Subland Chinese vs Mainland Chinese
The following is a singaporean chinese, or more accurately, a chinese
singaporean’s view of ‘mainland chinese’. I was quite surprised at the innovational aptitude of those chinese whom are xenophobic when it comes to
their pathetic attempt at justifying their difference from their
countrywo/men.
They view themselves as ‘native-borns’; call the new
Chinese, ‘Ah Tiongs’; and now, call them ‘opportunists’ vs. their own
‘hard working’ parents or grandparents. I don’t think it would be right
to reserve the term ‘opportunist’ for the new Chinese. Looking at how
the local chinese have been 'hard-working' at keeping quiet about the
government’s efforts to give them a leg-up over all other races via SAP schools, the mother-tongue policy; preferring to keep them as the majority; and giving chinese culture
precedence over all others, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to state that such behaviour has been opportunism at its best don’t you think.
Anyway,
let’s get on with what this local chinese, going by the pseudonym,
‘Gem SG’, has to say.
Ed’s comment, as posted on TR, follows.
Ed’s comment, as posted on TR, follows.
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| click image to go to article source |
ed:
Interesting how you attempt to distinguish yourself from the mainland chinese when the difference is only in locality and degree of complacency...oh, and the accent as well...i prefer the china accent actually, especially the northern one.Your ancestors, like the new influx of your countrypeeper, were opportunists as well. Their 'working hard' at it doesn't mean that they weren't opportunists mate.Anyway, i don't begrudge your ancestors the right to come to singapore to make a life for yourselves. I just wonder why you people had to do it to the point that it took a chinese supremacist turn and 'singapore culture' had to be made synonymous with 'chinese culture'. Now that's opportunism for you, at a mass scale even. All that is left is for the country to be renamed in chinese now. Well, they've started with 'xin.msn.com'. Nice. Very multicultural.Typically, your post above doesn't betray any appreciation of these facts, and hence, i see you, and your ancestors, as no different from the second chinese wave. Perhaps you, like most of the lame brains here and in singapore, simply fear that the new chinese will do unto you that which you did unto the non-chinese. That would be poetic justice, and i'm just sitting back, with my hands behind my head, and enjoying the sight of your soaking in the consequences of yours and your ancestral self-absorption.Oh, btw, China was state capitalist, not 'communist'. Go get some relevant education before you make such statements.
ed
rubbish
ReplyDeleteWhy are you so dead set against the Chinese? The Chinese are all over the world and generally the ones overseas behave differently from the ones coming directly out from China. I believe this could be due to the culture and environment, not just being in a different location.
ReplyDelete"Looking at how the local Chinese ... keeping quiet about the government's effort to give them a leg up over all other races...." what about the several prominent Malays or Indians who are in the Cabinet. I don't hear any peep from them. Don't they have anything to say over you have claimed the government has been doing? Are they in agreement and hence the silence or they are happy to keep quiet so that they can keep their positions?
I'm dead set against self-absorption, racism, xenophobia, racial/cultural supremacism. That's why i'm critical of the chinese. I've stated quite a few times that what i have to say does not apply to the chinese in the west. But where they become a majority, and practice 'chinese' culture, they tend to become similar. It's the culture, not the people. So in that sense, you could say that i'm 'dead set' against 'chinese' culture, which is more accurately, 'legalist-confucian' culture.
ReplyDeleteDo the prominent blokes in parliament have to say something about it before it becomes true. Learn to appreciate facts for itself as opposed to deeming it as plausible or ponderable only when someone on a pedestal says it. That's such a typically confucian attitude.
I don't 'claim' anything Soo Jenn. I validate its factual status by evidence.
It is a clash of ideas, systems. Similar clashes are taking place in Hong Kong which is even less "westernised" in general than Singapore.
ReplyDeleteWhy the "second wave" even bother to leave or crowd into the tiny island?
ReplyDeleteThe "1st wave" or "ancestors" came because of foreign invasion, civil war, famine, evil war lords, corrupt official, a then near bankrupted motherland who can't feed or protect her children. They actually "sold" themselves & risking life & limbs just for a mouthful of rice & this is "opportunistic"? And when by fluke or by hook, they succeeded in creating something a little better ... in come the "second wave"...why? also running away from something? saw an "opportunity"?
It is not the poor '1st wave' chinese who came in whom were opportunistic. They were struggling, and deserve a hand-up. But what transpired thereafter after they were given a hand-up is that which taints it into an 'opportunistic' enterprise.
ReplyDeleteIt is not only the original reasons we should look at, but what they did after being given said 'hand-up'. They relegated other to 2nd class citizenry didn't they? Not intentionally, for the masses, but they kept quiet about that which advantaged them over other didn't they. Didn't they have 'chinese-preferred' job ads? And thereafter, didn't they further depress the non-chinese by pairing the mother-tongue policy with 'mandarin-speakers preferred' job ads. And didn't they keep silent when the government clearly stated that singapore must always have a chinese majority?
This is the '1st wave' chinese i'm talking about mate. We cannot excuse the sins of the sons because of the desperation of their forefathers when they came in to seek to survive. The '1st wave' chinese are not just those whom came in as indentured labour, samsui women, etc. They also include all their progeny right up to the '2nd wave' chinese now. They also include all the triad societies, chinese elite, those who exploited them terribly as indentured labour, and whom all clamped down on difference, and sought domination. What did this result in for the non-chinese? xin.msn.com? Does that sound like a multicultural state to you? How is it that the 'first wave' chinese managed to turn this multicultural state into a chinese one.
Isn't that opportunism at its worst? You come in seeking food, and years later, put up 'chinese preferred' ads. That isn't opportunism to you? Are you an idiot or some other equivalent?
What 'ideas' and 'systems' are you referring to exactly?
