Synopsis
Anyone who is familiar with East Asia, (the Far East), is aware of
the highly-successful 'economic miracle' that is the island Singapore.
This explosive, disturbing story is a facet of the many-sided face
of the former Malay island, on the brink of the Riau Archipelago,
that the world would have no inkling of.
This is the story of a British-descent Eurasian -- born, raised and
striving in his island-home, perceiving that he isn't regarded as
part of the fabric of his country, and experiencing rejection through
racial bigotry, not only during the former British colonial era but
even after independence
.
Just because he is Eurasian, a 'mixture' of White and Asian. While
the other racial 'mixes' of Chinese-Malay, Malay-Indian and Indian-Chinese
appear to suffer no disadvantages.
The Eurasian protagonist sees a Singapore heading into the 21st Century
with the genuine multi-racial flavour of his society, (which had been
created by Stamford Raffles and the colonial administrators after
him), becoming a thing of the past. With the 'Overseas Chinese' kicked
out of Vietnam and other 'Overseas Chinese' in the respective South
East Asia societies in the region having to either assimilate or leave,
the Chinese-dominant Singapore Government has created a 'Sino environment'
on Singapore to attract ethnic-Chinese from abroad to settle in his
island-home, while Eurasians like him are made to feel like outcasts.
He 'witnesses' the transformation of his island into a Sino-society
- from place-names, ensuring that ethnic-Chinese hold key-posts in
government, playing up the use of Mandarin-Chinese, the switching
of dialect-names to Hanyu-Pinyin, to even the attempt to rewrite Singapore's
Malay history to intimate that the island has always had a 'Chinese-connection',
and the ignoring of Singapore's Malay history and connection.
Finally in his forties he decides to give up being a "second-class
Singaporean" of mixed descent to become English, reclaims his
English heritage which he had always submerged because very early
in life he had chosen to identify with Singapore but has since realised
that he had made an error of judgement.
Singapore is no longer his multi-racial home.