A Singaporean travel content creator recently shared her experience of “understanding what being a ‘minority’ feels like” during her time abroad — garnering heated responses online as netizens slammed her for lacking empathy.
Olivia, who goes by @olliechinny on TikTok, said in a post on May 1: “It took LEAVING Singapore for me to finally understand what being a ‘minority’ feels like.”
In the post, the 33-year-old said that she “never had to question” her sense of belonging when residing in Singapore, as she is ethnically Chinese.
Growing up in an “artificially homogenous environment” — including a Chinese school and church — meant she had “little” interaction with peers from other races or cultures.
‘This is what it feels like to be not fully seen’
However, moving to Switzerland in 2019 due to family reasons and work marked a significant change.
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“I was suddenly hyper-aware of how different I am and how I looked as a yellow-skinned Asian,” she wrote. “How rare it was to see someone who reflected me here, and how that subconsciously shapes your confidence.”
Olivia also recounted that others often assumed she was from China, Japan, or South Korea without first asking her.
Being immersed in a culture different from her own meant she sometimes had to pretend to understand underlying jokes, smiling and nodding while “trying to fill in the blanks” silently.
