Jamie Li Chou Han
In the recent public debates over the future direction of Singapore’s Chinese language education policy, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is right in noting that much of the discussion has revolved around emotional responses regarding what level the language should be pitched at (‘Help every child go as far as possible’, The Straits Times, 4 Dec 2009).
Such emotive reactions are to be expected when it comes to discussions on language issues in general, as shown by the recent furore over the English language standards of Singaporeans. This is because language is perceived by many to be, rightly or wrongly, a cornerstone of one’s cultural and ethnic identity. German philosopher Martin Heidegger even goes so far as to proclaim that the essence of our being is to be found in language.
PM Lee has justifiably sought to depoliticize the Chinese language issue by calling for a rational approach towards what he sees as mainly a pedagogical issue. However, what he failed to address, and which is largely missing in the public discourse on the teaching of the Chinese language – and Mother Tongue policy in general – is precisely the inherent political nature of the issue.
This blind spot has resulted in the lack of serious public discussions on the long-term implications of the State’s current language policy for the fabric of our society as well as its effects on Singapore’s image on the larger geopolitical stage.
At the domestic level, the state’s preoccupation with propagating the Chinese language at the expense of the other official languages has the unfortunately political effect of giving minorities the impression, true or otherwise, that the State, rather than being a secular and impartial entity, is actually bias towards the dominant ethnic group.
While policymakers have tried to justify the disproportionate allocation of public resources towards cultivating a bicultural elite fluent in English and Chinese on pragmatic grounds, specifically their usefulness in international trade, scant attention has been paid towards the tensions that such a policy can and has created in our multicultural, cosmopolitan society.
What is being advocated here is not a rigid attitude of political-correctness towards minorities, or worse still a token effort at portraying impartiality through positive discrimination, but rather a serious reconsideration of the potential pitfalls of linking language to ethnic/racial identity and then actively promoting certain languages over others in the name of pragmatic economic concerns. Pursuing such a policy will lead to more Singaporeans asking: Are we truly one united people, regardless of race, language or religion?
The impact of the current language policy extends far beyond the domestic realm, affecting the image that Singapore projects on the wider global stage. Since our independence, much effort has been made at the diplomatic level to cultivate the image of Singapore as a non-aligned, secular country that seeks to make as many friends as possible on the international stage rather than stick to strictly defined ideological, cultural or civilizational blocks. Such a policy is even more important in today’s geopolitical climate, which some are keen to portray as a clash of civilizations.
Language has played a key role in portraying Singapore’s cosmopolitan image overseas, with our pioneering political leaders choosing to adopt Malay as the national language and English as the language of governance, while giving minorities the secular space to maintain their own languages. Such measures were and are still needed if we are to continue persuading our neighbours and the international community that we are a secular, multicultural nation that does not intend to cultivate a special relationship with one particular country mainly due to perceived cultural and ethnic ties.
In the struggle for independence, our founding fathers played a risky political game of riding the communist tiger and succeeded, albeit by the skin of their teeth. The question for us today is if we should tempt fate once more by riding a much more unpredictable rising dragon. Unfortunately, the answer cannot be found through the use of language teaching tools boosted by technology – a troubling thought indeed for those who see language as merely a pedagogical issue.
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Dear ben and zero,
your mind – boggling thoughts need more humane replies, with all humility and simplicity of the human mind with compassion for the minorities, for humanities safe existence on earth. Regardless of race , language or religion. Never imagine any one race is superior over another, than shall you see the demise of that superior race. As nature takes it’s course.
The crux of this issue is that does Mandarin benefit all the citizens of Singapore, only the Chinese in Singapore or the Worldwide Chinese?
It can’t benefit all the citizens, as it’s compulsory for minority citizens to delve into their own mother tongue.
If it’s only for the Chinese Singaporeans. It’s not well and good, – confucianism – filial piety – respect – lots of other excellent aspects of GOOD CHINESE CULTURE. Must remember – not only for the Chinese but also for HUMANITY – REGARDLESS of COLOUR, RACE, LANGUAGE, RELIGION and STATUS in SOCIETY. For all Minority Citizens of Singapore and Other Nationalities.
