Tan Ying Hui

Tan Ying Hui

The Chinese Palette loh

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 Chineseness, 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 or not 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?