Andrea Hirata

It's hard to be a minority. People look at you a different way, like you don't belong, and I don't think many people realize just how difficult it is to live as a minority. Where I come from, we learn to tolerate one another. Whether one is of Chinese descent or Malay descent, what matters is we're part of the same country, the same world.

As goofy as it sounds, I try to sing in the morning. It's hard both to sing and to maintain a grouchy mood, and it sets a happy tone for everyone - particularly in my case, because I'm tone deaf, and my audience finds my singing a source of great hilarity.