She's Malay and loves Indian culture.

Welcome to the world of Singapore's Culture Chameleons, or CCs.

They tend to be young adults between 18 and 25, are open to inter-ethnic mingling, adopt aspects of their friends' cultures and, in doing so, even reshape their identities.

Take 18-year-old Colleen Gwee. Listening to her on the phone, one might not think she is Chinese.

This is especially when her speech gets animated: It takes on a Tamil accent with a lilting cadence and rolling 'Rs'.

The personal assistant will also pepper her conversations with Malay colloquialisms like 'Apa itu?' (What's this?) and 'Sial!', an exclamation in vernacular Malay-speak.

Her favourite food is chapati, an Indian dish, and she listens to Tamil pop songs. She even has Indian pet names like Pooja or Poonam. Friends, many of whom are Indian, gave her that moniker. Her boyfriend of two years is an Indian Muslim.

'Many people mistake me for an Indian or Malay or Eurasian, but my parents are Chinese Hakka,' she said.

Ms Gwee picked up conversational Tamil and Malay while she was in Naval Base Secondary School, which has a large number of Malay and Indian students.

Then there is Malay undergraduate Siti Hazariah Abu Bakar, 20. She fell in love with Indian culture when she visited India four years ago on a secondary school exchange programme.

She has since delved deeply into the Indian influences on her Malay heritage and enjoys her South Asian studies at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Sociologists here have noticed this revival of inter-racial interaction among the youth.

Though no proper studies have been done on this, Dr Tan Ern Ser, an NUS sociologist, said: 'My own study suggests that there is more inter-ethnic interaction among younger people, compared with older people.'

If so, the state of racial relations has never been better.

In fact, reception towards inter-racial interaction is warming up, a 2007 survey by the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) shows.

Nearly all the 1,824 Singaporeans aged 15 and older polled said they did not mind a next-door neighbour, co-worker or teacher of another race.

About 90 per cent of the Malays and Indians polled did not mind being friends with other races, whereas the Chinese were more reticent, at 82 per cent.

Apart from what the study found, the number of inter-racial marriages has gone up too. These accounted for 16.4 per cent of the 24,000 marriages which took place last year, up from 8.9 per cent a decade ago. Of these, Muslim marriages were most likely to be mixed. Three in 10 marriages last year were inter-ethnic, compared with two in 10 in 1997.

Dr Geoffrey Benjamin, a sociology associate professor at NTU, said 'playing ethnic games' is part of the process of young people finding themselves.

By this, he means young people can easily remodel their identitieswith influences from different cultures, easily accessible through the media.

In this 'multiple identity' process, one may imitate the appearance or learn the language of another ethnicity. Sometimes, it goes deeper, when a person's values also begin to change.

Future cohorts of Singaporean students keen on cross-cultural language immersion will have it easier.

All primary schools and two-thirds of secondary schools will offer conversational Malay and Chinese classes in four years' time.

The programme, started in 2005 to strengthen bonds between students, received positive feedback, with the number of schools offering conversational Malay increasing from 97 in 2006 to 249 now. Conversational Chinese classes are also up from 87 in 2006 to 239 now.

Tertiary institutions are also seeing a rise in enrolment for regional language classes.

Singapore Management University (SMU), which opens up to two elective Mandarin and Bahasa Melayu classes each semester, has had full enrolment so far.

'The Malay course is very popular with Chinese Singaporeans,' said SMU's senior corporate communications manager Kim May.

Over at NUS' Centre for Language Studies, Mandarin, Bahasa Melayu and Tamil language classes have seen a 20 per cent hike in enrolment compared to a year ago.

For some CCs, a multi-racial family environment shaped their multiple identities.

NUS undergraduate Khairul Anwar, 23, who has a Malay father and a Chinese mother calls himself a 'mixed kid'.

'You tend not to see yourself or others by their skin colour or ethnicity because you realise people can't be fitted into categories,' he said.

Miss Nadzirah Zaini, 23, an NUS electrical engineering undergraduate who is also Malay-Chinese, said her mixed heritage has also subtly reshaped her character.

The Raffles Girls' School and Temasek Junior College alumnus said she had been taught to value the virtues of hard work and discipline since she was a child.

Dr Tan said he is not surprised today's young people are so 'at ease crossing ethnic and cultural boundaries, be it in regards to food, friendship or marriage'.

Because of Singapore's diversity, 'one can pick and choose different aspects of different cultures and not be seen as totally determined by the culture that one is raised in'.

For most CCs, the reception from their adopted cultures has been warm.

Miss Siti Hazariah said: 'When I tell my Indian friends that I feel Indian inside, they were surprised but happy. I guess it makes them more positive knowing that other races do care enough to get to know them, even if they are the minority here.'

But despite their keenness to cross cultural boundaries by learning to speak the language, and, for some, dating across racial lines, many recognise their own cultures still have a strong impact on their lives.

'Essentially, you know you belong to your own family and in the bigger sense, your ethnic community. There's still a certain line you can't cross,' said Miss Nadzirah.

What are your views on 'Culture Chameleons'? Send them to suntimes@sph.com.sg