Yes, that is the question that people should ask when meeting someone for the first time rather than what is your name. When the government announced end 2009 that children of mixed parentage are allowed to pick their choice of dominant race between the two, I was a little surprised by the new Act. Shortly after came the inclusion of double-barrel race.... but is it really necessary and is it that important? Not that I cannot appreciate the implication (I try to) but why complicate matters when all these while Father's race has always been the dominant one and I don't think we have that many unhappy folks out there or am I missing something here?
I do not deny that Singapore despite being a multi-racial country, pledge ourselves as one united nation regardless of race, language or religion... sadly racism exists. I think the government's move is to try to eliminate that issue but I doubt it will help much, rather, it is underscoring the subject of concern. Must we really segregate ourselves by race and is that the only way to identify each other? IMO, we cannot afford to have race separating us. In fact because of race, we are divided somewhat. We should be proud of who we are and not what we are.
Soon guessing the race of someone of mixed parentage is akin to picking Toto or 4D numbers as there will be many permutations. Let me think..... Chinese-Indian; Malay-Indian; Chinese-Malay; Javanese-Chinese; Indian-Malay and the list goes on. Oh, I think the other issue raised is that Eurasians are currently classified under Others for their race but with this new policy the issue is somewhat not totally ironed out, because on application forms under Race, it shows Chinese, Malay, Indian, Others and with many - I assume - choosing to go with the double-barrel race will still have to tick that choice. So, are we changing for the better or worse? And with this we surely live up to being a MULTI-racial society.
