Not looking like a Chinese is interesting sometimes.

Especially in a multi-racial city like Singapore, it's not uncommon for me to be mistaken as being from another race. It's alright most of the time cos I don't think of race as a big issue, and it does make for some amusing situations.

When I was in Primary One, everyone thought I was Peranakan. As a result, they always said that one Baba, that one Baba to my face. It got a little irritating at times, since I had to justify my Chinese-ness by speaking the language (which I was very poor at, sad to say). But after a while, I got used to it. After all, being Peranakan isn't a bad thing.

Then there was another time when I was in Primary Five. It was after school and I was sipping on a can of milo. It also happened to be the month of Ramadan and a lot of my Malay friends were fasting. I was leaving the school grounds when an elderly Malay cleaner started to gently chide me for breaking fast. I smiled and said I was not Malay, and he nodded back and smiled apologetically.

In secondary school and junior college, it got slightly better. I took Higher Chinese and was exempted from Chinese during these 2 periods respectively, so there was not much doubt about my heritage. However, it didn't stop people outside school from mistaking my race once again.

Around that period, I remember going to an Indian restaurant to eat with my family. It was a family-run place and rather homely. In Indian restaurants, a server will usually come over with some tin containers containing different curried vegetables. So, you can ask for as much as you want with your rice. He kept staring at me and suddenly commented something. Another waiter, who could understand Tamil, said I looked like his sister. Haha.

And today, the same thing occurred again. I was walking around when I noticed this 17 year-old guy come up to me, as usual, saying that typical line.

"Hi, don't worry, I'm not trying to sell you anything or hurt you. You look like you can speak English..."

So I replied, in perfectly clear Singaporean-accented English.

"I'm sorry, am in a bit of a hurry. Thank you.