This article is about people of Chinese and Indian descent. For the geopolitical term, see Chindia.
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In Malaysia and Singapore, the majority of interracial marriages occur between Chinese and Indians. The offspring of such marriages are informally known as "Chindian". The Malaysian government, however, considers them to be an unclassified ethnicity, using the father's ethnicity as the informal term. The government of Singapore classifies them as their father's ethnicity. As the majority of these intermarriages usually involve an Indian male and Chinese female, the majority of Chindian offspring in Malaysia and Singapore are usually classified as "Indian" by the Malaysian government.[2]
According to government statistics, 2.4% of Singapore's population are multiracial, mostly Chindians. The highest number of interethnic marriages was in 2007, when 16.4% of the 20,000 marriages in Singapore were interethnic, again mostly between Chinese and Indians.[1]
Singapore only began to allow mixed-race persons to register two racial classification on their identity cards in 2010. Parents may choose which of the two is listed first.[3] More than two races may not be listed even if the person has several different ethnicities in their ancestry.
Indians have been living in Hong Kong long before the partition of India into the nations of India and Pakistan. They migrated to Hong Kong as traders, police officers and army officers during colonial rule. 25,000 of the Muslims in Hong Kong trace their roots back to what is now Pakistan. Around half of them belong to 'local boy' families, Muslims of mixed Chinese and Indian/Pakistani ancestry, descended from early Indian/Pakistani immigrants who took local Chinese spouse and brought their children up as Muslims.[4][5] These "local Indians" were not completely accepted by either the Chinese or Indian communities.[6]
^Weiss, Anita M. (July 1991), "South Asian Muslims in Hong Kong: Creation of a 'Local Boy' Identity", Modern Asian Studies25 (3): 417–53, doi:10.1017/S0026749X00013895.
^Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, Gelina Harlaftis, Iōanna Pepelasē Minoglou (2005), Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks: Four Centuries of History, Berg Publishers, p. 256, ISBN1-85973-880-X
^Carol R. Ember, Melvin Ember, Ian A. Skoggard (2004), Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World, Springer, p. 511, ISBN0-306-48321-1
1 Most of the native Bruneians (Malays and Kedayan), Cambodians (Cham), Filipinos (Bajau, Binadan, Illanun, Suluk, Ubian), Indonesians (Acehnese, Banjarese, Batak, Buginese, Mandailing, Minangkabau (Rawa), Javanese), Singaporeans (Malays) and Thais (Siamese) or those with an old Bruneian, Cambodian, Filipino, Indonesian, Singaporean and Thai ancestry have already established a presence since before the Malay sultanates era therefore making them recognised as a bumiputera.
2 Should be noted that a numbers of Arab, Chinese and Indians descendants came during the Malay sultanates era as traders as well the Nepalese, Pakistanis, Bengalis and Sri Lankans who served as/in the police, guards and soldiers upon recruitment from the British. Both the Chinese and Indians were also brought as labourers to British colonies of Malaya and Borneo in the 19th century in which a numbers of them inter-married with the local peoples.
