你是什么人？－我是海南人。

•

Do you ever wonder if our cultural background had in a way influenced how we behaved and how others perceived us?

In the past, habits and traditions were aspects of culture that had guided the way of life of the older generation of Chinese Singaporeans. The environment where they lived in shaped their habits. People were able to identify members of the different dialect groups based on their distinctive character traits. However, in modern times where the boundaries of these dialect cultures were blurred, the behaviors of people could no longer be guided by these intangible rules.

This book provides an exclusive view into the fifth largest Chinese dialect group in Singapore, Hainanese. This book is an exploration based on character traits gathered from a group of older generation Chinese Singaporeans. This book will inspire you to reconnect with your roots and observe if character traits are still prevalent in our modern society.

The character traits inspired the concept behind this book. Hainanese were said to be tall. This character trait is represented through the long dimension of the book. To represent the soft personality of the Hainanese, coptic stitch binding was used to allow the book to have a flexible spine. The use of coptic stitch also represent the unity of the Hainanese group. The paper stock selected was not overly textured or coloured, this represents the trait of loving to be clean. The colour scheme used for the design of this book as inspired by the famous Hainanese Chicken Rice.