GRIP, Internships Abroad You Look Like Me

As I reflect on my time in Singapore, I realized how important being surrounded by people who looked like me was to my personal development. I grew up in a white suburban neighborhood where I could count the number of Asian people I knew in my 700-person graduating class on my two hands. I was constantly reminded of how my culture and what I looked like was not the norm. Despite this, my grandparents would always remind me that my Asian heritage would be appreciated and recognized one day. In Singapore, I was no longer the minority, and I found a sense of community almost immediately with the people I interacted with. I knew I could relate to them and their lived experiences: celebrating Lunar New Year, eating Chinese dishes, using umbrellas to cover sun rays. Seemingly mundane habits like taking your shoes off in the house or using chopsticks to eat meals became significant points of connection for me as they weren’t relatable back at home. Not only did I resonate with strangers who looked like me, but I could also trust that they shared the same sentiment. This unspoken understanding between me and the hawker stall workers, friends from NUS, and even my colleagues at work made me feel at home in a way that I could never have experienced back in my actual hometown.

This sense of belonging extended beyond just physical appearance and cultural practices—it also encompassed language. When I arrived in Singapore, the auntie who served me my first dinner at Makansutra Gluttons Bay spoke to me in Chinese as she served me an assorted platter of satay. It was the first time a stranger had ever defaulted to Chinese and not English when speaking to me, and our short conversation engendered a warm familial feeling in me. Though I grew up speaking English in school, I spoke exclusively Chinese with my grandparents who raised me. I would often be frustrated that I couldn’t communicate with my peers in my mother tongue, so being able to converse with many Singaporeans in both Chinese and English (two of the four official languages of the country) was a particularly positive experience for me.

Beyond hearing my language being used around me, I enjoyed learning the subtle differences between Singaporean Mandarin and Chinese Mandarin. While eating dim sum, my Singaporean friend and I discovered many terms that did not overlap between the two dialects, such as “shao mai” (Chinese Mandarin) and “siew mai” (Singaporean Mandarin). These small distinctions in language, shaped by geography and history, only deepened my appreciation for the rich tapestry of my cultural heritage. They served as a reminder that our identity is both deeply rooted and beautifully diverse, strengthened by the different places we call home.