Propagating use of Mandarin due to trade with China and the influx of Chinese into Singapore – silly reasoning- trade has been successfully being going on for ages with several non Mandarin Speaking countries, with excellent profits.
Sad to mention with this ‘speak mandarin’ policy, it has brought about greater racism towards the minorities in Singapore. Such as , isolation of the Singapore Chinese from their mixing with the Singaporean Minority Races. At workplaces the Sin Chinese tend to group amongst themselves and converse in Mandarin. In full view of a Minority Singaporean in their midst. It gives an immense feeling of segregation in the pipeline and apartheid as in South Africa before all freedom.
Very sad I must say!
Even a minority finding a decent job in the Country of his Birth is such a difficult task, because of the ‘Speak Mandarin Policy’ If one is lucky to get through a job, promotion is an UP-UP-UP- HILL task, compared to a Mandarin Speaking Employee. Who knows nuts about customer service and all he knows is to say’ don’t know’ and curse in Chinese, after the customer has left. So much for Mandarin Etiquette !
What I am rather flabbergasted is, why should there be a requirement for Mandarin speaking sales staffs, when majority of the customers in Singapore are English speaking. This ridiculous policy certainly deprives a minority applicant from being gainfully employed, even though all Singaporeans are educated in English – which includes the customers as well. Such ridiculous advertisement’s can be seen in the Straits Times Employment Vacancies advertisements.
To simplify all the issues, I suggest to use English to cut across all barriers of Language and race as the universal and business n trade language, as it has been all time in education as well.
For your info. ZERO, it’s absolutely not right to say that the poor are not affected with this Mandarin Crap. You definitely don’t seem grounded with the down trodden people in Singapore with this Mandarin Issue. You sound more like a BOOT LICKING FT! Regardless of the down trodden Singaporean. Best Wishes To you
another good reason for u slow thinking , ignorant mandarins……
http://theonlinecitizen.com/2009/12/toc-blog-feature-10-reasons-why-i-cannot-vote-for-the-pap-in-the-next-election/
My essay on cosmopolitan S’pore & the tension between “old” and “new” citizens:
http://youareheng.blogspot.com/2009/12/sunday-essay_12.html
To “ahtong on December 12th, 2009 10.56 pm”
(Re, Starting Thread Post No. 46)
You are right, overseas Chinatown (I’ve been many times to London, Paris, Sydney, and Vancouver to name a few) use Cantonese as lingua franca, everybody knows that, even Beijing govt. In fact i speak Cantonese very fluently as it was used extensively in the 60′s when i was young and my mother is cantonese and i speak to her in cantonese to this day.
When china gained independence, at the turn of the century, it was very fragmented. For some reason Mandarin was chosen as official language although Cantonese and Hokkien are actually much more popular i believe and there would have been much support for it.. Today after more than 50 years, mandarin has become a very respected language. Listen to good, standard Mandarin being spoken and see how beautiful it sounds. Just like French, very melodic, nice! I am glad that i could speak it quite well and i can mix well in any mandarin environment. I felt that it is a goal for every singaporean chinese to achieve, Think of it as learning to play the piano. It’s good for everyone! It’s nothing to do with money, for god’s sake. LEARN IT LOVE IT DONT RESIST IT.
For the nonChinese Singaporean, please understand this is a really sick problem with chinese singaporeans. Mandarin is a difficult language, we need a lot of help ourselves. If you are Malay, no problem, you can get to speak very good malay in your lifespan , likewise for Indians, the environment of your family guarantees you the ability to handle the language of your Skin. However, Chinese Singaporeans are quite lost and some even live an entire life in one mode – English – and curse Chinese. As a malay you will never hate Malay. But there are Chinese who hate chinese language. Do you see how strange and I dare say absurd, this is? The chinese singaproeans are not trying to marginalise and cause a divide, in my opinion, it is a process of education and we just need some help, and as a Chinese Singaporean i am happy with the govt policy so far (i hate PAP for many other reasons) in helping us in this area,
Zero
Mandarin is now a important language. In Singapore, we need to emphasis on learning mandarin. It is not about race issue but more on economical issue
In UK, many schools are making learning foreign langauge compulsory and madarin is one of them. They are trying to make learning mandarin compulsory to the British children and I am teaching mandarin to them. The problem in UK is that they lack the envirnment in learning the language and culture.
