\/Death^kimono\/

” Sometimes I wonder if you look down on me, because u live in Semi D and I live in a HDB flat.”

It’s not just one person who has said this to me, its been one “close friend” after another way back when I gave a shit about friendships and people to bother with kind words and reassurances, when in fact I’m wondering when the fuck I gave off the vibe that I look down on anyone.

Maybe it was the cold sweat and stammering when I spoke to people, my doughy slightly overweight physique, the fact that I worked for the money in Pre-U to support my mum who was cut off from allowances by my dad. And after she found work I continued the tuition and could afford shit outside of the $5 per day allowance I got. Yes I was a rolly polly wad of confidence, reeking of elitism, by the single fact that I lived in a semi D and that my dad, a self made millionaire, drove a flashy car, because he was proud of his accomplishments, and why shouldn’t he? I’m proud of my dad, I don’t think I could have achieved what he achieved. But did I ever pull my weight about it? No. My friends whom I still talk to know it.

By sheer appearances, I was pigeonholed, most of the time without me knowing I was. I could not crack a joke, or even be happy about doing something well ( which wasn’t often) without being called “proud” and hurting someone’s tender un-elitist hearts.

For the longest time, I thought I was insensitive, I apologised because I know it’s not easy to be struggling and maybe I really don’t understand. I reassured and reassured that classism is wrong, elitism is wrong, that we are all people and what is important is our friendship. I defended and defended these people’s parents when they spat out the fact that they are ” labourers” or as one ex boyfriend tearfully told me ” a taxi driver uncle”, that they are earning an honest living, putting them through school, that it’s a beautiful thing and I envy them for the things I don’t have in my family.

But all they saw, boyfriends, best friends, were that I lived in a semi D and that I probably look down on them because of it. Putting up false fronts, assuming that my money is free to spend because my daddy’s rich ( That rendered me penniless in much of my 20s, because I refuse to ask my dad for money and I’m glad I have not. Not even when I was hospitalised.), the things I have that I bought with my hard earned money, are assumed to be gifts. Do you know how it feels to be seen as a freeloader when every fucking thing and every accomplishment I have was an uphill battle with family who thinks I’m unemployed when I’m not and friends who think I have it easy? It feels like shit. I’m not the worst of cases for sure, but to be misunderstood like that pisses me off, and I can’t even defend myself, because I love my work, and I’m not gonna start moaning about it because people don’t know.

Fact is, I am living it up, but not because I live in a semi d, or that my dad’s rich. Is cause I soldiered on and I managed to eke out a living without compromising and I’m proud now because whatever small accomplishments I have are mine, and I’m not living a lie, I did not cave and I am on the way to becoming the person I want to be.

So am I an elitist? No. A resounding no. I am in fact lower in this blasted social scale than the average HDB kid when I was still a farm girl. I was filthy, wild and uncouth. I bathed using water from a well, and the toilet was an outhouse with a hole dug into the ground where snakes would hide. HDB kids SCOFFED AT ME in Primary school with their Nintendos and functioning toilet bowls in the house. But suddenly, because I moved from the farm to a Semi D, I look down on people?

NO. I’m not the elitist one.

THE ACCUSERS ARE. They want to be elitist, but they are not there yet. And so they look for someone to blame and I became an easy target because I was stupid enough to think they were friends and deserved my compassion.

Is there a point beyond this easily misunderstood rant?

Yes. It’s that elitism cannot be defeated if we do not have pride in who we are in the first place. If all we do is complain that we are victimised and gloss over people by judging them purely on the superficial things. That we cannot compete, that we are not worthy. That if this person is rich the only choices I have is to be subservient or defensive.

But there is another option, and that is to hold your own, see the value of who you are as a person beyond the material comparisons. Because not everyone who lives in a landed property, or is successful, or earns millions is elitist. They may be a little removed from certain regularities in your life, but until they actually show it, maybe we can all benefit from removing this class separation in the way we assess each new encounter.Don’t blight a perfectly innocent friendship with an inferiority complex that only perpetuates the divide, a part of me that cares and spent copious hours trying to set things straight is gone, because if having a person u deem “elitist” kowtow to you so you can feel better is what you want, sorry, look for another poor sap who is misguidedly guilty for no reason.

Thanks alot you dickheads who ruined my teenage years and early adulthood.

I’m not gonna talk about racism in Singapore. Because I’m part of the majority race here, and there is no way I can understand the experience of minorities with various levels of racism as a Singaporean. And I won’t try.

I would like to talk about racism itself. And my own encounters and perspectives on the issue.

