How many are Singaporeans?

There might come a time soon when Sin­ga­porean cit­i­zens, some of whom are respon­si­ble for vot­ing in the elec­tions, will be out­num­bered in Sin­ga­pore by peo­ple who are not Singaporeans.

CNA says that the pop­u­la­tion of the coun­try rose by 200,000 between 2006 and 2007, of which only 39,490 were born here, which means 160,510 of these new­com­ers (wel­come, y’all! And yay! my cal­cu­la­tor works!) are def­i­nitely non-Singaporeans, who, at the moment, tally more than 1 mil­lion, and prob­a­bly around the 2 mil­lion mark, because the stats CNA gives don’t tell me how many are Sin­ga­pore­ans and how many are Per­ma­nent Residents.

That’s more than one in four peo­ple liv­ing here. If it’s not your mother, your father, your brother, then the for­eigner in your fam­ily is you. And the maid.

And don’t cast sus­pi­cious eyes at the Olympic Ping Pong team, they’re Sin­ga­pore­ans, every sin­gle Chi­nese Speak­ing One Of Them, and they won’t be very happy if you tell them you expect medals from them because they’ll have home ground advan­tage in Bei­jing, because China very big you know?

Don’t think too much about this though… Happy National Day Saturday!