Singapore: A Mix of Cultures and Religions

(from Mary Bohan)

During the past few weeks one thing I have found is that there is a huge mix of people from completely different backgrounds, living very peacefully together. In food stalls there are Indian and Muslim food stalls right next to each other, on the train you'll see Chinese and Japanese people talking to each other, and a mix of European and American expats are always around as well. I even found it very interesting that the people I work with, who have distinctly Chinese and Malaysian names, do not identify with these cultures, but insist that they and their families are Singaporean. I was speaking with a girl from Singapore that I work with yesterday, and she asked if she could ask me a very personal question, so I was a bit hesitant and worried about what it could be, and she asked if there was racism where I came from. I explained to her that most people in our country are not racist at all, but that there had historically been problems in the South of the country, and that for the most part people are trying to move on. She responded "Oh, well if you were racist, you wouldn't have come to Singapore!" which I was quite surprised at, as racism hadn't even crossed my mind the entire time I'd been here.

This weekend I went to Indonesia which was definitely an interesting experience, it's a completely different way of life than in Singapore. It's odd to think that Singapore is such a modern and westernized country in between two developing countries, there are such huge differences within an hour or two of leaving Singapore. In terms of religion, in Singapore there is a huge mix of religions, I was speaking to a Hindi girl who grew up here, and she was saying that most people take notice of all of the religious holidays, but that no one religion gets more attention than another. The country is 43% Buddhist, 15% Christian, 15% Muslim, and 4% Hindu, while Malaysia is 60% Muslim and Indonesia is 86%. I found this difference to be very clear as all the women dressed a lot more conservatively, the food was clearly defined into that with pork and that without, and there were prayer rooms next to the departure gates at the airport.