Identity Crisis: Singapore Chinese or Just Chinese lah?

2019 marks the year of Singapore's Bicentennial, in which authorities have chosen to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Raffles' arrival in Singapore. Concurrently, we have chosen to relook, reexamine and redefine our Chinese-Singaporean identity in the greater contextual relationship with China, amidst the forthcoming emergence of the largest global development strategy "One Belt, One Road" or the "Belt Road Initiative".

There seems to be a greater sense of ownership to one's identity that Singapore struggles and is expeditiously trying to outline and elucidate in a common, resonant and honest-to-goodness Chinese identity-culture that the typical Singaporean can unambiguously align themselves with.

To further map out what Singapore-Chinese (SG-CH) identity is influenced by or conceived by external or internal forces, we must understand the facts and forces that shaped Singapore as a South-east Asian city-state, tied to her historic roots of Straits Chinese-ness. In Singapore, the common, official grounds of cultural association and identification is one that is antithetically detached from China, in conception of a singular and distinctive Singapore-Chinese culture.

In the words of PM Lee, the unique rituals and traditions for Chinese New Year is "reflection of the Southeast Asian heritage of the Straits Chinese".