French student in Singapore slammed for defending slanted-eye Instagram post, says it's not racist

A young French woman in Singapore found herself on the receiving end of online brickbats after she strongly denied that her Instagram post — a photo showing her pulling the sides of her eyes back and the usage of the term “ching chong” — is racist.

The image appeared to be taken at Southbridge, a rooftop bar at Boat Quay across the Supreme Court building, which is in the background of the picture. The woman is also wearing a cheongsam as she makes the “slit-eye” gesture typically used to mock those of East Asian ethnicities. The post itself was uploaded 43 weeks ago, roughly during the Chinese New Year season. 

The post recently went viral after a Singaporean Instagram user reposted the French woman’s picture, condemning the act and calling the latter a “racist a**hole”.

While an apology is to be expected of these things, the woman — said to be a student here — defended herself and insisted that there was nothing wrong with it. The young woman also beseeched to the Singaporean to be “open-minded”.

“If you had any respect for the Asian community and if you were smart enough, you’d remove the post and just apologise before this whole thing blows up,” responded the Singaporean on Instagram.

This resulted in the French woman doubling down on denying any form of racism by claiming that she has a masters degree and a diploma from Harvard about “ethnicity at work”. This, despite her friend commenting “So chong!! So coronavirus!!” on the post.

According to a subsequent Instagram post, the Singaporean has since written in to the French student’s school to object to the “hate crime”.

“I’m extremely shocked that these acts of racism [are] still happening till this day, especially in your school,” she wrote. “I’m sure y’all don’t condone this immature, racist and xenophobic hate crime.”

The school’s Director of Academic Affairs responded by agreeing that the post was inappropriate and assured that a discipline committee will be dealing directly with the offending student.

ilyas@asiaone.com