lordoflight
19-01-2010, 09:24 PM
This is not a trick question. It is genuine. While Han Chinese and Malays are relatively uniform, calling somebody Indian is not a meaningful racial categorisation. It is like calling someone Malaysian, Singaporean, American or Australian. Their ethnicity could be anything.
Years ago 'Indians' in Singapore were mainly Tamils - generally distinguished by dark skin, thosai and roti prata and an 'aroma' of coconut oil and spices. There were also many Sikhs, and anyone can see the are totally different - tall, fairer skinned, turban, very hairy, bearded etc. Now, with increased immigration of Indians there are indians who can look distinctly caucasian if they are from Himachal or Kashmir, more Spanish/Italian, if they are from North India or indistinguishable from Chinese if they are from Nepal, or north east, and almost any mix imaginable between each one of these racial groups. All their IC's will say Indian and they all contribute to SINDA - but most cant speak each other's language; and some could never imagine sleeping with another type of Indian.
So when you guys say Indians not allowed etc. who do you mean - Singapore Tamils, sikhs, fair-skinned north indians, brown skinned north indians, mongoloid/chinese looking Indian, Bangladeshi construction workers or all of the above - in which case, it is not an issue of racism per se, but I guess 'politicism' - as Indian is not a race, but a collection of races that all live in the same political unit.
Having gone to local university, no Singaporean, caucasian, Japanese, or Korean girl of any race had any issue sleeping with Indian students (from India, not Singapore) that I knew. The problem is the term 'Indian' in this forum has become confused with 'Bangladeshi construction worker' or the Serangoon Road crowd, which is totally misleading!@!
Years ago 'Indians' in Singapore were mainly Tamils - generally distinguished by dark skin, thosai and roti prata and an 'aroma' of coconut oil and spices. There were also many Sikhs, and anyone can see the are totally different - tall, fairer skinned, turban, very hairy, bearded etc. Now, with increased immigration of Indians there are indians who can look distinctly caucasian if they are from Himachal or Kashmir, more Spanish/Italian, if they are from North India or indistinguishable from Chinese if they are from Nepal, or north east, and almost any mix imaginable between each one of these racial groups. All their IC's will say Indian and they all contribute to SINDA - but most cant speak each other's language; and some could never imagine sleeping with another type of Indian.
So when you guys say Indians not allowed etc. who do you mean - Singapore Tamils, sikhs, fair-skinned north indians, brown skinned north indians, mongoloid/chinese looking Indian, Bangladeshi construction workers or all of the above - in which case, it is not an issue of racism per se, but I guess 'politicism' - as Indian is not a race, but a collection of races that all live in the same political unit.
Having gone to local university, no Singaporean, caucasian, Japanese, or Korean girl of any race had any issue sleeping with Indian students (from India, not Singapore) that I knew. The problem is the term 'Indian' in this forum has become confused with 'Bangladeshi construction worker' or the Serangoon Road crowd, which is totally misleading!@!