Malaysian Chinese tsunami !

Barisan Nasional keeps its hold on power thanks to the Malay breakwater that held back a Chinese wave that swept over the country. 

A CHINESE tsunami swept over the country last night. It ripped through all the seats that had a significant Chinese electorate and devastated Gerakan and MCA in the peninsula and SUPP in Sarawak.

The tsunami was basically about the Chinese electorate going for change. The result was that the DAP emerged the big winner, making new gains everywhere, including in Johor.

But it was evident that the Pakatan Rakyat slogan of “ABU, or Asalkan Bukan Umno (Anything But Umno)” had also resonated with the urban populace in general because Pakatan regained Selangor with a two-thirds majority.

The Chinese tsunami also helped to carry many of the PKR candidates in many of the mixed seats.

However, the tsunami could not quite make it to Putrajaya.

At about 1am, a solemn-looking Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced that Barisan Nasional had a simple majority to form the government.

At press time, Barisan had attained 133 seats, still short of the 138-seat majority won by his predecessor Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Najib was clearly disappointed but he spoke in a calm and steady voice as he urged everyone to accept the election result as part of the democratic process.

The Malay electorate, especially those in the rural states, continued to back Barisan. It is a small consolation to Najib that the Malays have returned to Umno in a significant way.

The Malay wall held back the Chinese tsunami and Barisan won back Kedah. It also held on to Perak, which was a subject of speculation until close to midnight.

At press time, Barisan won Perak with 31 state seats against 28 by Pakatan. But Pakatan continued to dominate in Penang with an increased majority.

PAS managed to hold on to Kelantan with a much reduced majority, which showed that Datuk Nik Aziz Nik Mat's appeal as a religious figure still commands support in the state.

As predicted, PAS won the least seats among the Pakatan parties and DAP is now the dominant party in Pakatan with the most number of seats. It can also lay claim to having defeated a top Umno leader, namely former Johor Mentri Besar Datuk Ghani Othman in Gelang Patah.

The Pakatan wins also mean that Johor and Sarawak are no longer the fixed-deposit states for Barisan.

The zero sum game of politics means that DAP's gain is MCA's loss because both parties contested in Chinese-majority seats. MCA won only seven parliamentary seats, far short of the 15 that it won in 2008.

MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek tweeted late last night that the party would not be accepting any government posts.

This was in keeping with the pledge made that the party would not accept posts in the Government if it did not do better this time.

A big question mark hangs over the future of MCA as well as Gerakan and SUPP and they will have to do much soul-searching after this.

The Chinese rejection of Barisan is a big blow to Najib, who went out of his way to persuade them to come along on his economic and political transformation journey.

The Chinese have rejected a moderate and inclusive leader, who has made more overtures to the Chinese than any other Prime Minister before him, and Najib and his coalition will have to reassess all this in the months to come.

There will also be soul-searching on the part of PAS, given its loss in Kedah and the defeat of several of its top leaders, including its deputy president Mohamed Sabu in Kedah and vice-president Salahuddin Ayub in Johor. Another vice-president, Datuk Husam Musa, lost in Putrajaya.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the election result is that the ruling coalition is dominated by Umno and the Malays while the opposition Pakatan is dominated by the Chinese-based DAP.

The impact of this will become clearer as the dust settles over the most closely-fought election ever.

Comment
By Joceline Tan
The Star/Asia News Network

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Dr Mohamad Tajuddin holds memories of unity

Being the only Malay among a class of Chinese students holds special memories of unity.

IN these months of Merdeka and the formation of Malaysia, I wish to pay tribute to my old school, SMJK Hua Lian in Perak.

Why was my school experience so special? I was the only Malay boy in a sea of Chinese students, yet I felt no racial or religious pressures. I sailed through four years of education making friends, having fun and learning lots of things from my mostly non-Malay teachers.

While I take a few moments to recollect some incidents, why don’t we also take this time to ask just what is wrong with our country – to the point that racial and religious mistrust still prevails after half a century.

My childhood days from Standard One to Six were spent at the police barracks in Butterworth, Penang, where I would walk about half a kilometre every day to St Mark’s Primary School. My childhood friends at the barracks were mostly Malays, but there were several Chinese boys and the two sons of a burly Sikh sergeant major.