If we being Singaporean, especailly born Chinese, we have the environment to learn mandarin to help us in the career and future. Why we not harness the environment that we are in. I think sometimes we need to be objective in the way we view government policy and not personal. The government polcy has to be for the good of the public. Like i have said, it is more for economic reason than racial.
52) sad sack on December 13th, 2009 3.15 am -
“Propagating use of Mandarin due to trade with China and the influx of Chinese into Singapore – silly reasoning- trade has been successfully being going on for ages with several non Mandarin Speaking countries, with excellent profits.”
Times have changed and change is of utmost importance if we don’t want to remain static and become irrelevant. I doubt anyone will buy what you have said. above in today’s context. In fact, the West itself is picking up Mandarin as fast as they can today. I’m also reliably informed all Western universities have and those without are quickly building up a Chinese Department to teach Chinese (Mandarin). Do you know the Confucian Institute’s business has never been so good today internationally.
Yes whilst we’re envious of others progressing we ought to remember these are fellow Singaporeans whose success will grow the national pie bigger for the non-Chinese Singaporeans as well like now. This is the spin-off effects.
There shouldn’t be any undue concern at all for the taxpayers will continue to subsidise Tamil & Malay languages at schools, junior colleges and the universities. This has been ongoing since Indepedence, All this while, Malay and all Indian languages grades are counted to your advantage as Mother Tongue Language in competition with the tougher Chinese language for admission to the secondary schools, junior colleges and polytechnics.
Let’s all give and take for SINGAPORE’s survival If the majority Chinese fail the consequences are really dire. We aren’t only competing with China, Taiwan and HK but Korea, Japan and now Vietnam too!
I don’t really see any good reason as to why the world has to suffer for china’s sake. Clearly it is easier to learn English than mandarin and that English is the most widely spoken language in the world. If china wishes to trade internationally, they should learn to communicate in English, not the world learning to speak mandarin for China. But i guess the chinese government is too nationalistic to get its citizens to learn English and expect the world to learn mandarin for them. NOT
You can’t force a person who is not interested in a language to be proficient in it, and i don’t want to see parents doing that to their children. In the UK, the british have a preference on taking up French as a second language probably due to the similarities in culture or the love for French.
Rizal:
You say that “clearly” English is easier to learn than Mandarin. The Chinese-educated “helicopters” of the past who struggled with English would probably disagree with you on that one.
LET’S MENTION THE PRESENT DEAR GURU YUEHENG!
Singaporeans of all backgrounds and ethnicities have a role to play in bringing trade, revenue, wealth, etc., to Singapore.
Whilst the Singaporean Chinese leverages on Mandarin to tap the huge Chinese market the same can be applied to the Malay and Tamil languages vis-a-vis Malaysia, Indonesia and Tamil Naidu respectively.
Everybody can try to make a contribution and not remain a passenger just to receive.
THE GREAT “GOOD NEWS” as to WHO our ancestors and who our great great great great great Grand Parents were. Kindly read the below link for KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING. Great enlightenement from INCHE FARHAN ALI. EXCELLENT AND HONEST RESEARCH, INCHE ALI ! WELL DONE SIR!
http://theonlinecitizen.com/2009/12/dna-suggests-chinese-origin/
aiyoh ! so much of Historical evidance n you Ignorant Mandarinas speak rubbish!
be enlightened with d below link , U NON- ENGLISH SPEAKERS…. so sadu Badewars!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_languages
Hey Rizal,
Firstly, i’m with you and sadsack. Good points indeed.
As for the Brits, generally, they are not too crazy about the French actually. They frequently poke fun at them on the telly. Then again, the Brits poke fun at most w.Europeans, including themselves.
