Multiethnic

Our city has become more multiethnic.

Back in 2002 and several years thereafter, I regularly attended meditation sessions at Wat Yanviriya Buddhist Temple in East Vancouver, BC. I came to know the Thai culture more because of it. Pāli chanting, moon festivals, relics viewing, et cetera were part of my life then. I remember a spacious hall with hardwood floors and a Buddha altar in front. In summers, the doors would be open to the sunny green outside. In the wetter seasons at night, candles would be lit in the silent darkness inside. (I wore a black Australian Outback jacket then.) Omnipresent was the Ajahn Bhoontam in orange robe, he conducting the rituals. Our saṅgha or congregation was medium-sized and multiethnic. A real saṅgha full of Thais allowed us to share the rustic building. The two groups met at different times.

I travelled to multiethnic walkable Singapore on my way to Bali. There, it was a land of four official languages, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, and English. I liked the food there a lot, including "cumi-cumi" or squid served in a clay hotpot. I saw dark Tamil people eating with hands on big banana leaves. Hawkers in Malay shrieked, "Makan! Makan!" (Eat! Eat!). Vendors sold big funny-looking lotus flowers. Some men were wearing colourful aloha shirts. My quaint hotel was decorated in 19th-century colonial Sino-British fashion. Later, from the Web, I tried job-hunting in the city-state, because it looked like a comfortable place.

Marika's unique blend of features pays homage to her diverse heritage, making her a symbol of multiethnic beauty.

In general, they are propagating the image of Ukrainians as the European descendants of good peasant stock, of multiethnic pioneers, and of an ancient multiethnic state.

As a multicultural and multiethnic society, Singapore has four official languages: Malay, Mandarin, Tamil, and English, with Malay considered the national language and English as a nominally neutral ‘working language’ allowing communication across all communities.