My father was only a police constable with the rank of “private” despite his 30 years of service. Mother tells of his reluctance to move too far away from his family in Pantai Besar and Batu Kurau (both in Perak), which resulted in his stagnant position. Though my father was educated only up to Standard Three, he could scold me effortlessly in Queen’s English!

But the most important thing that I remember is that he NEVER uttered a single harsh word against any Chinese or Indian, unlike the fathers of my friends. He had many Chinese friends whom he visited occasionally, with me tagging along on his Vespa.

At St Mark’s, I had many friends who were Indians, Sikhs and Chinese. I remember one particular boy, the “soft” kind who was always jeered at for being feminine. We both got on well because of our one common interest – Enid Blyton story books! We would exchange comics and books all the time.

At the police barracks, I flew kites and played gasing, football and hide-and-seek among the wreakage of armoured police vehicles.

One day, I was greatly saddened to learn that my father was retiring from the police force and that we had to move to Taiping. The family moved in June of 1976 to the police barracks in Taiping. At 14, it was difficult to make friends at the barracks, so I was hoping it would be better in the new school. Little did I realise that my life was about to take a sharp turn.

There was no school that offered Industrial Arts in the English medium of instruction. St George’s Institution was agriculture based and King Edwards was commerce based. We finally found a school … next to the oldest prison in Malaysia. SMJK Hua Lian at Jalan Lumba Kuda had two sessions and 99.7% of its 2,000 students were Chinese!

I had been in Form 2A in St Mark’s, so when I transferred to Hua Lian, the headmaster asked which class I wanted to be in. I asked if there were any other Malay boys and if so, in which class? He said yes, but the two other boys were in Form 2D1 – the last class with the naughtiest students! I said okay and stepped into the most interesting period of my school life.

Try to imagine me at 14, a scrawny, bespectacled four-foot-something guy amidst burly Chinese five-footers who were all a year older than me as they had been to Remove class. I was an “A” student among those who got Cs and Ds. Every time the teacher stepped out to go to the toilet during the monthly exams, the whole class would crowd around me for answers to all the subjects, except my weakest subject, Mathematics.

I excelled in English and Bahasa Malaysia (BM) and it was wonderful to see pandemonium breaking out among my classmates whenever it was announced at assembly that I had obtained the highest marks for English in the whole form, beating those nerds from 2A1 (all boys) and 2A2 (all girls). My old form teacher was all smiles when he told the class that he was pleased to have at least one student who passed all his subjects.

Two recollections are worth highlighting here. Once, a Malay teacher who taught BM was so incensed with some students for being rude to him that he threw everyone out of the classroom and we had to stand in the hot sun for the whole period. That included me. It wasn’t fair because I was always a “teacher’s pet”. So there we were, all 42 of us, being stared at by the girls in 2B2, 2C2 and 2A2.

The other thing that has stayed with me is how my Chinese friends loved to gamble. They would bet almost every single day on Malaysian football, sports or even whether it would rain that day. Once I saw a boy win RM1,000 in a football pool! I rarely saw a RM50 and had never even seen a RM100 note. My mother gave me RM10 a month as allowance but she cooked and packed food for me every day.

I was moved up to 3B1 after that year and left my colourful friends at 3D1. After the LCE exams (the equivalent of SRP today), I was placed in the top science class, which was co-ed. One thing about Hua Lian – I had never had any puppy love problems because of the racial difference. I was not interested in the girls and I was not much to look at anyway.

For me, the most memorable thing about being in 4Sc1 was that we put up a play during Teacher’s Day and was asked to restage it in front of the whole school.

Another fun thing was that I joined the Police Cadet Force with my tall Chinese friends, about 40 of us. We learnt to march and practise arms drill and withstand the verbal abuses of our drill masters. With our smart uniforms, and knowledge of security details during special occasions in school, we impressed the girls – one of the perks of being in that hot and sweaty, brown get-up.