But i suppose ‘the flight of capital’ and need for ‘profit now!’ does require that the international bourgeoisie push for their workers to learn mandarin instead of waiting a couple of thousand years for China to pick up on the value of integration. Where the profit motive is paramount, people aren’t really going to give a toss about whether the Chinese are going to integrate or not, or about human rights, etc. Human rights is only an issue insofar as abuses aren’t so blatant that the global populace are going to accuse the elite of bothering only about profit. That of course serves to validate China ‘as is’. But as the bourgeoisie are more concerned about the stability of markets, they would be more partial to delegating responsibility for the maintenance of profit-inducing stability and order.
Hence, that is why Obama didn’t see a problem with just about giving s.e.Asia to China as they do recognise the value of China’s stability and its being able to engender similar subservience in the region. As India is too busy adapting to the whole world, the power balance will probably shift to the sinical side…unfortunately. China also plays the role of Israel in the middle east in keeping the ‘Saracen’ in check, if you know what i mean;)
The role of singapore in this scheme of things is in serving as an argument that ‘Chinese culture’ works in ‘modern times’. That buys time for China to do as it pleases and adapt s.e.Asian civilisation to itself whilst forestalling western critique by a ‘we have our version of democracy and you have yours’. In this, singapore sets the perspectival and linguistic vocabulary for China move forward. This also serves to strengthen singapore’s push to turn SG into a chinese country and enables it to come across as being ‘economically prudential’ as opposed to being fascist.
Overtime, there is going to be a greater ‘Chinese’ union throughout the region, not only in racial terms, but in cultural ones as well with most looking ‘east’ for the path to success. This gives the illusion that the Chinese system works. But in truth, if it works, it is because it has put all difference down. That will give the Chinese throughout the region that the Chinese system works for want of an alternative that’s been given room to breathe. Same thing happened in singapore, same thing’s going to happen in quite a bit of s.e.Asia. Unfortunate, really. I’m for integration and egalitarian multiculturalism myself.
ed
Hi Harold,
There is no reason why Indians can’t learn Mandarin and do biz in China; Chinese learn Malay and do the same in Malay regions; and Malays learn either to get into China and India. In fact, cross-lingualism gives people an added perspectival advantage.
Your view is borne of 50 years of cultural and fascist propaganda. I’m not blaming you, but you ought to wonder how you might be an unwitting pawn in a regional game of power and profit.
If you think about it, in the longer run, and given the economic strength of China, it will be the Chinese in SG, etc, whom will be advantaged as their transactions with China will see them climbing up whilst the others will be kept down.
That happened with the ‘speak mandarin, its an advantage’ campaign in singapore. This, along with other policies advantaged the Chinese over others over a few decades. Now this is happening on a regional scale. The chinese are getting a slice of China’s success and will be able to use this to their relative advantage throughout the region. The Malays and Indians, however, are left with little place to go for their own slices since they may not be as needed in their ‘motherlands’.
Putting it simply, China is a ‘pot of gold’, and only the chinese in singapore are allowed to access it. The Indians, underdeveloped by culturally and racially biased policies are only a shadow of the Indians in the sub-continent. Hence, they are not as prepared to do well in India. China, however, being not too dissimilar from singapore, will be able to be of advantage to both the Chinese in SG and China. Additionally, this will also serve to reinforce the bigoted tendencies of the China chinese. That is already evident in a recent poll undertaken in China that indicated that the Chinese prefer singapore state investments because of cultural similarities. China has lesser reason to change for the (multicultural) better now.
ed
Hi all,
I’m curious if anyone has the numbers but I think that in terms of difficulty in mastering a language. They are similar in difficulty in terms of examinations. That should be the basis of our comparison.
I would say that in proportion the number of chinese speaking broken mandarin would be the same as the malays and indians speaking broken malay and indians.
The reason behind the perceived higher difficulty should be largely due to the larger number of chinese (not proportion) struggling. It may be over-simplistic to generalise, but I do think that the academically-inclined portion of our population would have no problems doing well in both languages (english and mother tongue). For this issue, we have to refer to data regarding the proportion of students with A1s/A2s for both languages at O Levels. Gripes that learning a particular language is difficult are always overstated. There are times when you just gripe that a certain Maths paper is difficult, but you know that you would do well for it. It was just stressful as you do not like studying it so much.
