Tommy Koh’s stupid Indian friends

From ‘Wikileaks: Singapore diplomats on region’, 12 Dec 2010, The Sunday Times …Ambassador (Tommy) Koh was quoted in a cable detailing a September 2009 meeting with US officials. He was commenting on Japan and India in relation to the impact of China’s increasing regional might on both countries. …Koh described Japan as ‘the big fat [...]

Christmas lights up before Deepavali

From ‘It’s not yet Christmas’, 3 Nov 2010, Voices, Today online. Thanks to quirkyhill for the link. (Jana Hahn): I WRITE in to question why Christmas decorations have already gone up in VivoCity when Deepavali is just days away, while it won’t be Christmas for another two months or so. I’m not sure this is [...]

Banks don’t sell new notes on Deepavali

From ‘No new notes and money packets for Deepavali’, 3 Nov 2010, ST Forum online (Gouri Thiagarajan): LAST year, I went to the UOB West Coast branch and asked for new notes and money packets for Deepavali. The bank manager told me that they did not have any and if I wanted them, I should [...]

Devi’s heavy Indian accent

From ‘Don’t squeeze fun out of a person’s accent’, 8 Sept 2010, ST Forum online (K Rajamani): AFTER watching the Fried Rice Paradise musical recently, I was disappointed that the producers made the actress playing Devi speak with an unusually heavy accent. Singaporean Indians don’t speak in such a manner and as far as I [...]

Often-drunk Sikh priest

From ‘Reference to pastor’s father was ill judged’ 27 July 2010 ST Forum (Surjit Singh, Chairman, Sikh Advisory Board): YOUR report (‘Rise of the megachurches’; July 17), and in particular its reference to Pastor Joseph Prince’s father as ‘an often drunk Sikh priest…’, displayed an unacceptable disregard for minority religions in Singapore. …When a mainstream [...]

Dark, dark teacher

From ‘Robots at work’ 29 May 2010, Voices, Today online MY WIFE and I recently went to a popular chocolate shop with our friends from overseas who had read about the place on the Internet. We were greeted by a girl at the entrance, whose way of striking a conversation was: “Hi, you remind me [...]

Indian accents

From ‘Why pick on Indian accent for cheap laughs on radio?’ 7 April 2010 ST Forum The (Class 95 FM) deejays seemed to find it very funny to mimic the way Indians speak (during Harvey Norman traffic updates). And they have done it lots of times. In fact, for most of Singapore’s modern history, radio [...]

McRacist

From ‘Latest McDonald’s ad stereotypes ethnic group negatively” 1 Dec 1992 St Forum Although colonial rule ended in Singapore more than three decades ago, I see from McDonald’s latest televsion commercial “Curry in a Hurry?, that the moth-eaten tapestry of the old empire still flutters in the executive suite of that organisation. The negative stereotyping [...]

Naan the nay

From ‘Is naan’s name racist?’ 14 March 2010 Article in Lifestyle Sunday Times The name Naan the Nay propped up in front of trays of naan at Breadtalk outlets around the island has raised some eyebrows. (Arumugam): “Like if a Chinese pronounced such words, he might be seen as making fun of the way Indians [...]

Indian disco

From Cultural dance was cut 23 April 1980 Letters to ST In the programme (Vasantha Maalai) there was only one Indian classical dance, which started off well — but it was cut after less than 1 1/2 minutes. They could have shortened the disco dance and telecast the whole Indian dance.  I am not a [...]

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