Singaporean woman gets attacked for Tinder profile

Hi guys, I normally don't like to get involved in a nasty flame war but I'd like to use the incident as a starting point and talk more generally about the topic, without making much reference to the flame war which you guys can read if you're really that interested. Now in this case, this Singaporean woman "Lisabeth" (whom I shall refer to as Liz) has a Tinder profile where she only wanted to date Europeans and her profile there along with her Instagram photos were shared on this forum, sparking a deluge of really misogynistic, sexist and hateful comments there. It is a pretty extreme form of cyber-bullying. As you know, I always advice people to stay away from forums where the interaction is completely anonymous - I would either interact with people I know on Facebook, share my thoughts on my blog or post on Instagram to share photos & videos. I don't like the idea of interacting anonymously because they think they are in a consequence-free environment and out comes all the sexism, misogyny, racism, bigotry and quite nasty hatred. It can be a very toxic environment as a result. Some people still post hateful posts on social media like Facebook and Twitter even though we know exactly who can be attributed to each post, but those forums take that kind of hate speech to quite an extreme.

Now since we're addressing the issue of a situation concerning Singaporean women, so I have drafted in an old friend from Singapore whom we shall refer to as Ms Chua and I have crafted our chat into an interview below. And before some people from the forum stumble upon this and scream that I'm gay: I'm openly gay, yes and have always been extremely honest about my sexuality on my blog. So there, glad we got that big gay pink elephant in the room out of the way. 

Alex: Let me begin on an optimistic note: I'd like to think that Singapore is a modern city where few people would bat an eyelid if a local woman dates a guy from another country - why not? Look, my dad's Hakka and my mum's Hokkien - my mother go such grief from her mother-in-law because my father had the audacity to defy his parents' wishes and marry someone who wasn't Hakka. That's the kind of ignorance and bigotry that existed back in the 1960s when my parents got married - they didn't object to my mother because she had done something wrong, no! It was purely on the basis of the fact that she wasn't Hakka (even though she is still Chinese). I'm sure even that kind of discrimination would make even the most racist person on that forum think, "well actually, that's really going a bit too far, aren't you all still Chinese?"

Ms Chua: Yes. Allow me to share a story, this time in the 1990s - this Chinese lady I knew was dating a Indian man from work, they were both Singaporeans and eventually she felt compelled to end the relationship because she knew inside her heart that her parents would never be happy if she married an Indian man, that life would be so much easier if she married a Chinese man. So she put her feelings aside, ended the relationship and married a Chinese man instead - now she has to look back for the rest of her life and think, what if she had followed her heart and married the Indian man she truly loved instead of simply trying to please her parents? It's really sad as I knew how that tore her up, it messed her up for a while. You see, even in that case, I'm sure many Singaporeans on that forum would have even encouraged this Singaporean woman to stay with her Indian boyfriend regardless of what her parents thought, if they were truly in love.

Alex: And now fast forward to 2018, I just found it hard to believe that Singaporeans would take such offence to a local woman wishing to date a white guy. She's far from the first SPG in Singapore, what she is doing is really nothing new here. Now you've read the comments on that forum page, right? It's pathetic - these people aren't very educated. They're just hurling the most cliche insults at her in Hokkien, mostly just calling her fat - like as if that's a substitute for wit. 

Ms Chua: It seems that many of the locals have made the following assumptions: that this woman is a gold digger after a rich white sugar daddy and that white men generally have bigger penises than local Singaporeans. Let's deal with that first: if Liz was purely a gold digger, if her priority was to find a rich sugar daddy, then she would have not be after European guys, no she would be after rich guys of any skin colour. I don't even believe for a moment that she is after a sugar daddy - this is an assumption that many Singaporeans still make, that the only reason why an Asian woman would want to date a white guy is for money Now that may be the kind of thing that happens in Thailand or the Philippines, where you see a 70 year old white guy with a 21 year old girlfriend holding hands on the beach and somehow even I am not convinced that's true love. But wait a minute, these Singaporeans are assuming she is after money and accusing her of barking up the wrong tree because some white people are poor - where do we even begin to unpick that mess? The reason why I can imagine so many Singaporeans jump to that conclusion is because they generally feel poorer than the average white expatriate they see in Singapore and this is more a reflection of the unease and dissatisfaction they feel about the situation whereby local men are at a massive disadvantage, being saddled with CPF, NS and reservist commitments, whilst the expatriates have no such strings attached. So yes, the locals are struggling in this unfair system.