In 5Sc1, we had a lot of class parties. I had never been to a party before, especially one with a mix of boys and girls. My Chinese friends were very tolerant of my faith and endeavoured to make sure all the food was “halal”, or so they told me. I had absolute faith in their sincerity. We played games at these parties and joked around. It was great fun and I had never felt accepted as much before.

The other great thing was the formation of the first ever multi-racial sepak takraw team. I loved the game and played the “killer” position. There were only three other Malay boys in school and we had to find five Chinese boys because of the compulsory three-team rule. We sought good football players and basketball players as takraw requires agile footwork, springing and ball-handling.

We managed to form the team and went on the inter-school competition league. We went up against three schools and, of course, lost all the games. But everywhere we went, we were the talk of the day as no one had ever seen a Chinese-Malay takraw team.

I was one of the top 10 students in the MCE examination (the equivalent of SPM), securing 6As. I was the only Malay candidate in the Science stream and all my Chinese and Indian teachers were most proud of me. I was the only one who had scored a distinction (A2) in the Overseas English Exam, finally beating that lanky nerd of nerds, the head prefect.

After a short stint in Lower Six, I left to study in the United States for six years on a government scholarship. By then, most of my friends had gone to Canada, Britain or Australia, sponsored by their parents. Some who did not make it to Lower Six or the local universities had to look for work.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my Hua Lian teachers from 1976-80 for their dedication and commitment. I used to joke that I was the best and worst Malay MCE student because I was the only one.

My Chinese friends and I studied, played (I never gambled although almost all my friends did), partied, took part in sports, marched in the cadet corps, went girl-watching at the Taiping Lake Gardens, had ice kacang at the Larut Matang Supermarket and talked about our future.

I sincerely believe that if narrow-minded politicians were to leave our multi-racial communities alone, we would probably live in better harmony than we do now. I not only survived, but thrived, at SMJK Hua Lian with my Chinese friends and teachers.

Happy Malaysia month!

By PROFESSOR DR MOHAMAD TAJUDDIN MOHAMAD RASDI

Source: The Star/Asian News Network

Malaysian Chinese Forum kicks off with a bang; Chua-Lim showdown!

Soi Lek fires salvos at Guan Eng ahead of debate



 Chua: People the winner in the debate

Chua and Penang chief minister Guan Eng agreed to keep the debate professional and not as a platform to decide who is the winner or loser.

KUALA LUMPUR: The people has emerged as the ultimate winner in the debate between the MCA and DAP here today as it allowed the Malaysian public to evaluate for themselves the policies and stands of the Barisan Nasional and the opposition.

“The winner is the rakyat and not Lim Guan Eng (DAP secretary-general) or Chua Soi Lek,” said MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek in a joint news conference soon after concluding the debate, which drew a hugh public interest, especially from the Chinese community and was telecast live on Astro, that is on Astro AEC and Awani.

“An engagement like this will allow the rakyat to see the stands of BN and Pakatan,” he said after the hour-long debate titled “Is the two-party system becoming a two-race system?” organised by the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (Asli) and MCA’s think-tank, Institute of Strategic Analysis and Policy Research (Insap).

Right from the beginning, Chua and his fellow debater, the Penang chief minister, agreed to keep the debate professional and not as a platform to decide who is the winner or loser.

The debate was conducted in Mandarin and was moderated by Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall chief executive officer Tan Ah Chai.

On a question whether both parties had answered the questions raised in the debate, Chua said he believed he could have provided better explanation if they were given more time and opportunity.

Meanwhile, Lim said the debate could be a good beginning to become a more matured democratic society, adding that such an event should be more frequently organised.

“I think this is something good and I hope this will not be the first and last. I feel it will open up the mind of our rakyat because issues must be debated rationally,” he said.

Lim said both he and Chua had agreed to meet again for another round of public debate, which would be in Bahasa Malaysia or English, and they would decide later on other details of the debate including topics, time and venue.

Lim added the ultimate debate that the people were awaiting to see would be between Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim.

Bernama

11:42AM Feb 18, 2012

MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek kicked off the much anticipated ‘Malaysian Chinese At the Political Crossroads’ conference today with an all out verbal assault against Pakatan Rakyat, ahead of his debate against DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.

