//beconfused

Recently there has been some complaints about the absence of Chinese wordings in Singapore. Singapore has 4.16 million people (total population) in the tiny island, of which 76.5% are Chinese. [Source: Singapore Infomap]
I can’t say all, but most Singaporeans know English. The road signs are in English. The MRT station is filled with English. [MRT stands for Mass Rapid Transit, it's the local locomotive system running on electricity.]
However, complaints are made. Obviously the Chinese are the ones who complain about this. Not the younger generation but the older ones. One of whom is someone I call “mother” too.
My mother says that the government is trying to kill the Chinese language. She also added that she cannot navigate herself with all the road signs available since they’re all in English and she only know about the English names for fruits. [Apple!]
Well, just to digress, even if the MRT navigation is written in Chinese language, I doubt my mother know where to alight either. She just don’t get the train switching part of the MRT system.
Anyway, my mother says Chinese language should be placed next the English counterparts. But then the problem comes. If you include Chinese language, what about Malay and Tamil languages. I highlighted to her that there can’t possibly be 4 languages side by side.
“It used to be like that anyway, it should still be like that,” she rebutted effortlessly in Mandarin.
I lost the debate.
Apparently, my mother is not the only one upset about the absence of Chinese language. Many other Chinese-speaking aunties are upset about it too. ["Aunties" refer to older women locally.]
People start writing to the press, e-mailing the Prime Minister. All sorts of things. In fact the problem seems to be so serious that new Prime Minister Mr. Lee Hsien Loong made used of his debut speech to highlight that problem. And what better a language to use to address this problem than Mandarin.
Streats (local newspaper) reported that our dearest Prime Minister Mr. Lee Hsien Loong spoke in fluent Mandarin. That report, I believe, is erroneous. I checked the next day’s paper and Streats didn’t correct their mistake in the “We’re sorry” section.
So what’s the conclusion of the whole Chinese issue? I don’t know what’s Mr. Lee’s conclusion because I was lazy to listen to his more-than-three-hours speech telecasted on television, but I do have my personal conclusion.
Just put the damn Chinese language back, it’s not like it’s very hard or anything. Mr. Lee, if you do that, I can assure you that your citizens will love you more and forgive your Mandarin with the one-of-a-kind accent.

Possibly related:

1. local//lingo
2. bewildered//future
3. minty//exploitation

Tags: singapore