give us more credit than that. But to blame the Privileged Straight White Men of Hollywood alone for this gross cultural misunderstanding is unfair; it's worth noting that these films were backed by big Chinese corporations. In fact, Transformers even got sued by a Chinese company because its product did not end up in the movie. What is happening here, then is the erection of a Great Wall of ignorance, built by parties on either side of it, where one side believes that as long as the wall is appealing enough for the other side to want to pay to see it, all is well and good, regardless of how tacky and gaudy it is.

A Rainbow Wall of Cliches

Enter Zhang Yimou's The Great Wall. Let's take a moment to remember that this is the same director who also gave us Ju Dou, Hero and House of Flying Daggers. Like all of these films, Great Wall is rich and vivid with colour. The troops are blue, red, yellow, purple and black. The Tao Tie are green, while the dullest and least well-dressed characters are the few Europeans. There is Yimou's fondness for panoramic shots, so we are treated to the scenes of battle in all their explosive, gory glory. There are uniquely Chinese moments, like the release of lanterns into the sky when a general dies, so they resemble the faint band of the Milky Way. All of this almost makes for a refreshing change of pace, until you realise the plot is essentially a rip-off of Independence Day--both 1996 and 2016--and Aliens. Horde of monsters (Tao Tie) that devours everything in their path? Check. The devouring is for the nourishment of the Queen, to breed more monsters? Check. Extraterrestrial origins because they were released by a meteor? Check. Killing the Queen ensures the defeat of their entire species? Check. For all it appears superficially, Great Wall is essentially an archetypal Hollywood alien invasion movie dressed in Chinese garb, complete with all the requisite cliches, down to the attack on the Capital City. If American audiences were hoping for a unique twist, they would be sorely disappointed. Perhaps Zhang has decided that the only way Americans can be comfortable with Chinese culture is through a familiar plot that targets their sense of patriotism. Adding to this is the issue of Chinese characters being flat to the point of being a bore. Everyone is so dedicated to defeating the Tao Tie that there is no disagreement on how to do it. Sure, everybody has xing ren (trust) in one another, but it seems the only thing that distinguishes the soldiers from one another is the colour of their armour and the role they perform in battle. There is no drama and no disagreement in tactics whatsoever. At least the US President fired his Secretary of Defense in the first Independence Day. The characters are as dull as their armour is bright. If this movie was supposed to let the wider world appreciate Chinese culture, the only thing I've learnt is that the Emperor is essentially useless. In fact, that this film <a href=" Chinese elements in it", as Zhang himself says, is utterly irrelevant to the plot, as alien invasions are pretty much the same everywhere, regardless of country or time period. The only cliche that Zhang avoided was the use of Matt Damon as the White Man who Saves Them All. Damon's character's discovery of the means by which to defeat the Tao Tie is accidental. He does not do any of the planning to engage the Queen, he follows the orders of the Chinese generals and his attempt to kill the Queen fails--twice. In the end, it is Jing Tian who does it. Criticisms of whitewashing then, in this case, is not quite justified. Rather, it is the artistic merit of the film that is questionable. As far as invasion-type storylines go, it simply doesn't add anything new or fresh.

Crossing the Wall

If Great Wall has only added on then, to the huge wall of cultural misunderstanding between China and Hollywood, can it ever be overcome? The answer is yes. In fact, it has already been done, specifically, by the film Rogue One. Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen's characters are fully integrated into the storyline. Their feats of badassery fit well into the overall aesthetic of the film. They have enough narrative presence to be significant and their actions have direct consequences on the other characters. The result? An added measure of thrill for us Chinese movie-goers, seeing ourselves represented in a film that is fun, enjoyable and also highly regarded; it sends a message to non-Chinese viewers that we are just as capable of quality acting and art. Great Wall on the other hand, in conjunction with all the atrocious examples I've mentioned earlier, epitomizes how cultural appeal simply cannot be forced. Randomly inserting Chinese scenes into huge blockbusters or setting an entire Hollywood-type blockbuster in Ancient China, for the matter, only results in terrible movies limited in artistic merit. Not only that, but it insults the sensibilities of both Western and Chinese audiences, ensuring that each side thinks the other incapable of enjoying actual art. In addition to Hollywood's whitewashing and diversity problem, this side of the Pacific also needs to be aware that the Chinese audience is smarter than they think. Top Image Credit