Wednesday 18 September 2013

A word on immigrants in Singapore

Read an article in Zaobao today. Actually it was a letter from a reader 伍治坚 on 我们需要什么样的社会 - see the scan here cos I can't find the URL on the website.

From what he wrote, he seemed to be a new Singaporean from China. He had lived in Singapore for more than 10 years and also lived in the UK and the US before. Recently, a local Singaporean couple told him to go back to China and claimed that they were "real" Singaporeans. His five-year-old son who was present then and who was born here was baffled as to why they were told to "go back to China".

Through highlighting this incident, he questioned the kind of society we need and what we should do before this societal sickness - 社会病 - gets worse. He expressed a hope that his son would not need to be troubled by this problem when he grows up.

I'm so sad for his son. I share the writer's hope that the next generation - be it immigrant or local-born - will not need to make such differentiation of who's "real" and who's not.

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