My former classmates.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAs I interviewed other overseas Chinese, I noticed that whether you\u2019re in Mexico, Spain, Trinidad, you\u2019ll notice some barriers between Chinese people born in those places and immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s the same in Singapore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I mean, we really grew up in different environments. Singaporeans are a tropical people who drive on the left and speak a mix of languages in a multiracial, cosmopolitan, urban environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The people from China that I met can come from different backgrounds. I mean, they can be from big cities like Beijing or Shanghai, as they can be from smaller cities or rural areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What about WeChat? I\u2019d bet the majority of people from China use that chat app. Singaporeans might use WeChat but we primarily use WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Naturally, a Singaporean who speaks Chinese will have a different accent from almost all mainland Chinese accents. Some words used in the Singaporean Chinese language would be considered archaic, while others would be considered completely wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That difference exists between all languages. It\u2019s like Spanish\u2026 terms, words and phrases change from country to country (and I\u2019m not even talking about slang).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Are Chinese people from China that different from Chinese Singaporeans? I\u2019d have to say no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I lived in Singapore, I rarely interacted with them. I had a Chinese tutor once from Beijing and she was excellent. She was part of a phenomenon where Chinese mothers would move to Singapore with their child (yes, one child policy) so that the child could study in a Singaporean school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But as I moved to Canada, I encountered many, many more people from China. I learned that we have the same beliefs, habits and modes of living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year, I went to eat hot pot with my university roommate and his fiance from China. The hot pot was all-you-can-eat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think I ordered rice and she was… aghast. I could almost hear her say, \u201cDude, you\u2019re at a buffet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that\u2019s when I knew our upbringings are\u2026 very similar despite us growing up in different nations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
FAQ<\/h2>\n\n\n\nAre Singaporeans Chinese?<\/strong> The majority of Singaporeans are Chinese. However, it’s not a Chinese country but a mulitracial one. The multiracial environment is encapsulated in the “CMIO” model which stands for Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others.<\/p> <\/div>
How Chinese is Singapore?<\/strong> Probably the most Chinese country outside of East Asia.<\/p> <\/div>
What Chinese does Singapore speak?<\/strong> Singapore had many different Chinese people who migrated from Hainan, Fujian, Guangdong and other southern parts of China, and they brought their native dialects to Singapore.
So, in the past, people spoke Hainanese, Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese, Mandarin among others.
My mother told me that Hokkien (southern Min) used to be the lingua franca among Chinese people.
Gradually, though, the post-independence generation speaks Mandarin as the Chinese we learn in school is in Mandarin.<\/p> <\/div>
What are Singapore noodles?<\/strong> A scam that has nothing to do with Singapore.<\/p> <\/div> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How Chinese is Singapore? The long and short answer: people think it’s part of China. It isn’t. But one thing that really sets Singapore apart from other places that have overseas Chinese is the fact that it’s probably the ONLY place where Chinese people are not a minority. I can’t think of any other place […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":444,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions\/444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}