Friday, December 15, 2006

chinese for chinese!

i have come down to a sad conclusion after recent events-singaporean chinese cant speak chinese for nuts other than those who speak very well of course. ironical but true. after various trips to china, i have amazingly shocked many by just being able to speak chinese. =.='' an example was when while driving me and my sis home after making our visas, my dad's secretary attempted to speak english to me and when i replied to her in chinese as i felt it wld make things easier, the shock on her face was distinct. even though i consider myself to be relatively fluent in speaking chinese, the people sometimes still do not get what i am saying. and i have to repeat again. vice versa, i do not get wat they say at times as they are speaking so fast.

the sad thing is quite a number of chinese in singapore are unable to speak chinese fluently or even jz piece sentences together. a simple conversation in chinese would result in stutters as i have seen while the opposite party tries to get what one is saying. it is saddening and i know many teachers have said this but i will say it again. if malay and indians can speak their mother tongue so well, then why cant we, as chinese do the same. thus when i someday by chance or something become minister of education or in the committee or something, i would propose that the L1R5 in effect now to be changed to L2R4! i will probably be shot if this happens but it is for the best as it is the only way people can try to improve their chinese the way they would for english.

of course in saying all these, i am not saying my chinese dam pro cos i know it is not and i myself am guilty of not being really interested in chinese as i do not intend to take chinese in jc. but despite this, i will still continue to speak chinese, cos i will come to china and theres an obvious need for me to use it.

hopefully, singaporean chinese will not take chinese for granted cos its dam embarrasing if u cant speak ur mother tongue like a malay unabale to speak malay, an indian unable to speak tamil, a german unable to speak german and a french unable to speak french.

Twistin' at 7:22 AM