ABSTRACT
This chapter lays out the tools that individuals use to project their ethnic tastes and lifestyles. It shows that individuals make their ethnic tastes and lifestyles known to others through taste performances. The chapter argues that taste performances are explicit and outward-facing, special and/or mundane, and interactive. Whilst rituals are the most obvious forms of performance, taste performances do occur at all levels and in very mundane situations. Suan’s performances above were scripted, calculated, and executed with the experience of one who had performed the ritual many times. Whether a performance of taste is public or private, special or mundane, it remains interactive and outward facing. Singaporean Chineseness and economic wealth have been intertwined ever since migrants from China chose to settle in Singapore and build a nation-state after the Second World War. ‘Heartlander’ lifestyles are the lifestyles that Chinese Singaporeans most often tend to connect to low levels of economic wealth, working-class jobs, and lower social status.
