There is an irony in the stand taken by ethnic minorities in Malaysia when they articulate preservation of cultural heritage to support their cause to retain mother tongue education, cultural activities and other ethnic preservation ethos.

Unfortunately all those who take this stand to politically position themselves favourably with their own constituents look at this debate from within confined contexts.

I was recently in a country where migrants from Malaysia, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Fiji, Sri Lanka and India have come and was amused to observe how they (the migrants) intermingle.

Chinese Malaysians rarely refer to themselves as Chinese. There is always the preamble...Malaysian. Likewise Indian Malaysians. Indeed, a Chinese Malaysian feels more at ease with an Indian Malaysian than a Chinese from any other country, with perhaps just the exception of Singapore. The aversion to mainland Chinese is quite glaring, some even shying from speaking Chinese with them.

At parties, Malaysians tend to gang up together with their own countrymen rather than socialise with the same ethnic groups from other countries. It is not so much the polarisation that I want to raise here but the obvious cultural divide between being a Chinese Malaysian and Chinese from China.

Ditto the Indians. An Indian Malaysian is so distinguishable from the Indian from Fiji, India or Sri Lanka. There is more in common between the Indian Malaysian and Chinese Malaysian than with Indians from elsewhere.

The only nationality that the minority groups can empathise with are those from Singapore. Indeed, some immigration forms classify Southeast Asians as a single entity. It is not so much the racial ethnicity that seem to separate us but more the country of origin.

It would be interesting if anthropologists and sociologists do a study of such behaviour of not just among Malaysians who also their cousins from other countries. Maybe from it, we can learn something that can better help us understand our own conduct in this country and maybe better policies can be made.