My point is, the perceived difficulty of anything is all down to attitude and how joyful it has been studying it. The majority that speak malay do not speak proper malay. Likewise, the Indians with Tamil. The problem is one of attitude. The ‘jiang hua yi’ campaign seems to address this problem headfront. It is good. However, it marginalises some larger problems faced by the minorities in Singapore.
I agree with most of Yueheng’s points. I am wondering if it is right to devote the majority of attention to Chinese because the majority of the Singaporean population is Chinese. Hence, perhaps the budget of education may look something like 70% for Chinese, 20% for Malay, and 10% for Tamil (with some adjustments for other minority languages). Therefore it may be no surprise that so much attention is put on Chinese.
I am particularly struck by some of the arguments in the comments, particularly by cagiva_diablo (comment #1!) and ray. Granted, there is definitely an element of racism in Singapore (by all races in fact). But I wonder about the misdirected frustration and anger about the Speak Mandarin campaign (this mentioned by cagiva_diablo).
A common error is to equate Mandarin with Chinese, which is not quite the same thing, especially in the context of Singapore. ‘Mandarin’ is the dominant spoken variety of Chinese (specifically, the regional variety of northern and southwestern China), whereas ‘Chinese’ is a more encompassing language with many regional varieties (‘regionalects’ or ‘topolects’, in linguistic terminology, not the same as ‘dialect’). To me, the Speak Mandarin campaign is motivated by the government wanting to follow a particular topolect of Chinese that is considered standard (in China; note that this standard variety is called ‘Putonghua’; not every Chinese national can speak this well).
This Speak Mandarin campaign is therefore most pertinent to speakers of non-Mandarin topolects (i.e. Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka, Hainanese, Hockchew, Shanghainese, Toishanese, etc.), and not so to non-Chinese speakers. Sure, the ads and all that may seem overbearing, but it is again, a game of numbers. The majority of the population is indeed Chinese, and the effectiveness of ad campaigns depends on reaching out to this majority.
Yet, consider the problems of even this Chinese-oriented campaign. Not every Chinese is happy about learning Mandarin, because their mother tongues may be any of the non-standard topolects (e.g. Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, etc.). A lot of Chinese culture is tied with the regional language. For example, Hokkien customs and beliefs differ from those of Teochews, or from those of Cantonese. The campaign to force Mandarin on non-native Mandarin speakers has led to a loss of knowledge about the culture, customs and beliefs of the various regional groups, simply because the non-Mandarin topolects are not longer learnt.
On Malay as the national language of Singapore. While Malay may be the national language for historical reasons, I wonder about any need to learn it just because it is a national language, when we already have English as an administrative language.
In fact, not all ‘Malays’ in Singapore think of Malay as a mother tongue. This is because there are many language/cultural groups in the Malay archipelago that do not speak Bahasa Melayu (e.g. Javanese, Sundanese, Acehnese, Buginese, etc.). I know some Singaporeans of Javanese descent and they have expressed before that they would rather learn their own mother tongue (i.e. Javanese), but in Singapore, they have to learn Bahasa Melayu since there is the national policy for people classed as ‘Malay’. This goes for other non-Malay ‘Malays’.
The point I am making is, the issue of language, culture and ethnicity is quite complex, in a multi-cultural society that is Singapore. People may feel aggrieved because of perceived discrimination and bias. Yet, is it really discrimination, particularly one that is perpertuated by the government? No, I do not think that is necessarily the case.
the real reason…….see link below!
http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/2009/12/letter-from-ding-ting-in-london.html
two other good sensible reads……..
http://todayinsingapore.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/the-pact-with-the-devil/
http://singabloodypore.rsfblog.org/archive/2009/12/22/singapore-the-essence-of-christmas.html
the goodness that English Language can do……
http://www.yoursdp.org/index.php/perspective/vantage/3197-sporean-activists-should-engage-more-with-others-blogger