Racial Harmony Day

Sorry for the less frequent blog posts, but work is busy and also probably not all that interesting to write about all the time so I figure I should limit myself to when I have something relatively interesting to talk about.

This week my school celebrated a National holiday, which is called Racial Harmony Day. Singapore is gearing up for their National Day, which is a seriously big deal here. They have a huge show at Marina Bay and people pay up to $200 for tickets to go. I keep laughing because for Canada Day we all just get some beers and a blanket and watch some fireworks.

Racial Harmony Day is partly because of some racial rioting that happened here a while ago, to try and encourage Singaporeans to embrace each other's cultures. You can imagine that with three very different ethnic groups all living together on such a small island this is an important thing to maintain. Even the Pledge which all Singaporeans take in the morning at school says:

"We the citizens of Singapore pledge ourselves as one united people, regardless of race, language, or religion to build a democratic society based on justice and equality so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation."

It's all a good idea in theory, and I truly to appreciate the sentiment behind it. All things told, Singapore is a much more integrated multicultural society to what we are trying to achieve in Canada. As I work with the youth here I can tell you that lots of kids have friends of different ethnic groups and there is less of a racial divide than you can see in Canada sometimes. Students take the time to learn words of each other's language and when Muslims go to Mosque, or are fasting, everyone knows what's going on and nothing is made into a big deal. The school canteen has Halal food, Chinese and Western and there isn't really the groupings that we have in Canada. Sure, there's Little India or Chinatown but even in those areas you might still find a Mosque, or a Hindu Temple in Chinatown, or a Chinese restaurant in Little India.

That being said, there are certainly still some problems. A teacher I work with who is from Mauritius was called the N word by a student and I had a student use it in my classroom too. Kids here don't really understand the term, but it's still pretty shocking to hear it.

Ads for apartment rentals still contain "No Indians" or "No Malays" because landlords have preconceived notions of people of those groups.

It's going to take more than dressing up in the clothes of another ethnic group for people to really get an understanding of each other, but you do have to hand it to Singapore for trying.

It felt weird and awkward to be consciously dressing up as someone from another culture, in Canada I would have felt like a huge idiot, but here people complemented me on the clothes I bought in Little India.