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Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. [Photo provided to China Daily]
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According to Chu King Fong, my tour guide and a second-generation Chinese immigrant, these days Chinese account for 74.3 percent of Singapore's population, with Malays making up another 13.3 percent. "Another 9.1 percent goes to the Indians. And then there's the Eurasians-people born from marriages between Asians and Europeans," Chu said.
"Raffles, who turned Singapore into a British colony in the early 19th century, adopted a policy of segregation when it came to town planning," she said, referring to Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781-1826), a British statesman and conqueror whom some credit with the founding of modern Singapore.