Sng B C
Perhaps we may wish to consider the role a dialect plays in building rapport and leading to business opportunities.
I refer to the Straits Times article, “Mandarin drive starts in the home”, on March 18, 2009.
When I was in secondary school, I agreed wholeheartedly (presciently, it appears) with MM Lee’s statement that with Mandarin, “We can connect with the whole of China and its 1.3 billion people. Dialects will confine us to our original village or town or at most, the province of our ancestors”. I even took that line of reasoning one step further – I thought that with English, I could connect with the whole of the English-speaking world. Mandarin, I thought, would confine me to China and its 1.3 billion people – a large percentage of whom would eventually learn to speak English anyway.
Along the way I realised, however, that I could not build rapport easily with English speakers who did not speak English my way, the Singaporean way.
In university, I made it a point to brush up my Mandarin. However, I discovered that I still could not build rapport easily with Mandarin speakers who did not speak Mandarin my way, the Singaporean way.
For that matter, many Mandarin speakers in China find it difficult to understand the Mandarin spoken by people from other provinces. Although the Chinese Government has made it mandatory for Mandarin to be taught in schools, Mandarin is still not the mother tongue for most Chinese – their hometown dialect is. Northerners find it hard to understand southerners and the Shanghainese often gleefully mix Shanghainese words and pronunciation into their Mandarin. Does this sound familiar?
Building rapport
Building rapport is the first step to developing the all-important Guanxi in China. Building rapport is about seeking common ground, about getting the other person to treat me as one of “Us” and not as “Others”. In China, it is prevalent for family-run SMEs to have one price for Us and another higher price for Others. It may be surprising for some that many Chinese do not consider the Chinese from other provinces as Us, but rather as Others. So whom will a Chinese consider as Us? Someone with a nexus to his hometown, perhaps. Someone who enjoys the same food and speaks the same dialect, perhaps.
We all like to feel like members of an elite fraternity, and sharing a common dialect, even if it does not open as many doors as a Masonic handshake, still does wonders in building rapport. Perhaps we may wish to consider the role a dialect plays in building rapport and leading to business opportunities. After all, as the Teochew say, “Ga ki nang, pa si bo xiang gan” (If you are one of Us, it does not matter even if we die for you).
Just look at the facts – the Cantonese-speaking Hongkong-ers have made many successful investments in the predominantly Cantonese-speaking Pearl River Delta of southern Guangdong Province , but do not have investments of a similar scale in north-eastern Guangdong Province , which is predominantly Teochew-speaking. Similarly, the Hokkien-speaking Taiwanese have made many successful investments in predominantly Hokkien-speaking southern Fujian Province, but do not have investments of a similar scale in northern Fujian Province , where the Min Bei dialect (which is mutually unintelligible with Hokkien) is prevalent. Can Singaporeans, who have been trained to speak Mandarin and not dialects, boast of a similar presence and as many successes investing in China?
The Hokkien spoken in Singapore is not the same as the Hokkien spoken in Taiwan or in Fujian Province . Nevertheless, speaking a variant of the dialect is often sufficient to build rapport – after all, it is a standing joke in Fujian Province that every village speaks a different variant of Hokkien from the next village across the mountain.
Leveraging on dialects
One does not have to be extremely proficient in a dialect to build rapport. From personal experience, it is sufficient to be able to conduct a simple conversation in a dialect to draw attention to the commonality of the ancestral homeland. Further negotiations can be carried out in Mandarin. I have oftentimes been able to leverage on my dialect to obtain better prices from Hokkien vendors than my non-Hokkien Chinese counterparts.
Furthermore, the use of dialects is not restricted to China. The Chinese Diaspora began long before Mandarin became the official dialect in China . As such, there are approximately 30 million Overseas Chinese, originally from Guangdong, Fujian and Hainan provinces , who may not be able to communicate fluently in Mandarin. It would not be a far stretch to assume that it would be easier to build rapport with an Overseas Chinese by speaking to him in his dialect, rather than struggling to carry on a conversation in Mandarin. This might prove difficult in two generations’ time, if, as MM Lee predicts, “Mandarin will become our mother tongue”.
