I don't want East, I don't want West

The following is an extract from the essay/writing. The full version can be accessed online here on page 94 in SARE: Southeast Asian Review of English, Volume 44 June 2002.

Robert Yeo recalls his first arrival in England in 1966, where he was "...confronted by this notion of identity and I found out that my cultural identity was very mixed. I felt incomplete as the new Singaporean" (Yeo 133). This was an admission that, culturally at least, Singapore had not found an identity. Its identity, such as it was, was a jangling, uneasy mish-mash of East and West, with a greater tendency towards the West. As Yeo points out, "I could sing lots of American and British songs....Was I able to recite a pantun? I couldn't. Was I able to sing a Chinese ditty? I couldn't" (Yeo 133). He was a Singaporean, but unable to say what made him Singapore.

Project Serial Number: AA200202