We, The Citizens of China.

You Go Makcik! Speak your mind! I think I shall rant some more, sharing the same view as Makcik So'od. Just what is up with the whole Mandarin-speaking preferred thing?? Everytime I turn to the Recruit section of the Straits Times to look up new job openings, I would only fold the papers annoyed and frustrated. Initially, I would eye a few jobs only to carry on reading to my disappointment when I reach the last statement: Mandarin speaking only/preferred/would be an advantage. So much for meritocracy. Apparently, you need to have the ability to speak Mandarin for serving in a cafe downtown. Oh, and have you heard? You need to be Mandarin-speaking to ensure that you can keep a safe watch over a compound. Gasp!! They didn't even let Security Guards off the Mandarin Hook! It just makes me sick in the stomach, or should I just laugh this utter stupidity and poignancy off with a shrug. Nah, definitely the former. What is the point for having to learn the English language when all we do is to feel miserable while looking for job vacancies. And these jobs aren't even executive appointments for MNCs which have branches in Mandarin-speaking countries! They are simply entry level, service related jobs for cash-strapped youths like myself. Maybe not ONLY for youths like myself. If that's the case, then maybe the only jobs that non-mandarin speakers could land are with, say, Zam Zam and Komala Vilas! Although Annalakshmi would be better..heehee. Okay, enough of digression. Maybe Singapore IS in China afterall.

Maybe I shall talk about another issue anyways. Remember the NTU student who participated in a forum with Dr Vivian Balakrishnan some time ago? Is he dumb or is he dumb? Here's an article from The Straits Times:

"ON TUESDAY night, a young man blurted out to 900 of his fellow students that something about marriage was bothering him.He was taking part in a student forum with a Cabinet minister. The setting was Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

Tripping over a string of hems and haws, the nervous youth finally coughed up one of the most disturbingly racist remarks I have heard in recent months. The sight of a man holding hands with a woman of a different skin colour makes his skin crawl, he stuttered.

His nightmare scenario: Should such interracial couples marry, they would dilute racial purity.'As the world becomes more globalised, we will see more of such interracial couples. And when people become more mixed, fewer people will belong to a certain race.'Won't we lose our traditions and cultures?' was his poser to the minister, who was the guest of honour.

Though fashionably pony-tailed, he professed to be a 'conservative'.'Bigot' would have been more befitting.Given that the minister happened to be a product of mixed parentage, it couldn't have been a more awkward moment, though it was probably lost on the youth.

The politician, though, steered clear of controversy and interpreted this as a matter of personal choice.He said: 'These are intensely private matters. Who you want to marry should be entirely your choice... So my position is: It's up to you. You choose your own partners.'Is that really all there is?I flipped open the papers the next day. There screaming in the pages was a story of a Native American teenager who went on a killing rampage in Minnesota.Before shooting nine others and himself, he was an open worshipper of Hitler, and apparently wanted his tribe's bloodline kept pure.

That story and the NTU student's words were, to me, a chilling reminder of a hate mail I once received.Three years ago, following a report I wrote about parents becoming more accepting of their children dating someone from another race, a letter landed on my desk.Flaming-red capital letters spat out 'F*** YOU LAUREL' several times, before the writer proceeded to swear that if any Chinese girl, myself included, were caught with any non-Chinese male, we would be '*@#*...' - several Hokkien expletives too vulgar to be reproduced here.Horrified, I chucked the letter aside and scrubbed it clean from my mind.Only to have the memory resurrected on Tuesday.

Much as I'd like to believe otherwise, I know that racist sentiments lurk in all societies, Singapore included.The question is, how should the rest of us react?Some might argue that most people are more at ease with a partner from the same cultural background, and they have every right to choose so. I can't quarrel with that.But what troubles me to the core is that this NTU youth should deplore others who choose otherwise.Such a stance goes beyond a simple matter of personal choice into how society should be ordered and is, in effect, against the very grain of Singapore's multi- racial make-up.

The NTU youth cannot plead ignorance. He is among the top 20 per cent of every cohort who graduate from universities each year - an elite of sorts.Considering that he has been weaned on the entire education system - from kindergarten to university - surely he must have learnt something about multiracial tolerance and acceptance, which are among Singapore's founding fundamentals?Yet, little of it seemed to have rubbed off on him.I cannot help but worry, how many others out there think like he does, despite the best efforts of education?

And with due respect to the minister, I cannot help but feel that an opportunity was lost there.Given that race is such a red-flagged issue here, I suppose his response was suitably safe and diplomatic.But stripped down to its nasty bones, what the youth was suggesting implied that Eurasians, Peranakans and all others of mixed heritage have no place on this planet.To his eyes - and others who share his view, such mixed-heritage people, which include the minister, should never have been allowed to be born because their parents shouldn't have got together in the first place.There is no need for me to elaborate on how insulting, not to mention dangerous, such views are.

Here, I am glad to report that the other students at the dialogue made no bones about how they felt.As the young man was struggling to make his case, several voices could be heard shouting from the distance, disagreeing with him.And when he tried to continue, his peers in the entire lecture hall clapped thunderously to drown him out.I could even discern a yell of 'Shut up!' as well.As these 900 other young people have shown, it is not enough to squirm silently in the face of blatant racism.

Stubbing out such views may be too tall an order, but there is no excuse for the rest of us not to make clear our condemnation"

Now, when I first read about this, I was not really surprised that such a frowned-upon mentality still exist in this so called multi-racial and multi cultural society. Racism has always been lurking around in this country. It has always been carried out discreetly, sometimes indirect, and also directly. As what Makcik had mentioned, the people of the minority races often end up with the shorter end of the stick, the victims so to speak. Personally, I have endured many racist comments. Most were meant as "jokes" apparently. However, the thought process leading to the joke is what the matter is. To understand and laugh at a racist joke, one has to already have a cultivated pool of racist thoughts. This itself should suffice to label one as a racist. The sad truth in this case is that, this will never cease to desist, in this generation at least.

"The fly cannot be driven away by getting angry at it." -African proverb

Disclaimer: This entry is entirely personal, except for the quoted article from The Straits Times. Comments were not targeted at anyone in particular and offence should not be taken either. Readers should be able to take it with an open-mind rather, I hope.