Limpeh's review of Alvivi's short film: Actually I don't speak Chinese

OK my friend Alvin Tan has brought out his latest short film, "Actually I don't speak Chinese" and I would like to offer my critique before responding to the points he has made in the film. So in case you have not seen it yet, here it is:

Let's begin with the film itself. I thought it was an interesting choice of topic but the deliver disappointed me. Certainly, his previous film, "Regret" was at least a little bit more intriguing. This was no more than a rant that had nothing subtle about it. I know that Alvin actually speaks Mandarin really well (as does Vivian) so this is a curious choice of topic for them and I wonder if this affected some of the poor decisions they made with this film.

The first problem was that Francis Poh was the wrong actor for this role - he simply wasn't convincing as a "banana" for a simple reason: his English isn't great. He has a very strong Chinese-Malaysian accent when he speaks English. I know what you're going to tell me: there are Malaysian and Singaporean 'bananas' who can't speak Mandarin but suck at English as well - I fully accept that and have met such people. However, in a short film, you have four and a half minutes to make a point; you should go for the obvious and cast someone who does fit the stereotype. This 'Francis' has just graduated Leeds University - okay, that meant this character would've spent 3 years in Leeds, how about a hint of a Yorkshire accent or at least a more generic British accent? But no, this sounds like he's just come from Batu Pahat or Seremban or Kuala Terengganu, certainly not northern England and definitely not Leeds.

Francis wasn't convincing as a banana.

The frustrating thing is that Alvin Tan would've been the perfect person to play that role of Francis given his command of the English language - he speaks English flawlessly and would be far more convincing as a 'banana'. So why did he cast this guy as the 'banana'? It's a pretty poor choice - could you not have found anyone else in KL to work with?

Secondly, Vivian's character Lina keeps turning all her Vs into Ws. Words like university, vice and very become uniwersity, wice and and wery. OK I know she is meant to represent those Malaysians who went to Chinese schools and maybe they do speak like that - but here's an important lesson about film making: never allow something like that to upstage the actor. When you have an intense scene like this, as the director, you want the audience to focus their attention on exactly what is being said - rather than be distracted by a mispronunciation like that. Lina was upstaged by these mistakes and I am not sure it was a wise decision by the director to have made her speak like that.

Never allow anything to upstage your leading lady.

Thirdly, if this was an engineering job, then why should it matter if Francis actually speaks Mandarin or not? It's irrelevant, unless it was for an engineering project in China or with Chinese clients. If this was for an engineering job in KL, then English and Malay ought to suffice. This was a silly mistake with the script - if Francis was applying for a job, say as a customer services manager in a hotel or restaurant, then speaking Mandarin or Cantonese would be extremely useful in KL. But there was no real reason for 'Lina' to suddenly switch to Mandarin in the middle of the interview - it all seemed very contrived. You need to give her a reason to need to switch to Chinese.

And this is when it all goes downhill very quickly. Lina talking in Mandarin in front of Francis raises even more questions - like if Mandarin was such an important role for job, why didn't she verify if he was capable of speaking Mandarin before inviting him in for the interview?  Did she not even read his CV in the first place? That is the kind of fact checking that every gatekeeper needs to do before inviting a candidate in for an interview.It just seemed rather implausible. Why should an engineer need to speak Mandarin in Malaysia, given that there are so many Malay and Indian engineers who don't speak any Chinese at all in Malaysia and they are getting along just fine in their jobs.

Is it really that important to speak Mandarin in KL?

Oh and now we come up to Francis' big rant: OMFG. Alvin, that music in the background. It was so fucking awful Alvin, no no no no no! OMFG, what the hell were you thinking. I watched it and cringed so hard I nearly fell off my chair as I instantly retreated from my laptop. Anyway, allow me to respond to Francis' points.

"You must even think that we're ashamed of being Chinese. But we're not." 

