about our project
After much time working on the Literature Review for our project, I have finally been able to compartmentalise our sources and get a rough idea on how we want to define our project.
Is it me… or are there more Chinese nationals around us now than before?
First and foremost, we realize that there is a significant Chinese population in Singapore i.e. Chinese nationals. They come in all sizes, backgrounds and exist in many places; they are there in the service industry, we have Chinese schoolmates/classmates, and we are starting to have Chinese neighbours in our flats and private estates.
Of course, there is also a substantial population of foreigners from other countries but we found that Chinese nationals who are either working, studying or living in Singapore in November last year make up close to a million people. That’s almost… 1/5 of our total population!
Most recently, the Department of Statistics reported that out of our population of 4.99, 1.25 million are foreigners. This means that the Chinese nationals are indeed the majority when it comes to the foreign population living in Singapore.
The Chinese: A hot topic in the Press
We surveyed newspaper reports within the last three years and found that some topics about the Chinese nationals are frequently talked about, year after year.
Language Barrier
One of them is the local’s response towards their difficulty in overcoming language barriers. In a Straits Times report published in July this year, Singaporeans complained about how Chinese workers in the service industry cannot understand simple English. We also discovered that some Chinese workers choose to ignore those who converse in English and only serve those who can speak Mandarin. Bertha Henson wrote in September 2007 in a Straits Times article “When in S’pore, do as S’poreans do” about her experience with a prideful Chinese stallholder who chided her for speaking English despite knowing Mandarin. Henson retorted in her piece that the stallholder, in turn, should learn to speak English. We want to explore the reasons behind this phenomenon: Are they really proud about Mandarin or are they facing real problems in learning how to use the English language?
“They are stealing our jobs”
Due to their prevalence in Singapore, locals have developed a mindset that the Chinese nationals are here to rob them of their jobs. Chinese nationals have been found to be working in many, many industries in our countries. We have met labourers, technicians, professors, and from our research found them to be holding jobs in hospitality, food and beverage and the hotel industries. Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Manpower and Health of Singapore Mr Hawazi Daipi mentioned in his speech at the opening of the Migrant Workers’ Centre in April this year that “We don’t have enough workers in Singapore, so we need to supplement our workforce”.
Thus, Singapore’s open door policy is a reactive response to pressing needs for manpower to run the economy. Yet, while the Singapore government has emphasized that foreigners are here to do the jobs locals do not want to do, the visible presence of migrant workers in droves make Singaporeans uncomfortable.
Our focus is on Chinese transient workers, whom we are keen to understand better. Singaporeans may be vocal about their feelings towards Chinese workers and foreigners, but it is rare to hear what the average Chinese construction worker or waitress think about coming to Singapore. What made them come here and what attracted them to Singapore? Did they ever think of going elsewhere? Most importantly, what are the challenges they face working in a multi-racial country, apart from the language barrier?
“Them” vs “Us”
Singaporeans also frequently express their discomfort with the Chinese nationals lack of integration into the Singaporean society. Commonly known as the “Them and Us” divide, many Singaporeans find that Chinese nationals are not mixing with the locals.
As aptly put by the Prime Minister, Singaporeans have issues with foreigners, in his speech at the 2009 NTU Student Union’s Ministerial Forum:
They are concerned about competition from the new arrivals, they are concerned about different cultures and habits between the new people and the older Singaporeans, they are unsettled by changes to the social landscape and also they worry about the relative treatment between citizens and PRs and non-citizens.
In our research, we found close to a hundred articles that expressed dissatisfaction worry and concern towards the presence of Chinese nationals in Singapore. As mentioned earlier, many articles talked about the unhappiness of Singaporeans towards Chinese workers who cannot speak Basic English. Other concerns border around the growing Chinese enclaves in the People’s Park Complex and Geylang. Some articles also talked about Chinese nationals who become prostitutes and attract local men to eventually running away with their money, about study mamas who work as masseurs to earn a living and fund their children’s studies, to even Chinese nationals who conduct phone and kidnap scams on locals to earn extra income.
Our Next Steps
Very few articles are revealing of the Chinese experience here. Our project aims to unravel the various conspiracies and issues that the Chinese nationals face while living, studying or working here. We realise that many articles express negative sentiments towards the Chinese nationals, but we want to hear from the Chinese as well. Our role is not to empathize with them but we want to give the issue a fair judgment call. We are still in the early stages of our project and we have discovered many surprising finds. Currently, we are conducting interviews with Chinese nationals from all sorts of backgrounds, and continuously analysing coverage of them in the local press.
We hope it will be an enjoyable journey onwards and we hope you will enjoy the ride as well!
-Nab.