I find myself very conscious of who I am as am Indian woman

YI find myself very conscious of myself as an Indian woman before strangers

Conscious of
- to whom I may appear attractive to (usually Indian guys and maybe Malay guys)
-Who will be indifferent to how I look (usually Chinese guys)
-Who may find me faintly repulsive (very few Chinese women)

Indian women may see me and smile in camaraderie . Some may judge me haha- where's her thali?

Malay women... I dunno

Such generalisations these are.

I was out once.
Not a date but I somehow ended up at borders next to a classmate - tall good looking Chinese guy. I was pointing out to him whom I thought was attractive. I can't remember all whom I pointed to but there must have been one or two Indian women among them
I will never forget his remark. Very apologetically rendered. 
"I'm quite traditional.  I'm only attracted to Chinese girls"

Maybe he thought I was coming on to him and he was trying to gently warn me off. I say most resolutely I wasn't Haha! In fact I just had this epiphany as I'm writing it .

I was taken aback by his I'm traditional and only find Chinese women attractive. So no miss world pageants for him. No wonder so many Chinese here don't know Aishwarya Rai. Only Indians and Malays do for what she represented was international acceptance of Indian women as beautiful.

This episode happened after 1994 by the way. When she won.  

So while I can see beauty in Chinese Indian and Malay men and women ... to a large part of society here.. educated mind you.. I and other Indian women don't even  exist as possible icons of beauty.

And so paradoxically I feel quite safe wandering around knowing most Chinese guys wouldn't care twice about me. But I may be objectified by the much fewer Indian and Malay men. Which is better. To be objectified or be invisible? A non entity
Such limited options apparently.

And so. This experience above is not unique to me but also unknown to many men for instance may never know what it means to feel objectified all the time. To feel unsafe sexually to always have in mind where it's safe to walk to consider the implications of what you wear... these are female fears men can't fully understand unless they live in a woman's world  this is a man's world unfortunately. Haha.

And then I'm Indian
.7% Only in this country. 3.5% if you take away the men.

No wonder I said earlier on I said I feel I'm fighting minority battles on many grounds. An Indian . Woman. Advocate if literature in a Chinese majority man's world that values only English language.