Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE SINGAPOREAN
PEOPLE
Many tourists come to S ingapore for the
shopping or the sights, but I lo ve the
people. M ost often, when y ou trav el in
foreign lands, the people y ou meet ar e
other international travelers. In Singapore,
however, the friends y ou make ar e many
times S ingaporean—perhaps it 's because
of the common language, perhaps because
Singaporeans ar e v ery open to
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(75%); M alays (13.7%); I ndians (8.7%);
and others (2.6%), including E urasians.
(The total population is 4.84 million,
which includes foreigners living and work-
ing in S ingapore.) Though the countr y is
overwhelmingly Chinese, the go vernment
has embraced all local heritage, r ecogniz-
ing r eligious holidays and festiv als and
promoting racial harmony in its policies as
part of its plan to foster a single national
identity molded fr om the disparate cul-
tural backgr ounds of the S
Western
ingaporean
culture.
The median age of the population is
around 35, with most Singaporeans strug-
gling to juggle wor k and family r esponsi-
bilities the same as in any other
populace.
Unfortunately, this go vernment social
planning may hav e contributed to one of
the common pr oblems that plague S inga-
pore's younger generations today: a lack of
identity. No longer solely immersed in the
traditions of their o wn ethnic gr oups and
with traditional v
post-industrialized countr y. While most
Singaporeans of both sex es tend to focus
on educational and career goals, most also
marry later and have children later, a trend
that has left the government worried about
a declining bir th rate. Yet even with these
demands, your average Singaporean never
loses sight of “ Asian family v alues” that
encourage childr en to liv e with and car e
for their aging parents—many households
are multigenerational.
There's an ev er-present image con-
sciousness fuelled b y heavy consumerism.
Fashion, cars, and social scenes ar e “in. ”
Money is in. S uccess is in. Young S inga-
poreans strive for what they call the 5Cs—
career, condo, car , cash, and cr edit
cards—and it sometimes seems they'll stop
at nothing to achieve them.
As with any modern cultur e, while the
younger generations are busy finding their
niche in the world, it is the older genera-
tions who keep traditional cultur es aliv e.
Singapore's resident population, measured
at 3.64 million people, is a mix of Chinese
alues being rapidly
replaced b y commer cialism, it 's not sur-
prising to hear so many young people ask,
“Who am I?”
The Chinese
When Raffles opened S ingapore's port for
free trade, junkloads of Chinese immi-
grated to find their for tunes. M ost w ere
poor wor kers fr om China 's southern
regions who br ought with them differ ent
cultures and dialects fr om their r espective
places of origin. Of the mix, the Hokkiens
from Fujian Province ar e the largest per-
centage of Chinese in S ingapore, at 42%,
followed by the Teochews, of G uangdong
province, the Cantonese, also from Guang-
dong; the H akkas, fr om central China;
and finally the H ainanese, fr om H ainan
island (near Hong Kong), at 6%.
The Chinese ar e o ver 50% B uddhist,
following the dharma of the Buddha, who
taught that all life is suffering and the only
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Fun Facts
The Little Red Dot
Singapore is the second most densely populated county in the world, behind
Monaco.
