Hi Gaijinhan san! As a Singaporean who has lived in Japan for quite some time, what do you think might be the general impression Japanese people have of Singaporeans?
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Hi L,
Interestingly, I only recently found out there are more Singaporeans here than I had thought. A friend who was transferred to Japan for 5 months invited me to dinner with a group of Singaporeans from a Singapore society-kind of Facebook group some time ago and some of the people I got to know there participated in the recent belated National Day celebration in Tokyo. Through the videos uploaded, I saw how many Singaporeans there actually are here. Yes, I didn’t participate in the event because don’t-ask-me-why.
Prior to that dinner though, I only know maybe a handful of other Singaporeans here and I’m in contact with none of them. The only Singaporeans I actually keep in contact now are, the one friend who got transferred over for 5 months, and another friend who also recently got transferred over for 2 years.
So after such long background information, my point is, I may not know enough Singaporeans to give an empirically-backed idea on what impression Japanese people have of Singapore. The most common thing I hear about Singapore is Merlion, Marina Bay Sands, and hot weather. And then the occasional Singaporeans are really smart and the economy is thriving comments. That’s about it. Many of the Japanese people I met have no idea what language we use back home, it seems. They always ask if there’s such thing as a Singapore language. *Don’t get me on Singlish* And they like to ask if everyone speaks Mandarin. Some are impressed when I use the chopsticks because only Japanese people are allowed to know how to use the chopsticks, surprised when they learn that Singapore is summer all year round because only India is supposed to be always hot, and in awe when I read stuff in English because being Asian means I no speak English. Some have no idea where Singapore is.
And at this point, you would have noticed that there seems to be no negative comments about Singaporeans.
But which Japanese person would tell a Singaporean how much they dislike Singaporeans?
Update 10/5:
1) I totally forgot about Towel and Laksa when I said I don’t keep in contact with other Singaporeans here because for some reason, they somehow just fell into the “Japanese friends” group =\
2) I suddenly recalled some Japanese and Taiwanese friends tell me Singaporeans are good at playing pool, that is until they saw me play =\
I think what’s more important is the impression we give to Japanese people, as Singaporeans. There also isn’t really a collective Singaporean identity (apart from perhaps the use of Singlish) for Japanese to have a solid impression of us.
That’s interesting. When I was studying in Japan (years back), many people will think that Singaporeans are really good in English. I have Japanese friends who just wanted me to sprout random lines in English because they want the hear it and find it “cool”.
Having say that, totally agree with the obsession with Merlion, Marina Bay Sands etc. Would like to think that STB did a stellar job in promoting Merlion as an icon of Singapore.
Well, I guess it’s better than “What’s Singapore?”
To be honest, I do think Singapore has become a more interesting place to live in over the past few years. I do prefer the early 90s Singapore but in this new millennium, the current state probably isn’t the worst.