With regard to Mr. Chee Hong Tat’s comment that “it would be stupid… to advocate the learning of dialects, which must be at the expense of English and Mandarin”, I would like to introduce him to some Malaysian Chinese friends of mine. Speak to a Malaysian Chinese, and chances are, she can speak English, Mandarin, Malay, Cantonese and Hokkien well enough to carry on a conversation in all of the abovementioned languages. As MM Lee rightly pointed out, English and Mandarin are two “manifestly different languages”. The dialects that we are referring to, however, are merely spoken variants of the Chinese language. Surely, learning to speak a dialect must be easier than to learn Malay along with English and Mandarin?
I agree with Ong Siew Chey’s letter on March 19, 2009 that “in spite of our claim of being bilingual, some of us are actually non-lingual, hovering between Singlish and substandard Mandarin.” The Speak Mandarin Campaign started 30 years ago. If Singaporeans, after 30 years of the Speak Mandarin Campaign, are still “non-lingual”, can anyone be certain that not speaking dialects is really the cure for “non-lingualism”?
In 2005, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Robert Kuok, the “Sugar King of Asia”, together with a delegation of NUS students. Mr. Kuok (then a sprightly 82 year-old multi-billionaire) took the effort to greet us individually when we first met. Upon hearing our surnames, he would first make guesses at our dialect groups, and greet us with a few words in each of our own dialects. This left a deep impression on me, and I hope that one day, with proper training, my “5GB” brain would be able to replicate that feat.
However, I understand that I should not be too hard on myself if I cannot learn to speak several dialects. After all, Mr. Robert Kuok’s unique. He’s Malaysian.
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Read also: Disadvantageous Mandarin by KJ.
And: A response to MM Lee’s private secretary on dialects by Deng Chao.
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21/3/09
The English speaking world is much bigger than the Mandarin speaking world and plese tell me how many Singaoreans can actually go to Chna to work, trade and do busines……I think less than 5%. In the old days, parents sent their children to English schools so that their children can have better future ie good jobs and higher salaries, and many included our Minister Mentor Lee Kuagn Yew went to England and fought for Malaya independence and subsequently Singapore independence.
Further, gradutes from University of Malaya in Singapore and its succesor University of Singapore got better jobs and salaries than those from Nanyang University whose graduates only speak Mandarin and very poor English and who had to beg for jobs with very low salaries and forcing those unemployed to start their businesses which many did very well and went on to built business empires of today. Today, graduates from overseas universities such UK, US, Australia and New Zealand, got good jobs and higher salaries than those from our local universities in Singapore who write and speak Singlish (the same is very true in many countries including Malaysia)
Let us continue to put our preference in English as the language for government, commerce and industry, and as Singaporean Chinese continue speaking our respective dialects like Hokkien Cantonese, Teochew, Khek which carry our rich culture,traditions and practises which are colorful and vibrant, unlike speaking Mandarin solely which are colorless ,dull and boring.
Regards
Andrew Chuah
It should be not just Mandarin alone and kill the dialects. It should be Mandarin and dialects and other languages. The more the better.
For my mother and father’s generation anfd their parents it is Thai but they also speak Kedah-Penang Hokkien.
When it comes to my generation my relations of my generation lost their Thai language ability.
But, I picked it up at a late age, albeit by accident.
I learn the Lao language as I live in a Lao village and I found that I can be understood in Thai Esan, parts of northern Vietnam and parts of southern Yunnan. But, if I just switch to the more formal Thai I can be understood in Bangkok and other parts of Thailand.
So, I would like to speak Thai with my old relatives and find out what is like but I had been late in learning Lao- Thai and they had all passed away.
I also picked up Swedish as I used to live in Sweden. I found that I can be understood in Norway, Denmark and parts od Finland. If I work hard at it I can understand some German as there are some similiarities among these two languages.
So, I can go on and on with my adventures and fun with languages and I thoroughly enjoy speaking the various dialects, accents and languages.
So, why just stop at Mandarin and kill the dialects.
Kill what next? Accents!
In Teochew,
“Ga ki nang, pa si bo xiang gan” mean literally, “own people, even if we beat you up it doesn’t matter”, not “If you are one of Us, it does not matter even if we die for you”. :)
BTW, I only hear this said by non-Teochew and usually in a terrible accent.
