By Yini Chua
Step into any ACS school, and you would be hard-pressed to find anyone conversing in Mandarin. As an alumnus aptly articulated, the surest way of gaining notoriety is to ‘get a loudhailer and start singing Chinese songs at the top of your voice’.
During my two years’ stint in ACJC, it was not uncommon to hear about how our school, a traditional enclave of atas – high class – English speaking students from single-sex mission schools such as MGS or ACS(I), has been diluted by the influx of students from SAP schools.
In other words, people like myself.
Born into a Chinese-speaking family, and having attended Nan Hua Secondary, I was the epitome of a cheenah kid. Having spoken Mandarin up till the point when I entered ACJC, I experienced a culture shock in my first few days of school, where virtually all of my classmates spoke English. My insecurity was further magnified by the secondary school uniform I was wearing.
It is a classic case of how ‘clothes maketh the man’. In ancient Rome, your clothes not only showed your status in society but also pinpointed exactly the layer to which you belong.
It is not much different nowadays. It is a sad fact that most people are judged by which school they came from, rather than by their real talents that lie underneath the clothes.
Yes, the world is my oyster. But the oyster speaks English and wears an MGS uniform.
This is not an isolated case. English-speaking elitism is a growing phenomenon in Singapore, as families who communicate solely in English are fast becoming the majority, providing sharp relief into the cultural differences cleavaging the local Chinese community.
Of course, the economy has a big part to play. Since independence, English has been dominant as the language of commerce and government. It has assumed the role of a de-facto lingua franca of Singaporeans, as its accessibility did not provide any racial group with any ostensible linguistic advantage, particularly the Chinese majority.
More parents are encouraging their children to adopt English as their first language, in the name of pragmatism. It is an accepted fact that being fluent in the language paves way for a smoother career trajectory.
However, the outward rejection of one’s mother tongue, especially Mandarin, has, in recent years, gained momentum among the younger generation. It is an unintended, regrettable consequence that the inability to write and speak Mandarin has become a point of pride among youths.
In fact, offering the Chinese Language ‘B’ syllabus (CLB) has morphed into a badge of honour for such students, as a testament to their inferior Chinese speaking skills.
The fact that being incompetent in one’s mother tongue has become a ticket to popularity speaks volumes about our level of maturity and our desire to hold on to our traditional heritage.
My 9 years old cousin is an exemplification of this point. When confronted about his dismal grade in Chinese, he self-righteously exclaimed, ‘But I got A star for my English what. And Chinese is so hard to learn.’
At that point of time I was very acutely aware of my grandmother’s expression – one of resignation.
Although Chinese is not an easy language to learn, it is our responsibility as ethnic Chinese to be proficient in our mother tongue. The motivation behind learning a language should not be anything but intrinsic.
By intrinsic, I am referring to the innate interest in one’s native tongue and the acknowledgement of the importance of its role in keeping culture alive.
Even the recent state-sponsored revival of Mandarin can be attributed to economic practicalities. The national obsession with pragmatism has resulted in a population that is hyper-efficient only in the manufacture of tangible results. The productive ethic of this island state has been secured at the price of cultural degradation.
This phenomenon paints a very pessimistic picture for Chinese cultural development. The socio-cultural architecture of this nation is increasingly reflecting the tabula rasa of our physical landscape, where cultural relics and architecture will still stand in their pristine condition, but without evoking any sentiment. Their fate as empty and polished shells is the danger that faces the culturally lobotomized children of the future.
The history behind Nantah is a treasure trove of stories that narrates the sacrifices of the local Chinese population as they endeavored to build an oasis of education for the future generation.
Now, precisely because of the borrowed cachet of history, its contemporary namesake is ridiculed for its cheenah-ness.
The Chinese adage of remembering the spring when drinking water, encapsulating the need for gratitude towards our elders. Reaping the fruits that our ancestors have shed blood and tears for, the younger generation has to fulfill our responsibility and ensure the continuity of our culture.