ReplyDeleteInteresting response.. So you are dead set against Chinese culture I see. When a group becomes a majority, many negative traits appear, perhaps not only with Chinese culture. A group which is a minority in Singapore, is a majority up north and see how discriminatory they are.. So what do you have to say about their culture.
ReplyDeleteQuite a good argument. Yup. The malays are certainly discriminatory as you put it, up north. The bumiputra policy is certainly worthy of raised and incredulous brows.
ReplyDeleteWell, firstly, let's get one thing straight. There are 2 chinese cultures. One is pre-Qin (pre 221 b.c.), or you can call it Chou, and one is Qin and thereafter. I'm against the latter which is nothing short of Orwellian in nature. 'Chinese' culture as you put it is an effort to contend with the post-Qin period since the people could not successfully overthrow the intellectually and politically authoritarian status brought about by Qin Shih Huang Ti. There was philosophical stagnation, education was centralised, individual thought and schools of philosophy was clamped down upon, and all significant difference was gradually eradicated.
This is much like what transpired in singapore from, especially, after the so-called 'Marxist Conspiracy' crackdown - which was actually a move to transfer socio-economic power from the English-speaking, westernised, and multicultural singaporean sector. Thereafter, we saw what Qn Shih Huang Ti did in china. You could say that the 'scholars were buried' and 'books burnt' metaphorically speaking - and which explains why the chinese are pretty deficient in metaphorical and philosophical discourse itself. So that is the 'chinese' culture that i'm 'dead set' against.
As for the Malays up north. I don't blame them entirely. If it wasn't for the bumiputra policy, the chinese elite would probably have done up north that which they have successfully accomplished down south. The malays, traditionally, are a hospitable, passive, and humble people. They do not discriminate against difference as is the case in post-Qin 'Chinese' history. I would thus say that their racism thereafter was an effort to protect the Malays from the same outcome faced by the Malays in singapore. I don't think they'd take kindly to HDB quota policies, SAP schools systems, and PMs who say that singapore must always have a chinese majority, or that it isn't ready for a non-chinese PM. That's pretty rich given that singapore was originally a Malay country.
Come up with better arguments next time. You can justify the continuation of evils in singapore by pointing to the evils up north. I can just as easily point to more egalitarian climes to justify change in singapore. Think about it.
What is your preferred synonym to "Singapore culture"?
ReplyDeleteWhat is "did unto" in "did unto the non Chinese"?
If you have been in many national schools or deal a lot with civil service, is this the "unto-ing"?
The 1st wave or their sons would not mind the smell of a good curry, many even enjoy eating it & can order in its proper name, a good number even bother to learn or speak the language.
Now if the second wave will only write ads in Mandarin or only want to converse in the same, won't that be The "Unto-ing" to be reckon with?
Hello, Singapore culture does not exist as there is no representation of multiculturalism from all races in the first place. To be exact, one can only liken Singapore culture to the chinese culture which has cultivated the national pastimes of eating, shopping and gambling. Being able to smell, order and enjoy a good curry does mean anything except perchance a great liking for food. When injustice and discrimination happened (Speak mandarin campaign, SAP schools, Mandarin speakers preferred,..etc), what did the chinese do for their non-chinese brothers and sisters? Absolutely nothing! After decades of enjoying the special treatments and privileges, the native born chinese are feeling threatened by their motherland wo/men. It’s time they get a taste of their own medicine for what they have subjected the minorities through for many decades.
ReplyDeleteJust because the native born chinese are now known as Singaporeans doesn’t mean that they have no resemblance to their motherland chinese. The culture, which practises self-absorption, racism, xenophobia, racial/cultural supremacism, is evident in the chinese regardless of locality, just the degree of transparency and I am speaking from my own experience through working and interaction with many chinese in different parts of the world (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Canada, US, UK).
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with you that there is nothing wrong for the 1st wave chinese coming to singapore to make a living but the fact that the ‘1st wave’ chinese did nothing and watched the government took over the state from the Malays and turned singapore into chingapore; giving the chinese advantages over the non-chinese is indeed opportunism at its worst. It is absolutely hypocritical and disgusting to see how they try to ‘chase’ the chinese (foreigners) out. They are just afraid of being put in the positions where they have placed the Malays and the other minorities. This is truly poetic justice!
Yes. Have to admit that the 'native-born' chinese/opposition, or at least most of them, are self-serving hypocrites. They condemn the culture of the new Chinese foreigners while forgetting that this is just about how their ancestors in singapore were.
ReplyDeleteHow conveniently they've forgotten how their chinese triad gangs terrorised the local native-born population of that time (the Malays) along with the indians and the poorer chinese as well. And today, they've incorporated the other races as well. All this 'ang soon tong', 'kun tong' '369', 969' nonsense. My own coffeeshop is full of them until today, with lots of illegal betting, gambling, etc, going on. Yes indeed. The chinese are very 'hardworking' alright. The Indians and Malays never started all this nonsense. It was the 'hardworking' chinese that 'GEM Sg' talked about that did it. Of course not all of them were involved in this nonsense. But they either joined it, or tolerated it. And it was the native-born malays and indian immigrants whom had to pay the price. From my brother to myself, we've all had to contend with these 'pai kia' at some stage of our lives.
And the government still let them exist until today. You know why? Because it helps to keep the lower classes in line, and fragments them as a class between various gangs. So those whom aren't afforded a good education or environment are given a good education via these chinese secret societies where they learn to follow rules, kow tow to their leaders, and develop animosity towards others of the same class but different gang.
The Malays were truly a tolerant people as they only kicked up a fuss much later when the chinese were a large majority. If they were truly racist and self-absorbed and biased like the 'native-born' chinese in singapore, they would have kicked up a big fuss much sooner when the chinese were already 20% or 30% of the population. They didn't did they.