It's racial harmony celebration at my school and apparently 100% participation in wearing ethnic costume earns you 10 class points.

1. This is only achieved if that class is super bonded.

Everyone helps one another to get their costume somehow, rather than just sitting there and telling people to get their costume when some people have limited abilities.

Being bonded also mean that one will feel the obligation to get a costume so everyone is on the same page.

2. Not everyone has the money.

Of course not everyone would have an ethnic costume right? Most of us depended on our Chinese Orchestra costume (even though I didn't wear in the end because I don't see the point of me wearing when there's so little people in my class wearing) and that's probably the only "ethnic" piece of clothing.

You can either borrow it from someone or rent it from a shop or just suck it up and buy one.

How many people are actually willing to lend you their costume? Among those people you planned to use, do they even have one/extra? If it's asking from teachers then you can just forget about it because the whole school it doing it too.

Rent? If you have no problem with money then it's fine. But to those with financial problem, renting a costume for a day can be a serious problem. No wait, renting a costume just for that one hour at hall is not even worth it at all.

If you still have a few more years to go in the school with this type of celebration it may be good to invest in an ethnic costume since you still have chance to wear it. But when you're at sec 4 its super not worth it to buy just for that one time, unless you got the money or going to wear it next time la.

3. Afraid of being deemed as the scapegoat for not wearing.

When you end up not wearing any costume for any of the reason above or you just don't feel like it, you will be blamed by your class. Or at least that's just how I think my class will react if this situation happens. (Luckily majority did not wear) This is super pressuring and stressful one la like everything your fault like that. In the end people have to waste money to get a costume just to satisfy others. Wtf? What's racial harmony then??

4. Wearing ethnic costume does not mean racial harmony.

Like hello, most of the people wore because they felt obligated or forced, not necessarily because they are accepting of other race and religion.

You can have a racist wearing the costume of the race he dislike to discriminate it or make fun of it and you call that racial harmony? Hahaha bullshit.

All in all, I think that wearing ethnic costume is just an way to liven up the atmosphere and get everybody to feel racial harmony but does that really help? I mean yes of course you can see a difference when some people wears colourful costume of different races but does that make you feel excited for the day? A kindergarden or primary school student may be excited but when you get older you just don't feel the need to.

Racial harmomy does not have to be shown by wearing ethnic costume. As long as you're accepting of others' race and religion and culture I think that's enough. It need not go beyond that.

Even though I can't deny I'm a little racist due to the influence of my mum and my inconsiderate neighbour who hangs their lingeries right in front of our door when we mentioned about it kindly to them countless times. Once my mum cannot take it anymore and scolded them and they called the police wtf who's the one at wrong. Not like your panties very sexy also.

Racial harmony in a multi racial and religion country is impossible yo. Just that everyone is not so stupid to get into a riot because we're scared of government.

Cheers.