We should also seek to transcend the functional logic that underscores the government’s interest in Mandarin and appreciate our culture beyond the state-imposed understanding of racial categorization. The appreciation of Chinese culture may begin but should not end with Mandarin; rather it should be the tentative to steps to rekindle our interest in the dialects and practices that have been reduced to obscurity, both by the state and by ourselves.
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Headline photo courtesy of chinnian
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- Language scuffles
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Yini Chua
It has been some time since you posted this article so I do not know whether you are still reading the comments. Anyway, I have been intrigued by what prompted you to express your views and I decided to go back and read your article again. You made a particular statement which I think needs to be challenged.
You said
“Although Chinese is not an easy language to learn, it is our responsibility as ethnic Chinese to be proficient in our mother tongue. The motivation behind learning a language should not be anything but intrinsic.
By intrinsic, I am referring to the innate interest in one’s native tongue and the acknowledgement of the importance of its role in keeping culture alive.”
What you are saying is that as Singaporeans of Chinese origin, we should feel guilty if we show no interest in learning the Chinese language. You must realize that we are not in a unique situation. There are many large Chinese communities in the countries close to Singapore, such as Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines. A very large proportion of these communities have lost the ability to speak Chinese and have embraced whole-heartedly the language of their country of adoption. They do not feel guilty or ashamed about it. You may argue that this situation arose because historically, they were forced by the governments of these countries to give up their own language in order to be assimilated into the mainstream. But that policy has since changed and yet they feel no need to go back and relearn their original language.
You can apply the same argument to the present day African Americans. Apart from a very small number of them like for example, Alex Haley who wrote the book “Roots”, the vast majority are not interested in where their forefathers came from or what languages they spoke.
I think if a person is keenly interested in his ethnic origins and wishes to master his original language and learn the culture of his forefathers, that should be viewed as a personal motivation and not as an “innate interest”.
On the subject of mother tongue, I find it laughable how the Singapore government has defined this term to apply to Mandarin when referring to the ethnic Chinese. If you go to Hong Kong or Macau and tell the people there that their mother tongue is Mandarin and not Cantonese, they will politely tell you to go jump in the lake!
This is a very late reply, but I thought it is a necessary one too.
Maybe we should kindly remind ourselves that, just like Mandarin, English was forced on us as well, first by the British colonial masters, then by the PAP government in power. So if we allow ourselves to have English forced on us, why not Chinese, in this case Mandarin? (In fact, our forefathers were forced to have their vernacular schools (very reluctantly) shut down; perhaps that might help explain why we shouldn’t be questioning on our cultural heritage.)
Many people like to use the dialects as an excuse to “reject learning Mandarin” which I find laughable. And do these people possess good speaking skills in those dialects? Or are able to pass on those dialects to future generations? Do they also know that Hong Kongers know how to write in Chinese (readable by non-Cantonese) other than to speak in Cantonese? (Yes, and knowledge of Mandarin is not required to write in Chinese because the standard script is the same) Mandarin/Chinese is here to “save our culture” so that at the very least we are using a tongue/language that belongs to the Chinese race. Moreover, how is (the level of) culture measured? By embracing wholesale a foreign language and calling it our own, and rejecting the original native languages, be it Mandarin or dialects? Or to just be able to “speak” and “listen” without being able to “read” and “write”? To the level of only tribal culture? Civilisations progress and cultures progress, that’s why we not only know how to speak English, but also how to write in it.
Our policies have created a situation where we are encouraged to be able to handle both English and Chinese/Malay/Tamil. That leads us to the conclusion that non-Mandarin dialects are no longer feasible, which I thought is sensible. But why is Chinese (Mandarin) also seen as “unfeasible”?
I think we should consider the future as a long term plan rather than just a short term economic advantage. We should continue promoting good English among non-English speakers. Because we all know in 10 years time China will be the largest English-speaking country in the world.
If you wanna argue on short term economic goals with China, must we than also learn Hindi for the next competing Economic power? Although India are well verse in English.
Learn and try to master both languages will be the best. If I let you choose either a 50 and 100 note, will you choose the 50?
It is really not difficult to do that in Singapore, just create or enter the environment that can help you.