Eurasian Singaporeans
Singaporean Eurasians is an umbrella term to describe a community in Singapore descended from European men who married local asian women. The ethnicities within the community span the length and breadth of Europe, although Eurasian migrants to Singapore in the 19th century came largely from colonies already in asia, such as old Malaya, Goa, Chittagong, the Dutch Indies, and the French Indo-Chine.
Currently, the community boasts family names which come from Portugal (De Souza, Pereira, Gomez, Nunes, Theseira, etc), Dutch (Ess, Marbeck, Van Culyenberg), Armenian (Galistan), French (Longue, Lange, Poulier), German (Oehlers, Holmberg), Swedish (Olsen) and British (Shepherdson, Capel) nationalities.
The Portuguese
The first Europeans to land in asia, sponsored by the Portuguese Crown, followed by the Spanish. The Portuguese explorers also ferried the first Jesuit Priests to asia.
The Dutch
The French
The British
Largely there for trade or military reasons because of the British Government. Including other British from then British provinces, Scotland, Ireland, Malta, Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc.
The Armenians
The Great Wars - Singapore Volunteer Corps - Eurasian "D" Company
The Eurasian Community at large
Overwhelmingly Christian, most being Catholics, celebrating Christian feast days such as Christmas, Easter and Corpus Christi.
English is spoken as a first language, whilst amongst the elder generation the Portuguese creole known as Papia Cristao or Kristang [1] is still spoken by a handful of people.
Unique to their culinary traditions are Devil's curry , Feng, Vin D'arlo, Mulligatani, Shepherd's pie & Eurasian Smore.
Some famous Eurasian personalities include the current Nominated Member of Parliament Eunice Olsen, media personalities such as the Flying Dutchman, and the late Dr Benjamin Sheares, President of Singapore, and former People's Action Party government Minister E.W Barker.