Now please allow me to unpack this as I think it isn't necessarily true. All Chinese-Singaporeans had to study Chinese at school - that was the way the education system is in Singapore, we didn't have a choice. This opportunity to learn Chinese didn't necessarily make us proud of being Chinese - I have a huge problem with people who say, "you must be proud of being Chinese". Like what the fuck does that mean? Huh? I am proud of the things that I have done, the fruits of my labour, my achievements, the things which I can point to and say, "you see that? I did that, I worked hard, I persevered and this was the result." And if you can speak Mandarin well, then you can feel proud of your ability to master one of the world's most difficult languages - that is no mean feat, but let's not confuse that a feeling of pride by simply attaching oneself to the finer aspects of Chinese culture. That is not how pride works!

I had to learn Chinese out of sheer necessity, my father refused to speak a word of English to me as a child and didn't like it when I spoke English in front of him. From a young age, I was trained by PRC coaches from China at the gymnastics club and certainly, none of them spoke any English. Mandarin was extremely useful for me to speak to my father and coaches back then. I was proud of my ability to converse fluently in Mandarin - I was not, however, proud of being Chinese per se. So whilst I am clearly not ashamed of being Chinese, I must stress that I'm not proud of being Chinese either - to me, that's the same as saying, "I'm proud of having two eyes" or "I am proud of having a nose". Well, I'm not ashamed of having two eyes, it is not a source of pride for me either.

I am neither proud nor ashamed of having two eyes.

"We simply didn't have the chance to learn it when we were younger." 

That's a bullshit excuse and you know it. You can learn a language at any stage of your life if you really want to - I only studied English and Chinese as a student in Singapore, I regretted not having done French despite the fact that I showed aptitude for it at the age of 9 when my sister started learning French. I studied her French textbooks and understood so much of it without any formal instruction. But when I went to secondary school, I decided not to do French as there were no French teachers in my secondary school and doing French meant having to go to a language centre when I would rather be doing sports. So I missed that boat but decided to study French anyway at the age of 18 when I was in the army. It was pretty much self-taught and then I did a crash course at l'Université de Bretagne Occidentale prior to my university and then I went on exchange to Paris-IV Sorbonne in my final year at university. My French is better than my Chinese today despite the fact that I had 14 years of formal instruction in Chinese as a student in Singapore but only 3 years of studying French properly at university.

I have since gone on to study Spanish, Italian, Russian, German, Welsh, Korean and Dutch amongst other languages and today, I am fluent in many languages. My Welsh is actually pretty darn fluent and I am so proud of it - I am one of the very few people who have achieved a very high standard in Welsh despite never having lived in Wales. My point is simple: if you really want to learn a language, then just get on with it and learn that language. Malaysian-Chinese people who want to learn Mandarin can do so - there's really nothing to stop them from taking a class in conversational Mandarin. Just because they didn't get he chance to learn it when they were younger doesn't mean that they can't learn it as adults. Gosh, I think of all the things in life I have learnt as an adult and not a child: from skiing to Welsh to cooking. Adults can learn too you know and that is why I think this excuse is just so lame.

"You think I feel proud not knowing Chinese?" 

Well Francis, I think that depends entirely if you need to speak Chinese in your life. I expect people to acquire the skills in life that they need the most and if you don't really need to speak Chinese, then why should that be a problem?

"Every time I walk by an advertisement written in Chinese, or hear people laughing at a joke in Mandarin..."

So what? I grew up in Singapore and I had Malay and Indian friends around me as well - my Malay is limited and I only know a smattering of Tamil. I don't start feeling inadequate or ashamed each time I encounter Malay or Tamil in Singapore, I just accept that I don't speak all the languages that are in use in Singapore and such is life. This comes with living in a mulit-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-lingual society and that actually makes life very interesting. Even in London now, we have a growing Polish immigrant community and we are now seeing advertisements written in Polish and I hear people speaking in Polish all the time. I just think, "that's Polish" when I encounter it - I don't freak out.

Limpeh in Poland, surrounded by Polish!