To be honest, I see myself more colourblind than most. Maybe it’s because I grew up in an environment that would make racial slurs ( be it at home or in school), and I’ve always made it a point to counter that behaviour with the opposite, which is not slurring back, but just being indifferent to it and if I could, make the person who got the brunt of it feel better, and see that not all chinese are racist bastards.

Sure, I also fuck up the racist a bit, ( and the list of people I’ve fucked up includes my parents on many occasions), but the truth of it is, I’ve always found it more consequential to assure the victim of racism that life is not defined by the colour of our skin. That to me is more important. Because like it or not, racism is always going to be here, it stems at its most harmless levels from ignorance ( and that actually can be easily turned around, since it’s often an echo of a more sinister source) and at its worse, it stems from bigotry and hate. Bigotry is a form of negative empowerment, humans are junkies for power, it is harder to change such a racist. The most we can do by fucking them up, is to drive the racism into less open avenues. Making YOURSELF feel better, is just another form of bigotry btw, sure I feel shiok about it, but it really is not something to hold on to for more than one chat session.

The victim. I’ve encountered racism before. My 3 years in Australia were peppered with these highlights. Walking down the street, people would just hurl abuse at you for fun. ” Chink go home!”, “dog”; when I’m in the way or fill in a form wrong, it’s not just Biddy who cocked up, it’s ” you people”. The only time I spoke up was in the last encounter when I was filling up a form at immigration to get a work visa, I got pissed off. Not because I felt victimised, but because the thought of me, having gone 48 hours with no sleep on my 5000 word essay the nights before, adding on to this joker’s stereotyping of illiterate chinese people he can happily slip snide remarks to without them knowing, irked me, in it’s factual inaccuracy as much as his obvious penchant for bullying. If I were illiterate, I suppose I’d just shrug and tell him not to be mean.

” I’M TIRED OK? Not enough sleep. Maybe if you could do your job and guide me on this form instead of making these remarks, we could all go home faster.”

He stopped for a bit, and waited quietly for me to correct my mistakes.

There was no victory there, save for the fact that he can’t add me to his flawed statistics of docile asians who will just take it.

I’ve never felt angry about racism. I would laugh out loud in their face, and if I’m in a particularly wierd mood, I might reply with cock remarks like ” What’s a chink? Woof woof.”, they get really disoriented by this and it cracks me up. It’s not even a bitter humour, I’ve always found it to be a joke. To put it clearly, through my own adherence to a personal code since young, I’ve become immune and I did not realise this wonderful aspect of myself till I encountered racists in the streets. It was a surprise strength, I’m actually in a twisted way, grateful. But these encounters do not make up a large part of my nostalgia toward lovely Sydney and it’s people. More like a sidenote when I run through all the great memories or when I need to back up an insight into the issue of racism like in this article here.

I’m glad I did not go home crying about it, or start questioning my own race. In fact, I went to Australia with crisp speaking english, and a relatively unidentifiable personality and came back, much to my dad’s dismay, a cussing ah lian who only switches to proper English when it’s official writing.

That’s my consequence to encountering racism. I become more of that race, that nationality. Not spitefully but to dispel stereotypes by representing myself as a Singaporean, a chinese, but also the things that they do not expect, the fact that I understand English, that I am opinionated and above all that I really don’t give a crap about what they thought I was because I am a yellow.

There are a few reactions to racism that I’ve observed. There are those who take it calmly, there are those who are angry and then there are those, who agree.

The last group is the one I don’t understand the most. I don’t understand why racism would make you start hating your own race, adopt western influences or look down on the stereotypical ones. I get that it can be frustrating to be bunched together with negative traits that you may not have, but to allow it to erode your self worth, and form a brand new segregation, I don’t understand that. To me, combating racism requires solidarity rather than separation. I’d rather say ” I’m Chinese and proud of it.” And if possible educate the ignorant racist on my race and my country, rather than say ” I’m Chinese, but I’m not like most chinese people.” I am and yet I’m not, that’s a fact. Try as we may, we are all consequences of our cultural background which is often influenced by the race we are in, but we are also affected by the basic instincts of being human, to put it simply. What racism tries to do merely, is take an aspect and disempower the victim, it’s a lazy approach to assessing people and really it’s a sad way to be.

The worst thing people can do, is agree with racists and allow their actions to become a factor in every irrelevant action and aspiration or to hold the anger to such a degree that there is no room to laugh at parody. To me, that’s more dangerous than mild acts of racism, because freedom is lost. The freedom to be whatever you want to be.