Alex: Well, I live in London and I see white people working as bus drivers, cleaning toilets, working in fast food restaurants and yeah, there are plenty of poor white people here in the West. But in Singapore, they tend to be mostly richer expats with nice jobs, earning quite a lot of money there, living in nice condos, enjoying a good lifestyle. Can I just state that there's usually a poor correlation between skin colour and wealth here in the UK, whether you are rich or poor depends far more on the social class of your parents. Thus poor people in the UK tend not to work abroad as expats.

Ms Chua: Allow me to state the obvious: when Liz goes on a date with a white guy, there's no guarantee that he is rich or indeed, has a sizable penis. The only sure way to verify that is to first check if they have a good job and then get them to drop their pants and get out the ruler. I'm sure Liz is smart enough to figure that part out, so why is it the only people making that assumption seems to be the Singaporean men? Are they assuming that she is dumb enough to make that assumption, because I doubt Liz is that stupid - what I am reading is a lot of uncensored misogyny directed at local women who 'look down' on local men and this is the local men reacting with a tirade of abuse directed at Liz, who has become a scapegoat in this issue. So this assumption isn't based on any evidence of stupidity or poor judgement on the part of Liz, they are just assuming she is stupid and calling her names implying that because they want to insult her.

Alex: So let me ask you an important question, what is the current status of women's rights in Singapore? You have a female president, there are plenty of women in politics and business. On the surface, it does look like a very modern society where women are highly educated, empowered, have good jobs and it is a far cry from some of our Asian neighbours - yet when you look at the way such blatant misogyny and sexism is expressed in such forums, is Singapore really as backward as a lot of these other Asian countries where women's rights are heavily repressed? Is really Singapore a sexist, misogynistic society or a very modern, progressive society where women's rights are concerned?

Ms Chua: There's no simple answer to that question - how a woman is treated in Singapore really depends on whom her friends, family and colleagues are. If the people in your life treasure you, value you, cherish you and then of course they will treat you with respect. But if the people on your life think you're not worthy of their trust, they see you as inferior and treat you like crap, abuse you for the slightest thing. I'd like to think that most women do have some control over that. You can go to a country like India or Saudi Arabia and find women who are empowered and then you can go to a country like Canada or Germany and find abused women. What I need to point out is that you're looking at a certain segment of the Singaporean population who are sexist and misogynistic, who have no qualms about abusing women online like this - thankfully, not all men in Singapore are like that and generally, things aren't that bad. You just happen to be looking at a particularly nasty group of people at their very worst and that does not represent Singapore, this is by no means typical.

Alex: There's that interesting story from Kharkiv, Ukraine of a Chinese man called Mei Aisi who moved to Ukraine for his studies, married a beautiful local woman and is now extremely successful there now, running a hugely profitable import-export business. He's celebrated as a success story in China but most of the fascination boils down to the fact that his wife Daria - an opera singer - is a tall, blonde and very attractive woman. Even Mei admits that most people in China are shocked because he isn't considered particularly good looking by Chinese standards and he wasn't a roaring success back home in China. Yet he is now celebrated as some kind of hero as other Chinese men were lining up to beg him to help them find beautiful Eastern European girlfriends. He has even started a dating agency specifically to help rich Chinese men find beautiful Eastern European brides. There doesn't seem to be any kind of judgement on the part of Mei - most people who stumble upon his story would just think, "that's incredible, good for you mate, well done - your wife is so beautiful." Yet when you turn this around, when you get a Chinese woman wishing to date a European guy, goodness me, the amount of hate Liz encountered was unreal - contrast this to Mei, who didn't encounter such hatred at all on Chinese social media. Interestingly, the language spoken by the women in the video is actually Russian, not Ukrainian. 

Ms Chua: The reason why men like Mei are not attacked on social media is probably because many of the other men see his wife Daria and they are very jealous. Also there is a hierarchy of skin colour, of races and nationalities in the heads of the Chinese: regardless of whether you're from a poor European country like the Ukraine and Moldova or from a rich one like Norway and Switzerland, as long as you're white you're still considered superior to the Chinese by the Chinese. Can you imagine any of the Chinese people on social media being nice to Mei if say, he went to Uganda or Cameroon and married a black, African woman? Of course not, the Chinese are racist towards the Africans, but they still worship white people whether or not they are honest enough to admit that or not. But more to the point, he is not a threat, if he marries a foreigner from Ukraine, if he gets more Chinese men to find foreign brides, then statistically that leaves more Chinese women left for the Chinese men looking for a local wife. Because of the preference for sons over daughters in China, there is always a shortage of wives in China. But if local women like Liz are turning her noses up at local men, then the pool of local women that they have to choose from is dwindling and becoming smaller and smaller.

