Singaporean's language

"The ideal of a single civilization for everyone, implicit in the cult of progress and technique, impoverishes and mutilates us. "

- Octavio Paz (Mexican poet, writer, and diplomat, 1914-1998)
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This post is inspired by a conversation between me and a fruit juice hawker. Let us take a look at the conversation first:

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Yujian: Auntie, 苹果汁带走(for those who can't read chinese, its apple juice, takeaway)

Auntie:是拿走，不是带走。带走是当那个东西有脚才用的。苹果汁没有脚只可以拿走（its takeaway not "bring" away (literally)， apples don't have feet, cannot takeaway)
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What happens next is that she goes on trying to tell me why we should improve our chinese. This is the interesting part. The Auntie said that now that China is growing, we have to brush up on our Chinese/Mandarin so as to communicate effectively with them (there's an irony in this because i actually wrote a paper (in chinese) that singaporeans can't communicate effectively with people from PRC regardless of our language abilities). This is the part which made me start thinking.

What does a language mean to a person? To most, a language is a mode of communication. The Singapore government has constantly encouraged Singaporeans to speak a certain language so as to gain a competitive edge in the world markets. Long ago, Singapore had the speak chinese campaign. We also converted the education system to english so that we can be global and competitive. There was also a period which we despised Singlish (maybe some still do).

When i was walking back to office after the incident, i recalled what my Thai fren whom I met in Vietnam told me. She asked me whether I was speaking Singlish. Of course, i felt a little bit offended and embarrassed, so i apologized to her. Her reaction was really shocking for me. She said, "No! No! No! Singlish is good! It shows your culture!".

So, linking the two incidents, we can see the difference in views between Singaporeans and other countries about the purpose of having a language. Singaporeans see it as a tool for business, while some other people see it as a culture. I guess its really both. Just that Singapore's culture is a business culture. Everything we do, everything we say (and how we say it) seems to be linked to business. Is this neccessarily a good thing (as our government puts it)? I really appreciate the fact that we're educated in english and that gave us a competitive advantage over many countries (such as Hong Kong).

However, on the other hand, how then can we have our unique culture? Our culture would always be modelled after some country that we work with. Its like our exchange rate, "pegged" to the countries that we trade most often with. I guess that's how we'll communicate... our communication abilities are "pegged" to who we "trade" with...

haha... its just a post full of tots... might not be right... still thinking...