The term, which includes – but is not limited to – the creole and indigenous Kristang people, who form a distinct sub-group within the Eurasian community with their own separate language, culture and identity.

When the European maritime powers colonised Asian countries from the 16th to 20th centuries, they brought into being a new group of commingled ethnicities known historically as Eurasians.

Initially, the offspring of such a union were brought up as an appendage of European culture, enjoying further advantages not generally accorded to the rest of the local Asian people.

[3] In time, as colonial attitudes hardened, Eurasians were largely cast aside by the European authorities and treated much like the rest of the local population, with many of them eventually supporting home rule and independence movements.

In 166 AD, a Roman mission travelled to China via modern day Vietnam, bringing presents of elephant tusk, rhinoceros horn, and tortoise shell from Southern Asia.

Archaeological evidence supports the claim in the Weilüe and Book of Liang that Roman merchants were active in northern Vietnam.

[4][5] Between 1275 and 1292, Marco Polo spent 17 years as an emissary of Kublai Khan, visiting tributary kingdoms in modern day Indonesia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

[7] In the 1420s, the Venetian merchant and explorer Niccolo de' Conti married an Indian woman, and travelled extensively in modern day Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

[9] Before the twenty-first century, the Kristang were generally disdained and demeaned by other Eurasian groups, being often seen as illiterate, coarse, primitive, backward, unrefined and hypersexual.

In establishing their numerous trade stations spanning across Asia, the Dutch created independent settler societies in each of their colonies, where Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia) became the administrative centre and rendezvous point for the company's Asian shipping traffic.

[11] These early seafarers were not only made up of Dutch, but also included English, Germans, French Huguenots, Italians, Scandinavians and other Europeans who were employed by the VOC.

In time, many were assimilated into Dutch colonies situated throughout Asia (though primarily in modern Indonesia) where they were stationed and became part of the respective communities.

They are the Cape Coloureds (South Africa), Basters and Oorlam (Namibia), Burghers (Sri Lanka), and Indos (Indonesia).

Dutch descendants in Malaysia and Singapore are primarily made up of Eurasians originating from Malacca, as well as others who emigrated from the East Indies, India and Sri Lanka.

Many British and other European men of retirement age, instead of going back to cold Europe, would settle in Australia with Asian women, with fewer staying on in Singapore.

[14] Other Eurasians in Singapore have parents or are descended from individuals who originated from various parts of Western Europe and its former colonies such as in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa or elsewhere.

This enabled them to secure comfortable employment, in both public and private sectors, following in the footsteps of their fathers and as a family tradition for the future generations.

While the pineapple tart origins are elusive, its fascinating history can be traced back to the Eurasian community, as it combines a unique blend of culinary influences - the pineapple, which was introduced to Asia in the 16th century by the Spanish and Portuguese, made into a jam that is blended with Southeast Asian spices like the star anise, cloves and cinnamon, and baked in a pastry form that applies baking techniques introduced by the Portuguese.

[17] In media and entertainment, father and son Brian and Mark Richmond, Vernetta Lopez and Jean Danker are well-known radio personalities.

In past times, many Eurasians lived in the Katong area, as did prominent tour guide Geraldene Lowe in her youth.

From December 1943 to April 1944, a combination of a collapsing currency, rising food and continued social activism culminated in the reactionary and punitive land acquisition strategy which relocated about 400 Roman Catholic Chinese and 300 European/Eurasian families (of which most were land-owners and many Chinese households also ran small businesses or shop-keeps from their homes) that forcibly acquired land and fixed property from homeowners in exchange for an equal area of dry land two miles from the town of Bahau in Negeri Sembilan state in Malaya.

The responsibility for administering the affairs of the settlement was mockingly bestowed to prominent activist for Chinese welfare under occupation Roman Catholic bishop Monseigneur Adrian Devals.

On his own accord, Dr Charles Joseph Pemberton Paglar, President of the Eurasian Welfare Association visited the settlement frequently to bring much needed medical and other supplies as well as give the populace moral strength.

Although many of the settlers were educated through missionary schools, and many of the landowners had practised limited subsistence farming on their properties in Singapore, the soil at the Bahau settlement was intentionally apportioned by the Japanese as it consisted of non-arable land where there was insufficient water for irrigation.

While the Japanese kept to their policy of restraint against the Europeans and Catholics (mindful of their German and Italian allies), the measure was deliberately intended to result in hardship for the settlers.

The entire process which resulted in the deaths of about 500 settlers was extensively concealed under propaganda which sought to portray the departure of Catholic families from Singapore as a willing venture.

As many who were relocated were generally of higher social and economic status, the propaganda which depicted better lives, created a resentment in the local populace and misplaced sense of betrayal against those that had initially defended them against the Japanese.

The perverse nature of the Japanese propaganda was highly effective and would have lasting ramifications of distrust between the local races and their former colonial protectors.