Alex: But before we go any further, let's look at the social conditions in Singapore which have created this situation in the first place. In Asian cultures, a man would rarely ever marry a woman who is more educated than he is or a woman who earns more than him - somehow he would end up feeling emasculated in such a relationship. However, thanks to the Singaporean education system, local women are extremely well educated and they have gone on to get degrees, embarked on successful careers and have gone on to earn a lot of money. Now this has affected two sections of the local population: highly educated, successful, rich women who are running out of men who are even more successful than them and lowly educated, poor men who are running out of women who are in an even worst state that them. Both groups will probably end up looking for foreign spouses: the women will turn to a much wider pool of men from around the world (not just Singapore) who can match their high expectations and the men will turn to mail order brides from poorer countries like Vietnam and China, who would have come from some remote village and still worship their Singaporean husbands because by their standards, he's still relatively rich and successful. So it is this group of Singaporean men who struggle to even find a local girlfriend who become extremely resentful of local women who preferring to date and marry foreign men, as it is within this context that they feel like they are being looked down upon.

Ms Chua: Whether Liz is that educated or successful is quite irrelevant, the fact that she wants to date a white guy has already made her a target for this resentment that the local Singaporean men have towards local women. Oh we are looking at a very Singaporean problem indeed and it is clear to see how we ended up in this situation in the first place: the term that would be familiar with a lot of Singaporeans is 重男轻女 - that is a phrase that captures the attitude of the Chinese family always showing favour to the sons over the daughters. So if a family had a son and a daughter but could only afford to send one to university, it would always be the son who went because he was expected to become a breadwinner, to have to bring up a family whilst the daughter didn't really need that degree as much as she always had the option of becoming a housewife if she married a rich man. This would even be the case if the daughter was a lot more intelligent than the son in that family and yes it sounds utterly ridiculous and unfair - but such is Chinese culture for you. However, in this day and age, fortunately, at least when it comes to education, women in Singapore are not discriminated against by the system (though they may still face the scourge of 重男轻女 at home). Fifty years ago, men were indeed more educated and successful than women in Singapore, but that is clearly no longer the case: this is a big step forward for gender equality but where does that leave Singaporean men looking for a bride who is less educated and less successful than them? Looking at the responses on that forum, they're not in a happy place and are very bitter.

Alex: Can you explain to me why Singaporean women who clearly participate in the forums mostly stay silent in the face of such nasty sexism and misogyny? Do they actually participate and perpetuate the sexism and misogyny or do they think that Liz deserves the abuse she gets for wishing to date white men? So why aren't they speaking up for her?

Ms Chua: The main issue here is fear: they look at the abuse that Liz is getting and they worry that they become the next target, they are just plain scared. I have seen the kind of abuse Liz is getting - even that picture of her standing on that bridge, she looks like a pretty ordinary, average Singaporean woman of her age yet all those abusive comments of her being fat and overweight are ridiculous. Look, if I saw a woman being attacked in the street, I'd do something - I'd call the police, I'll scream for help, I'll alert someone, I'll do something because I know that if I don't do anything, then I would not be able to live with myself should something horrible happen to that woman, right? But in those online forums, there are other people there and you think, I am not the only witness to this tirade of abuse, surely there are moderators, surely there are others who must do something about this situation and somehow, because it is not happening in front of you but in cyberspace, it feels less real and they don't want to speak up. And of course, maybe someone did speak up by alerting the moderators because the last thing you want to do is to feed the trolls by arguing with them - the same way if I saw a woman being attacked, I would call the police or get a stronger person to help resolve such a difficult situation.

Alex: I do wonder what these trolls calling her fat would look like in real life. I wonder if some of them are indeed really ugly and disgusting, like they may be morbidly obese or something - but yet they still default to calling Liz fat because they are simply not capable of coming up with more sophisticated way to engage her on the issue of dating white people.

