Maybe it's only natural to have an identity crisis in Singapore.

Thankfully, we can adapt, and we soon stop thinking about it.

How hard is it to create a group identity? It seems that any experience common to a bunch of people can create solidarity among them. Geography and politics are only two things that can make a bunch of people feel like they are similar. Having a similar race, history, culture, religion, and belief can also create solidarity among people, and cause them to differentiate themselves from the rest. Self-serving bias helps to create negative stereotypes and alienate the others.

Even a lack of communication between arbitrarily assigned groups of people can create solidarity. The inter-house rivalry, inter-class rivalry, inter-school rivalry, and even inter-platoon rivalry surfaces without any system in place to encourage it.

Singapore is an immigrant country. Creating a national identity is almost like trying to create a house identity - the people in them are only similar in that they happen to be in it. Perhaps, we could learn from the house system how this can be done.

In the case of interhouse rivalry, one way to do it would be to limit communication, distort facts about other houses, and finding ways to delude the members into thinking that they are better than the rest. In our context, it would be suicide.

Another way could be to create a unique experience. I don't know how this can be done, though.