On the first point, you would have noted pgnmks references to different "species" of Indians. This is probably a manifestation of it. It is a thought held by plenty of locals and unfortunately by the foreigners too. So that connection may not be there. It seems more pronounced among tamils as compared to the Chinese - my observation and I've dated plenty of local Chinese girls and I'm married to a Malaysian Chinese. The other possibility is that the local tamils are sometimes conscious to speak in their language because of Chinese kids who tease them - I've witnessed this myself. Or there's the possibility that they really don't speak the language because they speak Malay instead.sp786 wrote: ↑Sun, 11 Jul 2021 7:38 pm
Another strange thing i've noticed is Tamil is a recognized language in Singapore. When an expat Indian tries to speak to a Singaporean Indian who is Tamil as well, the latter avoids Tamil and speaks English or Singlish however that is not the case with other ethnic groups they speak their native language to each other.
The irony is, someone of Chinese race gets attacked by Westerners then Ms. Singapore flashes "Stop Asian Hate" on her dress but they treat Indians the same way albeit the physical altercation but deconstruct them mentally with subtle ways. TBH this is the hypocrisy that one must be frustrated at and not at Indians as a group.
I'm not really sure - I'm not a Tamil speaker myself so I don't have first hand experience in trying to speak in Tamil and being received like you did. I can tell you this much though - there are plenty of non tamils who are so ignorant about Tamil despite it being an official language, that they can't tell the difference between Hindi and Tamil - 2 vastly different languages that it's like mistaking mandarin for Malay. What that tells me is that despite growing up in Singapore and having been sufficiently exposed to the language and the people, thanks to the governments efforts, they still somehow managed to form their racial cliques.
Your 2nd point about Ms Singapore is a bit more complex because the girl in question is a Filipino Chinese and herself a victim of similar xenophobia. (she's not Singaporean enough, she's Filipino (forgetting that she's also Chinese), she spoke in tagalog ZOMG)