Ms Chua: They can be anyone, such is the nature of such trolling - it is anonymous. Are we dealing with a man or a woman? A 15 year old schoolboy or a 45 year old mother of three? These people rarely ever reveal any personal information - that's why the popularity of such forums is scary: why are these people anonymous? Why are they hiding behind a pseudonym, why aren't they revealing their real identities? I use social media, but I interact mostly with friends I know, rather than talking to complete strangers without knowing who the hell they are. If you look at the quality of the discussion, if I can even use that word, on those forums, most of them are just barking insults at Liz without trying to offer any kind of cogent argument or reason. When I was in secondary school, yes there was bullying there but at least it was done in person and the bully had to have the balls to confront you face to face - here it is completely anonymous and online, that's the scary part and is the root of the problem. It is a terribly unhealthy form of social media best avoided.

Alex: So this forum HWZ is a wholly owned by Singapore Press Holdings. Should we be holding them to account when this kind of cyber bullying happens? So if they want to make money off this website, then the buck stops with them?

Ms Chua: Given the volume of posts on that forum, it is impossible for them to keep track of everything that is being said. Instead they will merely respond to complaints, if someone raises something to their attention. But no, even if you drive people away from this forum, they'll just find another website to vent their hate speech and such is the internet for you. But you've made the assumption that most people attacking Liz are frustrated Singaporean men and the women are just standing by quietly condoning all this - did it occur to you that women could be amongst those attacking Liz as well?

Alex: Interesting theory, I see. Tell me, so why would a woman want to do that then? Especially to another woman?

Ms Chua: Perhaps you're assuming that all women are supportive of each other, that we're all part of this sisterhood of women united by our ovaries - but nothing could be further from the truth. Just because we're of the same gender doesn't mean that somehow we all magically get along. Women are divided along other lines like social class, religion or our cultural backgrounds. There could be Singaporean women out there in who don't think it is right for Liz to only want to date white men, that perhaps the photos she posted on Tinder were inappropriate or maybe they are just against the whole idea of looking for love, fun and sex online in the first place. I've heard older Singaporean women being highly suspicious of such apps because they think that the ease to find a match would turn ordinary people into horny bed-hopping sluts as they can easily find sex partners online - there are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to online dating apps in general and if you were brought up by parents who had those views, then maybe you would automatically jump to the wrong conclusion to a woman who has a profile on Tinder. Women get jealous of each other, maybe a woman could be jealous of Liz's looks or her 'freedom' to do what the hell she wants. Or maybe they are just very frustrated with their own problems and are looking to vent their anger on a complete stranger - it happens, unfortunately.

Alex: I can see that happening in a society like Singapore where everyone is made to conform and follow the rules. Let me share with you a story from my army days. Everyone had to follow very strict rules when it came to having everything ready for those military exercises - every section had a strict list of things we had to complete before the deadline, missing one of your targets would lead to disciplinary actions. You know, we would forgo sleeping, even eating just to work to those very strict deadlines, to make sure we would not let anyone down. So there was this one section where they were a bit lazy, they didn't have everything ready in time and they had made quite a few mistakes but the commander in charge was so very busy that he didn't notice their errors and they thought, phew we got away with it. However, a guy from another section noticed what happened and went to the commander to report what had happened.

Ms Chua: So he was a snitch in every sense of the word.

Alex: Exactly and because of the snitch, that section who didn't complete all their tasks in time were punished. Now did the snitch have anything to gain from his actions? No, not really, apart from a sense of 'justice'. I suppose the mentality was like, "hey everyone one else followed the difficult rules and delivered on time, why should that one section get to break the rules and get away with it? No it is not fair, they need to be punished or else the rules are meaningless." That is the mentality of people who do conform - they expect others to do the same. I can see the amount of ludicrous expectations put on Asian women in Singaporean society, a lot of women do conform and follow the rules out of fear of reprisal or punishment, but I can imagine that some of them would be quite unhappy about the situation. So by the same token, I can imagine a really repressed Singaporean woman going, "hey plenty of the other Singaporean women out there conformed to society's expectations of them and we all followed the rules, why should Liz get to ignore the rules and get away with it? Would my father have allowed me to even use a dating app like Tinder, never mind date a white guy? No way, my father would have totally killed me or disowned me - so if I wasn't allowed to do it, neither can Liz - let's punish her". By that token, the people heaping abuse on Liz could well be female - so, am I along the right lines here?

Ms Chua: Yes, pretty much. I'm afraid that comes with the territory, when you live in society which places so much importance on conforming, on following the rules - imagine this: if a white woman in London put on her Tinder profile that she would only date Asian guys or black guys, would there be any kind of backlash or would nobody even bat an eyelid?