What your web site should also investigate is the policy change in the 80′s when Chinese Singaporeans were forced to learn Mandarin as a second language in public schools whether they liked it or not.Overnight the learning of Bahasa Malay by many a Chinese Singaporean was wiped out and today many a younger Chinese Singaporean do not understand a word of Malay.Which is sad as this language be it Bahasa Malay or Bahasa Indonesia(Which is quite similar to Bahasa Malay) is spoken by the largest group of people in South East Asia. The Malay language was the gel that kept us Singaporeans connected to one another regardless of our ethnic difference and today we do not have an identifiable trademark that makes us connected to one another regardless of our ethnic diversity.
I don’t see why we’re thought to be too stupid to learn more than 2 languages.
In Europe it’s so common to know at least 2 (English and your own language). and most people know a little bit of other languages.. enough to get by.
I don’t see why we’re thought to be too stupid to learn more than 2 languages.
In Europe it’s so common to know at least 2 (English and your own language). and most people know a little bit of other languages.. enough to get by.
P.S. – Sorry, forgot to tell you great post!
Sad to say the Chinese Sporeans have been seduced wholesale by the PAP’s economic bait because MM brilliantly read the Chinese Sporeans’ minds-”give me opportunity to make money, and you can do as you please” and because now many money-eyed Chinese Sporeans are making less money, a proliferation of whinnings, complaints and vituperation abound towards the PAP.
I am not gloating, but feel that many Chinese Sporeans deserved listening to the “cracked tune of the PAP piper”. Mark my words, the also-rans will still follow the PAP piper.
Being widely used – learning English and Mandarin make us kind of ambidextrous and this dexterity can further be enhanced / enlarged multi fold by our being able to learn as many dialects as possible – just like the additional dexterity our 10 fingers given us.
At own pace and capability and choice – one should be allowed to learn English, Mandarin, and any numbers of prefered dialects, etc, etc .- as all these may probably serve us as kind lingual franca in some parts of the world or locally.-and we cannot rule out the possibility of not using them..
Online Citizen – My name is Sng BC not Bng SC.
Vacuum State – Apologies for the error. I was misled by the younger generation of Teochews – their Teochew has obviously degenerated. Our government policy has succeeded yet again.
After checking with the older generation, apparently “Ga ki nang, pa si bo xiang gan” means “If we fight among ourselves, it doesn’t matter if we kill each other – outsiders stay out”. Vacuum State please verify that this translation is correct =)
Most of those who are older (in their 40′s and above perhaps) knows English, Mandarin, Malay, and at least a dialect or two, if not more. Our younger generation today knows English and Mandarin (not fantastically good, I must say), knows NOT a word of Malay, and hardly understands and speaks any dialect. And MM Lee is having us believe that to try to learn a dialect nowadays will get in the way of learning English or Mandarin. Is this really true? If it is, then there has to be something really wrong with the education system nowadays compared to the earlier years. During those years, weren’t we also learning English, Mandarin and if you still remember “Sinar Baru”? Weren’t we also picking up our ancestral dialect speaking to our grandfathers and grandmothers? And weren’t we also mixing around with our neighbours who are Malays, Indians, Cantonese, Hokkiens, Teochews, Hakkas, Kheks? Have we been worse off? Or are the younger generation nowadays better than us in linguistics skills? Your guess is as good as mine. So, who are we bluffing now? Re-examine the total education system and reflect on why the older generation can speak and understand more languages than the younger generation now. MM Lee should know – he speaks English, Mandarin, Malay and many dialects too – is he worse off?
Maybe its just me, but i feel that singaporeans are quite unique in that
when asked to speak english and less other languages at home they really obey. this is good, dont be mistaken, in that it improves our english language. However, at the expense of other languages and ethnic culture.
now when someone calls for people to speak more mandarin, they seem to respond also.
really, these are the ideal citizens that all leaders in the world would dream of having.
you say jump, i say how high. Excellente!
For the pragmatist, everything is a tool, a means to an end. That is the real reason why life in SG is as colourlessly automatonic as it is. But between pure idealism and pragmatism, there is a large, broad middle ground.
Why learn a language (or discard it) purely on its economic utility? Being able to communicate meaningfully has no visible economic: does that mean this has no value at all? We run the risk of implying by logical extension that our aged folk are of no value to us. Nevermind the truth of such an extension, how does that jibe with our vaunted Confucius values?
