Races in Singapore

As a Singaporean, we have known since young about the various ethnic groups in Singapore. There are Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian and Others. These groups are distinct and most of the time, it is easy for us to identify them based on their appearance. Nevertheless, I realized I have taken this race issue for granted, as my knowledge was tested on an overseas trip. Cant remember which trip it was, but I do recall it was on a tour with other tour members who came from different countries all over the world. I usually go on F&E tours and join the local tours. So in one particular tour, a friendly Caucasian wanted to know more about Singapore, and the conversation broached to races. I mentioned that Singapore has the 4 main races, and the listener asked me, about Malays and Indians. As a Caucasian, his idea of Indian was the Red Indians in US. We easily clarified that these were people who came from India. As for Malays, he had never heard of this group of people. Who are they? This time, I was stumped. Hmmm.. a Malay is a Malay lor….. but of cos, that’s not a good answer when we are being the informal ambassador of our country. The second thing that came to our mind – people from Malaysia. Well, he bought that, and there was no further questions. But in my mind, I also felt this answer to be too sweeping. There are Malaysia Chinese, Malaysia Indians too.. I started to be more aware of the origins of Malay in Singapore. From what I gathered, most of them came from Indonesia, eg Java and Sumatra regions. But lately, I read in the papers, under Malaysia’s Federal Constitution, 'Malay means a person who professes the religion of Islam, habitually speaks the Malay language, (and) conforms to Malay custom’. From my observations, the language spoken by Singapore Malays is the same as that of Malaysian Malays, while in Indonesia, the Bahasa Indonesian language is slightly different from those in Singapore / Malaysia. So if Singapore Malays originated from Indonesia, why are they more similar to Malaysian Malays than Indonesians? Hmm… I see the same situation in Chinese. Singaporean Chinese and Malaysian Chinese are more similar than to their China counterparts though we all have our roots in China. My theory is this: maybe in early years, many Indonesians migrated to Malaysia and Singapore and in time to come, established their own identity as Malays. Since Malaysia and Singapore have historically been closely linked, it is no surprise that Singapore and Malaysia Malays share many similarities. Still, how best to explain to someone who has no inkling what is a Malay? Going by their religion (Islam) may make the person relate more to those in the middle east……