I like to look at angmo’s (which means Caucasians in Singlish). It doesn’t matter what shape, size or colour they come in—I like to look at them all. You can say that I have OOACD (Obsessive Ogling At Caucasians Disorder). I ogle at females as equally as I ogle at males. In the bus, in the train, at the supermarket or the mall: I have a special radar that alerts me to their presence, and immediately I turn and stare at them until I get slapped by them (which hasn’t happened so far).
First of all, I marvel at their superb height. Caucasian girls at 13 look 17 because of their cool stature. And while I’m 17, I look more like a 13 year old thanks to my diminutive frame.
Then comes their hair colour. It’s so naturally fabulous—brilliant ginger, flaming red, platinum blonde, rich mahogany brown… lustrous colors that hair dye can never achieve on Asian hair.
Their eyes are mesmerising. Their coloured irises give their eyes so much depth. The range of colours they come in are also mind-boggling. I clearly remember my father’s light green eyes. The intensity of the green varied according to his mood. When he was worked up, it turned really bright and almost fluorescent. His eyes pale to an almost ashy shade of green when he’s calm and serene. I used to clamour for his attention as a child because I could never quite figure out why his eyes looked so different from mine.
It suddenly seems to me, that in this corner of the globe, Asians are spending their whole lives (and quite some money as well) trying to look like Caucasians, or at least resemble them in some way. Take a walk down Orchard Road on a Saturday night, and you can see many locals trying to hard—bleached hair, coloured contact lenses, mile-high heels… It really makes me sick because everything appears all too artificial.
By now you’re probably thinking, “Hey, this Jennyspeaks person is just another Caucasian worshipper.” While I do admit that I have a unashamed admiration for them, my reasons are actually more deep than that. The truth is, I am half Caucasian. I’m half Indian as well, which makes me Eurasian I suppose.
Raised mostly by my Indian mother in tropical Singapore, and hardly seeing my British father, I never really bothered about my so-called British heritage. I was fed with curry, learnt my lah’s and leh’s, went to a local school and swore in Hokkien before I learnt my fuck you’s. To make matters more complicated, everyone in school was Chinese (with a few Malay and Indian exceptions) and I was treated as Chinese thanks to my pale skin. I even learnt Mandarin as my mother tongue. So for a good part of my childhood, I tried to be Chinese, convinced that it was my destiny. My horrible Chinese gave me away.
I was pretty culturally confused and never knew what Eurasian life was meant to be like. While I’m quite familiar with my Indian half already (with Bollywood/Kollywood films, briyani, pesky relatives, and what not), there’s a part of me that yearns for more Caucasian interaction.
Sometimes the feeling of isolation hits me. I realise that I’m the ultimate minority, wherever I go.
Most of my peers think it’s cool to be Eurasian. I do accept that being different has its perks because you tend to get noticed. But sometimes I feel like I’m one big cultural mess. I have a cultural identity crisis. It doesn’t help that contact with my father has come to a standstill. I’ve never had the chance to build firm bonds with any Caucasian people my age too.
So that is why I like to stare at Caucasians. There’s this glass wall separating me from my other half. I see likely companions in these people walking by, but I can only stare. I want to talk to them, to be friends with them, to be with reconnect with my “own kind”. But they continue walking. Then they’re gone. And then I return to my muddled existence where everyone else is Chinese, and I don’t know what I am.
