u/throwaway-it-all

Asking this from the perspective of a Malaysian Chinese (right across the causeway haha) and im sure there's at least a few local singaporeans here. Especially as a vernacular (chinese) school kid, I don't think it's an uncommon opinion that most of us do not prefer interracial relationships, both from a religion and cultural perspective (mandatory conversion for a non-muslim if they marry a muslim partner and it's near impossible to convert out of islam), as far as I know, Singapore doesn't have this issue (being an ex-muslim is legal) and there's a much more 'we are all Singaporeans' mindset from what I see online.

I remembered seeing that case of a Chinese university professor being arrested for assaulting a IMAF couple on the streets and seeing many comments mocking him (and even some mocking chinese men in general for being too spineless/unattractive to keep their women) and with the rise of kpop (and general stereotypes of chinese guys being resourceful and less patriarchal), there has been much more malay and indian women going for chinese men. now i'm not saying this is representative of the singaporean general public (because these kids remind me of the 'ah bengs' i see on the street tbh) but i once saw a video of Dewy Choo video reacting to singapore's version of Pop the Balloon and wow, i genuinely never expected stuff that i could only expect to come out of a lowyat forum to be released into the internet like this.

What do yall actually think about this, is it a good thing for the SEA diaspora chinese to mix in with the other races or would it be better if singapore maintained it's CMIO population ratios?

TL;DR: Little things between us built up, inherent personality mismatches, nitpicking, arguments, ended up in us eventually living away from each other for my own peace and cutting our holiday plans short.

Context, we are both (asian) foreigners, I am studying in a (western) foreign country and she has arrived 2 weeks before my graduation ceremony to visit the country before going to the ceremony and heading home, my uni is in the north, the airport is in the south.

Initially I would say i was very happy to have an extended holiday with my sister, we are slightly less than 2 years apart from each other so we were close, like 2 friends instead of an older/younger sister dynamic which is relatively more common in my culture. My sister came in place of my 2 parents because of the instability in the middle east making us (well, namely me) hesitant about taking a flight that has a layover in said middle eastern countries (which would be cheaper), sorry if this seems ridiculous to some, it gives me anxiety to even go near that region in this point in time.

But even just a mere 4 days with her made me notice things that we just wouldnt agree on, firstly, the whole entire time she was telling me about this one girl that she studied with and recommended for a position at a workplace and about how much of an incompetent worker she is and basically gossiping to me about how shes too emotional and sensitive (but she still says shes a 'nice girl' outside of work), now i admit i did think it was interesting at first, my entire work history is 2.5 months of an internship at a tiny lab and 1 night at a bar + restaurant, so anything that is about an unfamiliar workplace seems interesting, now imagine that but dragged on for MULTIPLE DAYS, it didnt help that said friend also wanted us to pick up some limited edition sports bag at a town way out of our own personal itinerary which didnt work out and wasted 2 whole (2h+) train tickets due to circumstance that wasnt either of our faults.

Second, we went further up north and decided that we wanted to save some money on hotels by staying in my student dorm room, (en-suite, so we weren't invading into any roommates' spaces here, and i got the approval of my flatmates), the literal first thing she said about my dormspace is how humid and moldy it smelt, now more context, it's the summer, no shit it's humid, and the building is old as hell and this student dorm is quite literally the best price v. value you can get esp for a dorm right smack dab middle in the city centre, like fine, it's kinda moldy, i did think so the first time i arrived here but i just dont think it's appropriate to immediately start complaining about FREE LODGING.

Third, our doors are heavy wooden doors that close on their own, so you can imagine the sound the doors make when they close especially in a 6-room flat with thin walls, obviously i told her to be careful when closing doors and she retorted back by saying i was loud (while speaking) when i was in the south, i was loud??? in the public street??? when i told her to be less heavy-handed when letting go of the heavy doors?? in my PRIVATE STUDENT DORMITORY WITH THIN WALLS????????????? WITH MY ALMOST YEAR-LONG FLATMATES LIVING THERE?????????????????

now im a person who has difficulty making arguments right on the spot (y'know when you start thinking of the BEST retorts like 20 minutes after your actual argument? yeah) so i mumbled some nonsense about 'this is my dorm, you have to be quiet, my friends live here' and she basically accused me saying 'oh so you only care about people thinking you're loud when it's people you know? that's not nice.' practically saying im a person who doesnt care about the opinions of strangers on the street, in which, ..yeah? recall the last time you remembered the face of a girl speaking loudly on the street to her little groupie vs. your dorm mate who slams doors every single day and stomps on the floors, one of them is much more memorable yes? and after a night's worth of reflection, i always noticed she always had something to criticise about me everytime i had an extended conversation (>5 minutes) with her, hygiene (i shower daily, i brush my hair, im consistent on skincare, i brush my teeth, i've have no one else other than her who criticises me about this), voice (sometimes i get excited and speak up but no one actually have consistently said im a loud person except her), attitude etc where no one else has actually told me about this.

anyways, i sit here after booking her a hotel an extended walk away from me, typing this not even asking for advice cuz i know she hasnt dont anything egregious enough to actually warrant me arguing with her, i just thank the stars the airplane we are sitting on had randomly assigned seats so im sitting beside a stranger instead of her, i really wished my parents came in place of her, i had a short call with my mother (where my sister was initially yelling at her about money problems, thank god the my flat neighbours are all out on holiday, they would definitely be able to hear her through the walls in the hallway) where i updated her about the distribution of the trip fees, hotel bookings etc. by my mother's tone she sounded like she was on my side but didnt really say anything about it, i would say im probably much closer to my parents that my sister is (she was the one who insisted on going to an out-of-state uni and immediately moved out for work), my parents are young gen-Xers who came from an era where they had to learn english in their 20s for work, so theres a generation gap between us and our parents which i think was why she doesnt really like being around them but even now i cant really think of anything bad that happened in our household to warrant that.

in the end the relationship between my parents and i are still fine, i just dont think i'll actively choose to hang out with my sister more after this, for the both of our sanities. terribly sorry for the huge rant of what is essentially stupid quibbles that amounted to nothing at the end especially in comparison to how serious some posts are in this subreddit.

edit) i'll probably delete this post within 24h because my sister knows im on reddit, i know some people might not like it but i'd rather slowly make myself unavailable in someone's life over leaving through some explosive argument, i'd prefer if she never read this post and just slowly forget about my position in her life.

also something i noticed during her phonecall with our mother, she often portrays our financial situation on this trip as the worst possible situation, i take some time trying to figure out how to transfer money to her bank account from my wise account for her to book a hotel = i dont want to transfer her money/we outright do not have money for a hotel for her in her mind, straight up lie btw. she always uses ME as an excuse to get more money from our parents because im still living at home when she has a condo paid off in full by our father AND a great corpo job that pays triple the national minimum wage, i literally have no idea why shes acting like shes 3 dollars away from living on the streets? i know she works hard for her wage (shes the first person to ask for OT and work on public holidays for example and shes due for a promotion in her workplace) but i do greatly dislike how she keeps asking for money citing ME AS THE REASON, im doing my best trying to budget but my sister's first instinct is always to 'ask dad for money'.