Alex: No, nobody would give a shit, really. In a big city like London, you get people from all over the world and people are very open minded about say dating someone who is of a different skin colour, different religion, different nationality, who may speak a different first language - that's probably because hardly anyone here lives with their parents and our parents don't play a major role in whom we may choose to date. In Singapore, like you said, you had that friend back in the 1990s who broke up with her Indian boyfriend because she was way too worried about what her parents thought.

Ms Chua: Oh but it was also about how his parents would have reacted to her. There were problems from both sides.

Alex: So what will happen if you were to walk down Orchard Road with a white guy, holding hands, like it was really obvious that you two were dating and kissed in public. Would there be any kind of negative reaction? Or would Singaporeans not be confrontational, even if they didn't like what they saw, they would mind their own business?

Ms Chua: It depends on the white guy! If I walked down the street with someone who looked like American actor Matt Barr, then people might wonder what he sees in a plain looking woman like me! Some might get jealous that I have such a good looking man. But if I was with a man old enough to be my dad, someone old and creepy, fat and wrinkly like...

Alex: Donald Trump? He was in town recently!

Ms Chua: (laughs) We're really scrapping the bottom of the barrel here are we? Oh what Melania would think. Okay, fair enough, say I was walking down Orchard Road with someone like Trump. Yeah then people will think I am either a gold digger or worse, a prostitute. But that's quite an extreme. But generally in Singapore, people won't harass you in real life - say if one of my colleagues at work announced that she was dating a white guy, then the rest of us would mostly just keep our opinions to ourselves because whom she dates, what she does in bed quite frankly, is none of our business, you know? But this is also depends on which section of Singaporean society you're talking about: where I work, we have a very international office, we deal with clients from all over the world, we go on business trips quite often and it's no big deal to be good friends with someone who's from another country - we have the confidence and the ability to overcome whatever language or cultural barriers to build those relationships and unlike you, I don't work in sales but even in my role, I am lucky to be in an environment that nurtures me well and builds my confidence to deal with the wider world.

Then we contrast it to someone like my mother, she is retired now and she used to work in a small shop in Toa Payoh. She didn't speak much English but it didn't matter - between Mandarin, Hokkien, Malay and bits of Singlish, she was able to serve practically everyone who came into her shop. The one day an Indian man came into the shop and he didn't speak Malay, he tried to speak to her in English and my mother just couldn't understand what the hell he was asking. She struggled on, trying to help him find what he was looking for but it was hopeless! Luckily, I then turned up after school and offered to help translate for her. My mother was so relieved when she saw me. This man wasn't even like a white European you know, he was a local Indian guy who didn't speak Malay, his English sounded distinctively Singaporean - like how many non-Malay Singaporeans actually speak Malay fluently? So for people like my mother of the older generation, or even just for Singaporeans who work in an environment like my mother who never ever encounter or have to deal with foreigners, then yeah it could be a bit of a shock for them if someone they knew was dating a foreigner. Because I am surrounded by foreigners all the time at work, it doesn't faze me quite the same way it would totally faze someone like my mother, but that's just stating the obvious. You can't treat Singaporeans as if they're a monolithic entity. 

Alex: So, are the people objecting to Liz are from the same kind of social/economic background as your mother?

Ms Chua: Not necessarily so but clearly, they would be the ones most uncomfortable with a local woman wishing to date a white foreigner. This is what upsets me about this case: who cares who Liz chooses to date? What if she said on her Tinder profile, "I don't like short guys, do not contact me if you're below 180 cm tall." That would exclude the vast majority of Singaporean men who are not that tall, would that have caused offence quite the same way? No of course not - because women have the right to choose whom they date. There is a massive difference between say school refusing to admit students on the basis of their skin colour and a woman choosing not to date a certain kind of people: as an education institution, the school has a responsibility towards the general public whereas whom Liz chooses to date or have sex with is entirely a private matter for her and only her. It is really nobody's business and nobody has any right to attack her over such personal information like that. It says a lot more about the people attacking her than the Liz herself.

