Content creator sparks debate after saying she understood what being a ‘minority’ feels like after leaving S’pore

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.

“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.

“So… This is what it feels like to be not fully seen. That this was probably also how my Malay and Indian colleagues might have felt back home,” she wrote, citing instances where conversations defaulted to Mandarin and jokes based on culturally specific references.

“It’s not just diversity on paper. It’s more about how we make every individual feel like they belong in the room,” she added.

Netizens split over post

Many netizens were supportive of the post, recounting similar experiences.

One said that living abroad would encourage people to “be more understanding of others”, while another said that it “changes your awareness of identity”.

“Never too late to learn,” another netizen said. “Proud of you for coming to a realisation of the daily struggles.”

However, others took issue with the post, including TikToker @brownmasc, who said she was “already pissed off”.

“I’m sorry, was empathy not available in Singapore?” she asks in a May 5 post which received over 151,100 views. In the video, she said Olivia’s post suggested that she did not “listen to brown people or minorities in Singapore”.

Another TikToker, @Boblet Lee Pichay, said that different ethnic groups face unique stereotypes that cannot be fully understood by those from other races.

“However, it shouldn’t take you going to another country to empathise with us. Our struggle is not some sort of aesthetic,” he said.

‘Intellectual to lived understanding’: Content creator responds

Speaking to Stomp, Olivia explained that her description of growing up in an insular environment may have been misinterpreted as her being “previously completely unaware of racial issues or lacking empathy”.

She added that many people who grow up within the majority demographic in Singapore care about racial inequalities. “But awareness and lived understanding are not always the same thing,” she said.

“It doesn’t mean the empathy was absent before, it simply moves from intellectual understanding to lived understanding,” she explained.

Olivia added that living abroad expanded her self-awareness, prompting her to reflect on the ways “privilege can sometimes go unnoticed”.

She hopes such conversations will encourage others to examine “blind spots”, urging mindfulness in interactions with others.

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