Hall erupts as MCA, DAP titans face off

4.55PM Feb 18, 2012

Two of the most prominent Chinese politicians go head-to-head in a rare televised debate with MCA president Chua Soi Lek facing off DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.

The debate topic is titled 'Chinese at the crossroads: Is the two-party system becoming a two-race system?'.

Tensions runs high in the packed ballroom at the Berjaya Hotel, Kuala Lumpur with a 600-strong crowd.

About 200 more who failed to secure entry passes are viewing following the debate through a big screen outside the hall (left).

LIVE REPORTS

4.55pm: The ballroom erupts as rival supporters chant stands up to chant the respective names of the debators as they take the stage.

5pm: Moderator Tan Ah Chai, chief executive officer of the Kuala Lumpur-Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, kicks off the session by explaining the rules.

For the opening speeches, each debator will be allowed to speak for eight minutes.

5.02pm: The duo draw steps up to the moderator's podium to lots enclosed in a envelope, to choose the first speaker. Chua Soi Lek will go first.

5.05pm: After March 8, 2008. DAP has been practising the politics of hatred, says Chua.

He adds DAP has changed and is now teaming up with PAS, which wants to implement a theocratic state. He says DAP cannot stop PAS.

"DAP is just talking big," said Chua, triggering the first major applause from the floor, albiet from the MCA side.

He backs up his argument by stating that Kedah practice gender segregation while PAS is opposing to cinemas in Bangi, Selangor.

5.07pm: DAP likes to tell the Chinese that voting the opposition would improve living standards, pointing to how a DAP candidate can become a chief minister of Penang, says Chua.

Chua says DAP was giving false hopes to the Chinese that such a situation can happen in other states too.

5.10pm: Chua says that in multi-cultural country, Malaysians cannot support PAS because of its Islamic state agenda.

"Who is PAS' biggest ally?" asks Chua, to which the MCA crowd shouts in unison "DAP!".

5.12pm: It's now Lim Guan Eng's turn.

He thanks the organisers for organising the debate but says that what the public wants to see is a debate between PM Najib Razak and Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim.

5.14pm: "We in Pakatan Rakyat don't make use of each other. Our concern is how the public makes use of us.

"We aren't against the Malays. We aren't against the Chinese. We are against corruption," says Lim, whipping the Pakatan crowd into a frenzy...

By ISABELLE LAI

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Chinese at a Political Crossroads forum kicked off with a bang Saturday as MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek brought down the house with his fiery opening speech.

Dr Chua appeared to be metaphorically rolling up his sleeves in preparation for his debate with political opponent, Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng in the evening.

"He (Lim) is more interested in issuing countless statements to condemn or challenge others, behaving like a true street fighter. He has forgotten that he has a state to look after," said Dr Chua to tumultous applause.

The forum, jointly-organised by the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute and MCA think-tank Insap, is being held at Berjaya Times Square here, with the highly-anticipated debate set to begin at 5pm.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak also could not resist referring to the Dr Chua-Lim showdown, saying with a grin that he heard there would be a "boxing match" in the evening.

"He (Chua) is going into the ring. As I can see from his speech, he is very well prepared.

"So we wish him all the very best, and as the boxing term goes, we hope he will punch above his weight," quipped Najib in his speech.

Both DAP and MCA delegates as well as members of the public will comprise the 750-strong audience who will later witness the debate, which will be conducted in Mandarin.

Overseas radio listeners can tune in to The Star's 988FM live broadcast via the station's website. www.988.com.my.

Local listeners should tune in to these frequencies: Kedah, Perlis,Langkawi (FM96.1), Taiping (FM96.1/94.5), Kuantan and Pahang (FM90.4),north Johor and Malacca (FM98.2), Penang (FM94.5), Ipoh (FM99.8), KlangValley (FM98.8), Negri Sembilan (FM93.3) and south Johor and Singapore (FM99.9).

Astro AEC (Channel 301) will also air the debate live, with a repeat telecast at 11pm while live streaming is available via its website www.astro.com.my/bendiquan.

Non-Mandarin speakers can watch the Bahasa Malaysia version on Astro Awani (Channel 501).

The debate will also be aired live on Astro AEC (Channel 301).

