Singapore - a Multicultural City

Like Vancouver (my home city), Singapore is a multicultural city with citizens and immigrants of various Asian, Indian, and European descents. I feel at home here amongst the mix of people in the city and all too familiar with the tensions of living in a “multicultural” society. The city is proud of its multicultural heritage and promotes its thriving “ethnic” communities to tourists. The taxi driver bragged to me about the lack of discrimination here – “even to the Malays,” which gave me a hint about social hierarchy within the city. He shows me Little India and warns me not to come here on a Sunday when there are “too many black (Indian) people in the streets”. Despite Singapore’s reputation for being one of the safest cities in the world, I am told that Little India is not the best place for a woman-on-her-own to stay.