Hush, I am a chinese.
Monday, October 29, 2007
For the longest time, I had absolute faith in my command of the Chinese language...until I had to communicate in purrfect chinese with some Shanghainese a few weeks back. Not a nightmare, but certainly not smooth sailing either.
Three days ago, I tried to talk to my friend's mother-in-law from Hongkong in Cantonese. Well, unfortunately it was a desperate AND FUTILE attempt.
Oh, should I just by the way mention that my dialect is Hokkien and I can't understand nor speak that language for nuts? Ah, except for the entry-level vocabulary that typical Singaporeans like myself will use to pepper our daily conversations so as to truly express our innermost emotions...of a Singaporean.
SUDDENLY, I FELT STUPID. EXTREMELY STUPID.
Look around us. Majority of us cannot speak nor write in Chinese properly. Tune in to Channel 8 and Channel U; the way yuppies try to speak Chinese in that "ang moh" accent is UTTERLY DISGUSTING 'cos that "ang moh" accent has got such strong Singaporean Chinese flavour to it!
I can't give a justifiable excuse to this phenomenon...AT ALL. During my primary school and secondary school days, scoring distictions in Chinese and even Higher Chinese was a breeze. Yet, everyone claimed that they couldn't carry a proper conversation in Chinese...and so they couldn't. Teenager being a teenager, I made the decision of discarding my strength in the language because there was this tacit and pervasive belief that that was the only way to survive in a school of aristocrats. One STUPID life choice, and I am jack of 2 languages, master of none.
Empathy votes?
Looking at this "social linguistic phenomenon" from a different angle, if we are hopeless in the Chinese language, how many of us are masters of the English language? Oh, anyway, during my 'O' and 'A' levels, I have seen more failures in the English language and General Paper than in another other examinable subjects...so...well, you may vote now. A negative vote from me, that is.
More empathy votes?
So is the Chinese language that difficult to master or are we just suppressing our concious selves to appear socially "superior"? I am guilty of the latter, and there is THE NEED for me to retrieve my Chinese roots.
老娘来也!
--what some might say --
10:27 PM