Malaysian Two Party System Becoming a Two-Race System?” A question of one or two sarongs!

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Malaysian Chinese at a Political Crossroads forum; Chua-Lim Debate, all hype but no climax

Is the Two-Party-Sytem becoming a Two-Race-System? Online spars started ahead of tomorrow Chua-Lim debate! 

Will China's rise shape Malaysian Chinese community?

By Jennifer Pak BBC News, Penang
 

Khoo Boo Hong says overseas Chinese are no longer seen as the rich ones

 

In Malaysia's northern state of Penang, a distinct shift is being felt in the immigrant Chinese community, as it rides the wave of China's economic rise.

The Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi, one of the richest clan associations, used to send money back to their ancestral home in Fujian province, China.

But that is changing as places like Sin Aun, a fishing village that the clan members' families hail from, are now bustling and have no need for money sent from overseas.

"In the past, overseas Chinese were seen as more wealthy but now the Chinese from China are even richer than us," says the clan association's Khoo Boo Hong.

Indeed, Chinese money is becoming more visible in Penang. A bridge that is currently under construction is being partly financed by a cheap loan from the Chinese government. The 4.5bn Malaysian ringgit (US$1.4bn) project is set to be the longest bridge in South East Asia, stretching 24km (15 miles).

The Chinese community in Malaysia acts as a bridge for business opportunities in China.

 

In 2010, Malaysia was one of China's biggest trading partners from South East Asia. Two-way trade hit 147bn Malaysian ringgit (US$46.3bn) last year, with a push to more than double that amount by 2015.

'Special relationship'
 
Much of the trade has been established by the Chinese Malaysian community, says Oh Ei Sun, the former political secretary on Chinese affairs to Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Malaysia was the first South East Asian country to form diplomatic ties with China in 1974.

China's diaspora

• First major emigration in 14th-16thC by traders and seafarers
• Colonial powers used Chinese as labourers in SE Asia and the Americas
• But also have reputation for business success
• There are about 30m overseas Chinese in total
• Indonesia and Thailand have the biggest numbers - 7-9m each (estimates)
• Singapore has the highest concentration - 3m, or 75% of its population

As a result the two countries have a special relationship, and the Chinese in Malaysia have tried to exploit this kinship by developing business ties with China, says Mr Oh.

The Chinese began arriving on Malaysian shores in the early 15th Century. Today, they make up 24% of a population of 28 million, and have always been more prosperous than other ethnic communities.

According to a 2011 Forbes magazine list, eight out of the top 10 richest Malaysians are ethnic Chinese.

This wealth imbalance has fuelled long-standing resentment among the Malay majority. It erupted into deadly race riots in 1969 - violence that two years later led the government to implement an affirmative action plan called the New Economic Policy.

This gave ethnic Malays and indigenous groups privileges over the Chinese and Indians, such as cheaper housing, priority in university scholarships and civil service jobs. The policy officially ended in 1990 but it has been succeeded by similar plans.

Lim Cheah Chooi hires Malaysian or Singaporean Chinese managers for his factories in China

 

"The quota system is still in place on so many levels," says Teo Nie Ching, a lawmaker from the opposition Democratic Action Party. This limits job prospects for Malaysian Chinese in certain businesses, including listed companies, she says.

"After so many generations [the Chinese] still feel that we are second class citizens," Ms Teo says.
Analysts say this sense of alienation has made many Malaysian Chinese look for opportunities elsewhere, including China.

Speaking the language
 
As the Chinese economy opens up, Malaysian Chinese act as a bridge because many are educated in the United States or Britain but they can also understand the Chinese language and culture, says Lim Cheah Chooi.

His engineering firm, Unimech Group Berhad, has production factories in China, but he employs Malaysian or Singaporean Chinese at the middle management level.

This is something you see even among local Chinese companies who export to the West, says Mr Lim.

"How many people can say they speak Mandarin, multiple Chinese dialects, Malay and English? Most Malaysian Chinese can," he says.

This advantage is maintained because of Malaysia's multilingual education system. Ethnic Chinese and Indians can choose to study at the primary level in their mother tongue.

