The default person

I am, by the accident of who I was born as, the default person in Singapore. Cis, English-speaking, middle class, Chinese, citizen. Every shop caters to the needs of people like me. Almost all the food is to my taste. The snacks in every train station and every mall suit my diet and my flavour preferences. The hairstylists specialise in cutting my straight hair. The beauty salons are used to people like me. The gyms are full of people like me, with the same body type. I can get the food I enjoy at any hour of the night, and morning. No one ever others me. It wasn't obvious to me until I left it for some time. But it is obvious. And it is not the same for many other Singaporeans, who are not the default people here. Deciding, voluntarily, to go and be a minority somewhere else, for this and for other reasons, has been extraordinarily difficult. I feel it most at Trader Joe's, of all places. I go in and I find I hate almost all the snacks, and part of why I hate that shop so much is…