The Indian History Museum

We got several facts at the Indian History Museum that were surprising. Remember that Singapore was a British colony for a long period of time – well, for most of that, Singapore was just a subdivision of India. Their laws come from the Indian Penal Code. They were ruled from India.

What we didn’t know, though, was that it was a penal colony, much like Australia. You mess up, your ass got shipped off to Singapore.

Some of ‘em figured out this wasn’t so bad. They tended to be cattlemen and stayed on.

There’s still some unofficial discrimination in Singapore that we found a little surprising. In schools, although English is the primary language, kids are taught their “ethnic” language as a second. Thus, Chinese kids learn Mandarin, etc. They aren’t allowed to change, though.

Indian parents can’t say that they want their kids to learn Mandarin. Why is this important? Because it’s still legal to say “Mandarin Speaking Only” when you open up some job positions. Thus, the government (which, remember has a population of 74% Chinese) continues to institutionalize the discrimination that exists.