The first thing my parents said when they found out about my boyfriend was, “why a Chinese?” Tim* and I have been together for four years, of which three-and-a-half years were spent hiding our relationship from my parents. For that long and agonising three-and-a-half years, my parents had no clue that I was even dating. Or perhaps they had suspected and just didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that their Indian daughter was dating a Chinese boy. Whenever my boyfriend and I hung out, we would avoid going to places where my parents could be at. I would lie to my mom almost everyday. She'd ask, "where are you going?" and I would say, "to meet a friend." Lie. "Which friend? What's their name?". Another lie. Not only was it exhausting to lie, I hated myself for doing so. I felt guilty for keeping such a big secret from the people I should be the closest to. Many times, I considered telling them the truth. My friends kept encouraging me to come clean with them too. It's not like I didn't have a choice that I had to resort to lying, but I was just too afraid. My parents have never been super strict, but they are what you would call "typical Indian parents", which if you've heard anything about, you would know they can be pretty scary when enforcing their beliefs. So it was lies upon lies, upon lies. We were cautious, careful, as we should be as an under-the-radar couple. Until one day, Tim sent me home only for us to bump into my dad at the void deck.

F**K.

My dad wasn’t supposed to come home at that time, but there he was, and he saw Tim. What followed was an awkward conversation in the lift with my dad. "Who is that boy?" "He's just a friend." He obviously didn’t buy that. I mean, which guy friend would send a girl home without any particular reason right? When we reached home, his exact words to my mom were, “you should ask your daughter to bring her boyfriend home next time.” I sighed as I shut myself in my room, ignoring whatever conversation my parents were going to have. Well, shit. That was it. There was no point trying to hide it anymore. A million thoughts ran through my mind. On one hand, I was relieved, but there were so many worries that came after: Were my parents going to disown me? Were they going to tell every living relative about how I've brought shame to their family name? Were they going to force me to break up with Tim?

THE TRUTH IS OUT

No one spoke about the incident until the following night's dinner, and it was a conversation I hoped never came. My parents asked about 'the boy that dropped me home'. They wanted to know how old he was, what he does, what his parents do - the usual stuff. But they also asked me the one dreaded question, "why a Chinese?" How was I supposed to answer that?

I didn’t look at his race when I fell in love, I fell in love with the person he is.

I tried to convince them that it didn’t matter that he was Chinese. But they were adamant on the same thing – “He’s not a Hindu”. They refused to see him for who he is as a person. They only saw him as not Hindu. I was frustrated and hurt. They hadn't even met him and they were already dismissing him and our relationship. They wouldn't even give him a chance just because of his race. It was illogical, but at the same time, expected. My family has always been conservative. My parents never outrightly forbade me from dating a Chinese but it was heavily implied that bringing home a boy of a different race was frowned upon. On the other hand, Tim's parents knew about our relationship and have accepted me as part of the family a long time ago. I had found a second family in them, joining them for significant family gatherings like Chinese New Year dinner and birthday parties. I love my parents, but even I have to admit they can be pretty racist. Over the years, my mother would make comments on how Indians are better than other races, how we are more "elite". I'm not entirely sure where this racism stems from. Having known Hindus who converted out of their faith, she might have feared that her children will do that too. Perhaps that's why she would always tell my brother and I, “no matter what, don’t tarnish my religion.”

THE ULTIMATUM

Which is why when I tried to persuade them to meet him before blatantly disapproving our relationship, they gave me an ultimatum instead:

“I’m giving you two years to think about it. We’ll talk about this then.”

They wanted me to to think about a relationship that they didn't see a future in. Me being me, I told her to think about it too. It might have felt like a 'power move' when she dished that out but the two-year ultimatum seems like a joke now. To me, it felt like an excuse for my parents to not deal with it. Because I had thought about it, about everything that could possibly cause a conflict between us, and race and religion were the last things on that list. Because of this ultimatum, my life and relationship with Tim have come to a standstill for the next two years. While my friends are applying for a BTO, getting engaged, or making wedding plans, all I’ll be able to do is look at my Facebook feed and sigh over the predicament my parents had put me in.

LOVE VS FAMILY

I'm afraid of where I will be in two years. I don't want to be in a position where I'll have to eventually choose between my boyfriend and my parents.

"How am I to choose between my partner and my parents?"

How is anyone to choose between the person you want to spend your future with and the people who brought you into this world and to the person you are today? I owe my parents everything and I can't possibly build a future without them in it. Neither can I picture a future without my current partner. I don't mean to sound melodramatic but let's face it, many of us do things just for our parents. It could be something like going to a school our parents preferred or having children because our parents want us to. We do these things out of filial piety, even though it may not be what we really want. Sometimes I wonder, "why can't my parents just be happy in the fact that I'm happy?" In a world where it's difficult to find someone you are committed to love and whom is committed to love you back, it's a wonder I had found it at all. It's been 6 months since they gave me the ultimatum, which means I have another 1.5 years to hope for my parents to have a change of heart. For them to realise that when it comes down to it, race or religion does not and should not define us or our relationship. And I really pray that I will not have to choose between a 6 year relationship with a partner I see my future with and family. *Name has been changed to protect the identity of the individuals. Also read: It’s 2018 – Why Are We Still Paying Wedding Dowries?.

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