With the rise of China, more and more people, including non-Chinese, want to learn Mandarin, says Yong Yeow Khoon, CEO of the Chinese-language newspaper Guang Ming Daily in Penang, who is also a board member at an independent Chinese school.

The number of non-Chinese in Chinese vernacular schools is estimated to have grown to over 60,000 over the last three decades.

Even the Malay prime minister has sent his son to learn Mandarin at the Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Optimists point to this as a sign of increasing acceptance of Chinese culture by the Malay community. But some say this is wishful thinking.

Attitude change?
 
Although the government has been pushing for national unity through the 1Malaysia slogan, analysts interviewed by the BBC do not believe that there is a fundamental change in attitude towards the Malaysian Chinese.

Economist Cheong Kee Cheok, who used to work for the World Bank, says some Malays do not distinguish between the Chinese from China and the ones from Malaysia.

"Malaysia in some ways is hostage to its own politics," says Mr Cheong.

He also says that Malaysia needs to be more aggressive in accessing the Chinese market. It may have had a head start in China, but "unfortunately...never used this advantage".

He believes much more can be done to facilitate relations between the two countries. At the moment most businesses who get into China are through the individual efforts of Malaysian Chinese businessmen, he says.
He says Malaysian leaders are not serious about China's rise.

The latest visit from Chinese premier Wen Jiabao in April could lend credence to this theory.

Malaysian blogs were filled with complaints about the grammatical mistakes on the welcome banner put up for Mr Wen in Chinese, suspected to be roughly translated from Malay.

Interpretations vary but the Chinese banner read: "Official welcoming ceremony, with him together his Excellency Wen Jiabao official interview Malaysia."

Many comments on Lowyat.net forum said that was shameful, given that ethnic Chinese people form the second-largest population in this multi-racial country.

"What do you expect? No Chinese working in government," wrote automan5891.

Related post:

Chinese, and truly Malaysian?

More on This Story

Related Internet links

• Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi Penang
• The '1Malaysia' Website

I Recognise You! But How Did I Do It? How local Chinese see faces?

Tweet
 

ScienceDaily (Jan. 13, 2012) — Are you someone who easily recognises everyone you've ever met? Or maybe you struggle, even with familiar faces? It is already known that we are better at recognising faces from our own race but researchers have only recently questioned how we assimilate the information we use to recognise people.

---

New research by the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus has shown that when it comes to recognising people the Malaysian Chinese have adapted their facial recognition techniques to cope with living in a multicultural environment.

The study 'You Look Familiar: How Malaysian Chinese Recognise Faces' was led by Chrystalle B.Y. Tan, a PhD student at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. The results have been published online in the scientific journal PLoS One, This research is the first PhD student publication for Nottingham's School of Psychology in Malaysia.

Chrystalle Tan said: "Our research has shown that Malaysian Chinese adopt a unique looking pattern which differed from both Westerners and Mainland Chinese, possibly due to the multicultural nature of the country."

The ability to recognise different faces may have social and evolutionary advantages. Human faces provide vital information about a person's identity and characteristics such as gender, age, health and attractiveness. Although we all have the same basic features we have our own distinguishing features and there is evidence that the brain has a specialised mental module dedicated to face processing.



Recognition techniques

Previous research by a group at Glasgow University in Scotland showed that Asians from mainland China use more holistic recognition techniques to recognise faces than Westerners.

• Chinese focus on the centre of the face in the nose area
• Westerners focus on a triangular area between the eyes and mouth
• British born Chinese use both techniques fixating predominantly around either the eyes and mouth, or the nose

Chrystalle said: "The traditional view is that people recognise faces by looking in turn at each eye and then the mouth. This previous research showed us that some Asian groups actually focus on the centre of the face, in the nose area. While Westerners are learning what each separate part of the face looks like -- a strategy that could be useful in populations where hair and eye colour vary dramatically, mainland Chinese use a more global strategy, using information about how the features are arranged. Meanwhile British born Chinese use a mixture of both techniques suggesting an increased familiarity with other-race faces which enhances their recognition abilities."

Eye tracking technology

The study by the School of Psychology at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus set out to investigate whether exposure and familiarity with other cultures affects our recognition accuracy and eye movement strategies.

