Chindian is an informal term used to refer to a person of both Chinese and Indian ancestry. There are a considerable number of Chindians in Malaysia and Singapore, where people of Chinese and Indian origin immigrated in large numbers during the 19th century. There are also a sizeable number living in Hong Kong and smaller numbers in other countries with overseas Chinese and Indian diaspora, such as Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana in the Caribbean, as well as in Thailand, the Philippines, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
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Malaysia and Singapore
In Malaysia and Singapore, the majority of interracial marriages occur between Chinese and Indians. The offspring of such marriages are informally known as "Chindian". The Malaysian government, however, considers them to be an unclassified ethnicity, using the father's ethnicity as the informal term. The government of Singapore classifies them as their father's ethnicity. As the majority of these intermarriages usually involve an Indian male and Chinese female, the majority of Chindian offspring in Malaysia and Singapore are usually classified as "Indian" by the Malaysian government.
According to government statistics, 2.4% of Singapore's population are multiracial, mostly Chindians. The highest number of interethnic marriages was in 2007, when 16.4% of the 20,000 marriages in Singapore were interethnic, again mostly between Chinese and Indians.
Singapore only began to allow mixed-race persons to register two racial classification on their identity cards in 2010. Parents may choose which of the two is listed first. More than two races may not be listed even if the person has several different ethnicities in their ancestry.
Hong Kong
Indians have been living in Hong Kong long before the partition of India into the nations of India and Pakistan. They migrated to Hong Kong as traders, police officers and army officers during colonial rule. 25,000 of the Muslims in Hong Kong trace their roots back to India. Around half of them belong to 'local boy' families, Muslims of mixed Chinese and Indian ancestry, descended from early Indian immigrants who took local Chinese spouses and brought their children up as Muslims. These "local Indians" were not completely accepted by either the Chinese or Indian communities.