and theres no one here but me

Friday, October 03, 2008

i don't understand whats the point of some singaporean forcing themselves to converse with their kids in english when their command of that language is pooooor.

This father n 3 kids took the lift with me just now.
"EH hurry hurry don't play already!"
so he walked in before me, turned and asked me, "which block ah?"
politely i replied "it's okay" and i reached out to press "8".
i dun stay in blk 8 but i stay on the 8th floor.
so you know what i mean.
he thought "lou" (floor in chinese) = block
turning around to his kid,
"BOY! don't lydat! later fall you will kok your head! prease..."
it's obviously a direct translation from mandarin. right?
--> (boy! 不要这样！等一下你跌倒会撞到头!)

so why doesnt he choose to speak mandarin instead?
the language that both himself and his kids are comfortable with
whats the point of acting as though he is somehow slightly more knowledgeable than kopitiam uncles. in the end, he just embarrass himself unknowingly.

how do i know that this family should be the mandarin-speaking type?
cuz whatever the dad says, the kids reply in mandarin.
kids do not lie, not especially the way they speak.

that's the bad thing with singaporeans.
if you insist on teaching your kids bad english, they will not be able to tune back to the correct one. it's like your kids have been taught to wear his socks before wearing his shoes. and one fine day, you ask him to wear his shoes before his socks. no matter whether which way is correct, he will still not be able to accept it and it will take years before he will get used to it.

and now i wanna ask...
WHATS WRONG WITH SPEAKING MANDARIN?
does it show that you are outdated?
or it is more trendy and stylish to be speaking english?
that being english speaking will portray you to be more refined, to be cool and to tell the whole world that "hey oh my gawddd, look at me, im like so totally americanised!!!"
and i hate it when people show themselves being proud of their terrible chinese/mandarin. hello? what you trying to prove?! yes yes, you are very angmoh.
being angmoh indirectly implies that you are cool *rolls eyes*

there are many ways you can avoid sounding like a typical kopitiam auntie or china imports by speaking proper mandarin as well. it doesnt mean that mandarin will make u sound CHEAP. it's the way you construct your sentence and the way you control your tone/volume.

chinese is such a beautiful language.
so why avoid it like a plague?
people cant write it well, im okay
people cant speak mandarin well, im okay
but people who dun even bother to try understanding this language despite being a chinese, im not okay. it's like a malay who doesnt know malay, french who doesnt know french... how can?

please,
speaking mandarin doesnt make you an ah tiong
nor speaking english makes you angmoh.

so speak whatever you are comfortable with.
why force yourself to follow the norm?

xoxo,amy7:22 PM

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