The team used specialised eye tracking technology to investigate the visual strategies used to recognise photographs of faces. They recruited 22 Malaysian Chinese student volunteers from across Nottingham's Malaysia campus. The results showed that Malaysian Chinese used a unique mixed strategy by focusing on the eyes and nose more than the mouth.

Chrystalle said: "We have shown that Malaysian Chinese adopt a unique looking pattern which differed from both Westerners and mainland Chinese. This combination of Eastern and Western looking patterns proved advantageous for Malaysian Chinese to accurately recognise Chinese and Caucasian faces."

The study was supervised by Dr Ian Stephen, an expert on face processing and Dr Elizabeth Sheppard, an expert in eye tracking. Dr Stephen said: "We think that people learn how to recognise faces from the faces that they encounter. Although Malaysia is an East Asian country its ethnic composition is highly diverse. The intermediate looking strategy that Malaysian Chinese use allows them to recognise Western faces just as well as Asians."

How local Chinese see faces?

A study shows that Malaysian Chinese have their own distinct way of identifying faces compared to Caucasians and those from mainland China.

NEW research by the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus has shown that when it comes to recognising people, the Malaysian Chinese have adapted their facial recognition techniques to cope with living in a multicultural environment.

The study was led by Chrystalle B.Y. Tan, a PhD student at the Nottingham Malaysia campus.

The results have been published online in the scientific journal PloS One. This research is the first PhD student publication for Nottingham’s School of Psychology in Malaysia.

The study had established that we were already better at recognising faces from our own race. However, researchers had only recently questioned how we assimilated such information to recognise people.

The images (from left) show locations where Malaysian Chinese participants focus on when recognising faces; in contrast the Caucasians focus on the eyes and mouth, while the emphasis for Mainland Chinese and Japanese is around the nose.

 

“Our research has shown that Malaysian Chinese adopt a unique looking pattern which differed from both Westerners and Mainland Chinese, possibly due to the multicultural nature of the country,” says Tan.

The ability to recognise different faces may have social and evolutionary advantages.

Human faces provide vital information about a person’s identity and characteristics such as gender, age, health and attractiveness. Although we all have the same basic features we also have other distinguishing features, and there is evidence that the brain has a specialised mental module dedicated to face processing.

Previous research by a group at Glasgow University in Scotland showed that Asians from mainland China use more holistic recognition techniques to recognise faces compared to Westerners.

“The traditional view is that people recognise faces by looking at each eye and then the mouth. This previous research showed us that some Asian groups actually focus on the centre of the face, around the nose area.

“While Westerners are learning what each separate part of the face looks like — a strategy that could be useful in populations where hair and eye colour vary dramatically, mainland Chinese use a more global strategy, using information about how the features are arranged.

“Meanwhile British-born Chinese use a mixture of both techniques suggesting an increased familiarity with the faces of other races which in turn enhances their recognition abilities,” Tan explains.

The study by the School of Psychology at the University of Nottingham Malaysia campus sets out to investigate whether exposure and familiarity with other cultures affect our recognition accuracy and eye movement strategies.

The team adopted specialised eye-tracking technology to investigate the visual strategies used to recognise photographs of faces.

They recruited 22 Malaysian Chinese student volunteers from across the Nottingham Malaysia campus. The results showed that Malaysian Chinese used a unique mixed strategy by focusing on the eyes and nose more than the mouth.

“We have shown that Malaysian Chinese adopt a unique looking pattern which differed from both Westerners and mainland Chinese. This combination of Eastern and Western looking patterns proved advantageous for Malaysian Chinese to accurately recognise Chinese and Caucasian faces,” Tan adds.

The study was supervised by Dr. Ian Stephen, an expert on face processing and Dr. Elizabeth Sheppard, an expert in eye-tracking. They are both Assistant Professors at the School of Psychology at the university. “We think that people learn how to recognise faces from the faces that they usually encounter. Although Malaysia is an East Asian country its ethnic composition is highly diverse. The intermediate looking strategy that Malaysian Chinese use allows them to recognise Western faces just as well as Asians,” says Dr. Stephen.

Related post:

I Recognise You! But How Did I Do It? How local Chinese see faces?

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