The Chinese Palette loh

• Main Author: Tan, Ying Hui
• Other Authors: Kristy H.A. Kang
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Visual arts and music::General::Social aspects; Visual arts and music::Design
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/149782
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The Chinese Palette loh is a web database that, as the name suggests, paints the real and unseen diversity of Singaporean Chinese identities. It is not an unknown fact that Singaporean Chinese are often criticised for their lack of Chinese-ness, mainly due to their poor Mandarin proficiency. Some of whom have abandoned so much of their mother tongue, a Singlish term — “Ang Moh Pai” was coined to label these westernised individuals. It is as if the identity solely falls upon whether you can speak Mandarin which is a superficial judgement considering that there are so many facets to a culture. The data collected in this project has shown that we perpetuate the ideal Chinese identity as being well assimilated with the culture. But does cultural knowledge equate to cultural attachment? This research interviewed a total of 15 youths from ages 20 to 30 years old, half of which were ethnic Chinese, and the other half were of mixed-ethnic Chinese. During the interview, the participants were asked to share their personal thoughts, opinions, and experiences regarding the topic. The discussions were geared towards finding out how each individual identifies with their ethnicity, their perception of Chinese-ness, how and why does ethnic culture matter to them? The complete list of interview questions can be found in Appendix C. Although this topic serves under the scope of Sociology and Anthropology, it should be understood that this study aims to create a visualization and artistic response to the topic. It is purely a presentation of the ethnic diversity and the unspoken issues that exist within the Singaporean Chinese community.