Mandarin is close enough to many of the other chinese regional dialects that the learning of Mandarin can be aided by a good grasp of one of these dialects. This seems especially true of Cantonese. It seems counter productive to knock down dialects in favour of Putonghua.
On a pragmatic note, much good Putonghua will do you if you happen to be in Guangdong, where Cantonese opens doors with customers and suppliers. Cantonese speakers are treated by locals with less suspicion in opening deals and starting business relations. Speaking “Standard Mandarin” in China is like speaking Queen’s English in Singapore – totally out of place and incongruous, even our ministers and newscasters do not do it.
do u still believe there is a chance that dialects learning can
be brought back in a significant way? It is clear ds will fade away
in generation to come No amount of ramblings is going to change
it Let us move on to a new topic.
Mr Sng B C and 3)Vacuum state
Both your explaination of “Ga Ki nang,pa si bo xiang gan” are correct.
Both of you have a understanding of this phrase.,just that it is not easy to explain in English.
The important part that this sentence stress is the word “Ga Ki Nang”. meaning “own people/own group”.This actually motivate unity among the same group of people and as such ,to give way/give face/give chance etc to one another among the group.There are many more meaningful purpose in it.
Anyway ,I myself have problem expressing this in English.
So,the moral of the story?
This is the unique and interesting part of Dialect.It carries meaning that other languges have difficulty interpreting.,or a long explaination needed to such a simple”ga Ki nang”.
Sng B C ,Thanks for your sharing which I agree.
To build rapport, one has to speak the language the target group identifies itself with. Unfortunately, Mandarin isn’t the language the Chinese people identifies itself with, although Mandarin is the common language of China. People in China identifies themselves through their own dialects. This alone is sufficient to disprove MM Lee’s flawed economics reasoning that Mandarin will help to build Singaporean business. However, Mandarin would be useful if Singaporeans were to be employees of Chinese companies. Is MM Lee hinting a future of Singaporeans slaving for Chinese employers?
Exams!
Imagine for a moment, the learning of languages (besides English) in Singapore without having to take exams…
learn, speak, read, write, listen, communicate, exchange, inmerse
Where it is compulsary to attend the 2nd language lesson but you may choose to or not to take that as an examination subject.
Some schools can even offer other foreign languages.
But i am of the view that one must be very proficient in at least one language… i would like to know if Bill Gate is bilingual? how about Richard Branson? Or Li Ka Shing? If they are, did they take exams for their other languages? And how did they fair?
Yes, make all the ministers and PAP Mps take Mandarin at O and A levels. The results would be highly interesting!
i agree with the point on m’sians being proficient in many languages. singaporeans like to mock them for their accent especially when speaking mandarin. but my personal experience tells me that they’re much more proficient in mandarin than most of us are. and you can add that to them being proficient in malay and other dialects.
singapore? it embarrasses me that just because we speak english most of the time, we’re so ‘yaya papaya’ and always look at those who speak mandarin disdainfully.
by the way, i’m singaporean.
I love the way that MM always tries to sell his language policies as being done purely for our benefit. OK, I am not against the teaching of Mandarin in schools and I think with the rise of China, I can’t think of anyone who can dispute the importance of China and Chinese culture.
What I find ridiculous is the way in which the people who brag about making Singapore more educated suddenly start telling that it’s impossible to be proficient at English, Mandarin and a dialect or two. MM Lee says we don’t have enough gigs in our brain to manage but for some reason, PM Lee thinks we could do well to pick up Arabic as a third language …don’t learn dialect because you can’t manage it but learn Arabic on top of English and Mandarin ….does that make sense?
Let’s be honest here. The only reason why MM Lee is so “Anti-Dialect” is because he realised that if Hokkien-Speaking workers could cause a revolution to get him into power, they could easily do the same to get him out of power. Dialects tie us to certain communities. When we were a nation of many dialects, we were a nation of many communities. These communities helped their members who in turn gave back and let’s also be honest in pointing out that somehow the communities worked together until colonial and nationalist politicians started playing the race card.
So how do you solve the problem – get rid of the communities – remove the idea of self-help and make people dependent on one ordered culture.
Needless to say, this never actually works but then who cares about reality when a few civil servants are getting paid top dollar to tell you who you are.