Alex: This was information she put on her Tinder profile - it's not like she was posting some anti-Asian comments on a blog or on social media. I would have thought that if a man saw a profile like hers, the logical and sensible thing to do would be to skip the profile rather than take rejection so personally that this man would go to the extent of raging a cyber-war and driving so much hatred towards her. All this over her Tinder profile? Geez, perhaps it's because I am a salesman, you know, I don't let rejection bother me. Some of us are more thick skinned than others and if you can't handle the rejection you get on Tinder, then I say, stay the hell away from those dating apps as you can't expect everyone whom you like to respond to you. I do wonder what is wrong with some people, like do they have an over-inflated ego that somehow makes them think they are totally irresistible on these dating apps? So this woman doesn't wanna date you, that's no big deal, just find someone who does - why put so much effort into punishing a woman for not liking you? If it was just one weirdo kicking up a big fuss over a rejection then fair enough - but to see so many people join in and attack Liz over this, that's paints a very disturbing picture about Singaporeans. Like that veneer of decorum is paper thin, they just can't wait to turn into an blood-thirsty, angry mob, even over something as vapid and silly as Tinder.

Ms Chua: If this is the way local Singaporean men react, then is it any wonder why she prefers Angmohs then? This is the bit I just don't understand: do they treat such dating apps as a popularity contest, that you must get as many people to like you as possible? Hell no. That's not what these apps are for. So what if someone on the app doesn't like you? Are they basing their self-esteem on whether or not they find matches on Tinder? Their reaction, just the fact that they got so worked up over her apparent 'rejection' of local men is quite unreal - why do they crave her 'approval' so much then?

Alex: That's what we call a self-fulfilling prophesy. She didn't want to date local men and the local men should their ugly side in the way they reacted, ironically justifying her original decision. But there was no attempt on their part to try to change her mind you know, she even appeared briefly in the forum. But no one engaged her, well you know what the people are like there - half the time I don't even understand the broken English they post in. Like if your English is so bad, please post in Chinese - at least I can read Chinese without trying to work out what the hell they're trying to say in English. People were just heaping abuse at her - that's pretty vile. Unfortunately, she made a mistake in trying to reason with people who were not prepared to be reasonable with her. She has her issues with Singaporean men, she has her reasons why she doesn't want to date Singaporean men - that's all fine, but why bother sharing that with a baying mob who hate you? Did she think she could change their minds and get them to see her point of view? Hell no, that was never going to happen. She should have just left them alone, let them get bored and move on to something else - after all, these people have a very short attention span and they will find something else to vent their anger on within a few hours.

Ms Chua: What's next for Liz? What do you think is her best revenge on these people? What will give her justice?

Alex: Well she definitely needs to prove them wrong. The majority of these haters think she is too ugly or fat to get herself a white guy and what she needs to do is to find herself an incredible white guy who is young, good looking, successful and extremely rich - get married and post her wedding photos to show these haters that she got exactly what she wanted! That way, they can take their toxic hatred and poison themselves with it. It would be so sweet to just deny the bullies exactly what they want - tell them they have no influence over you, they cannot undermine your self-confidence and self-belief. They think they can hurt her with their insults but she has got to show them that they can't, that she is going to achieve her goals and get what she wants regardless. But moving beyond that, do you think that this kind of cyber-bullying will possibly dissuade local women from using Tinder or indeed, using Tinder to find a white boyfriend? Or will this only persuade more local women to look for a better alternative to the local men and be more discerning?

Ms Chua: Actually neither, let me explain. Those who already want to date white guys will not be dissuaded by this incident and those who were never going to date a white guy are not going to change their minds after this, though this will prompt them to be more aware about choosing their partners a bit more carefully. Of course, let's be fair: not all Singaporean men are misogynistic and sexist - but no Singaporean woman in the right mind would want to date a man who had the audacity to speak like that to a woman, like if that's the way he thinks, how do you think he will treat you in the relationship when he is projecting all his insecurities on you? There are horrible men in every country and unfortunately, this forum seems to have been a magnet for the very worst in Singapore. The women who are SPGs were probably already dreaming of marrying a white guy from the time they were in their early teens, it is an attraction towards an entire culture probably built on certain elements of that culture they are particularly attracted to. That makes them narrow their search for a partner down to people from a certain geographical area. Likewise, let's not be sexist - there are Asian men who do date white women as well, although yes they are more rare. If you are going to date someone from another country, I think mentally, you're already prepared for the obstacles that could possibly come your way - yes it is something you will anticipate it. Though most people would be more concern about bridging the cultural gap with your partner and their family and friends, rather than having to deal with this kind of extreme hatred from your own people.

Alex: On that note, let's conclude. It's not an easy topic to talk about and I hope that we've managed to do this topic justice, that we have managed to help bring some understanding to the issue though this discussion. Thanks so much.

Ms Chua: And good luck to Liz. Don't let the haters get you down.