"Or helplessly limit myself to English songs during karaoke sessions... You think I'm brimming with pride?" 

Oh bitch, please. My Korean is so limited and yet I can sing practically all of T-ara's songs in Korean. In fact, I can sing loads of K-pop songs despite my inability to speak Korean fluently. Pop music is a great way to learn a new language! My Korean pronunciation is probably pretty bad but it doesn't stop me from trying and making a valiant effort to sing my favourite K-pop songs. I sing a lot of K-pop when I am cooking, I ought to film myself doing that one day just for a laugh. If you really want to sing karaoke in Mandarin or Cantonese, then there are ways of doing so. What is your excuse?

"No, I feel incomplete. I pity myself." 

Really? Duh, if it really bothers you that much, then go take a class in Mandarin lah, problem solved, so easy. What would you rather do, spend a year or two getting your Mandarin up to scratch or wallow in self-pity for the rest of your life? It is just a language at the end of the day, you can learn it: it is just like learning anything else. You can learn how to drive a car, you can learn how to play the guitar, you can learn how to do a backflip and you can learn Mandarin too. Give it some effort, commit to a long course and get a good teacher. But why should this matter so much?

Anyone can learn Mandarin.

Mandarin after all, is a foreign language to me. My mother is Hokkien, my dad is Hakka: I should be learning Hokkien and Hakka, not Mandarin. Mandarin should be as foreign to me as Greek or Russian or Arabic - it is not the language of my ancestors, certainly none of my grandparents speak any Mandarin. No, my grandparents spoke Hokkien, Malay and Hakka, not Mandarin. I speak Hokkien well (it's very rusty but I am still capable of having a conversation in Hokkien), I am completely fluent in Mandarin but I don't speak a word of Hakka. My father never bothered to teach me any Hakka - he just decided it was neither important nor useful in Singapore. Should I feel incomplete and pity myself?

No, because I know that if I really wanted to, I could learn Hakka. I could learn it the same way I have learned French, Spanish, Welsh, Russian and all those other languages I have studied - but I choose not to. It's my choice based on the same reasoning that my dad employed all those years ago: that it is neither useful nor important for me to learn Hakka. I don't see a use for it and I am quite happily conversing with my dad in Mandarin. So I can quite happily live with the fact that I don't speak Hakka without feeling incomplete or give in to the urge to pity myself. It's no big deal and most of all, it's my choice not to learn it. I don't lose any sleep over not being able to speak Hakka, my father's language.

Stop playing the blame game over this issue.

Let me now move on to the sequence at the end with the voice over:

"Stop language shaming and discrimination. Don't punish them because of our rubbish education system." 

I don't think this is a war you can win because you're fighting small-mindedness and pettiness - we have a different problem in Singapore. People like myself were labeled 'banana' anyway not because I didn't speak Chinese but because I speak English properly.Arguing that my Mandarin is actually a lot better than theirs doesn't work - I sound different when I speak English and thus they picked on me and called me names like 'banana'. The fact is, this is a reflection on their inferior complex and their insecurities You can't reason with idiotic people like that - you have to simply rise above their stupidity and focus on the more important hings in life that do matter.

And now time for a personal gripe. You know whom I feel really sorry for? I feel sorry for the bananas in Singapore and Malaysia who speak English with a really strong Singaporean/Malaysian accent - white people sure as hell can't understand half the things you're trying to say in English and they imagine that English must be a foreign language that you're struggling with. Imagine their shock when you claim that you prefer to speak English because you can't speak Chinese. Duh. If you're going to be a banana, then at least make sure you speak standard English flawlessly that allows you to be understood outside the Malaysia and Singapore. 

It's a fact, just deal with this: a strong Singaporean/Malaysian accent makes your English very hard to understand to people from other parts of the world and I'm not just talking about white people. Imagine a Japanese or a Brazilian person who has learn English as a second language - he watches a lot of American TV and films and is used to an American accent. Then you hit him with Singaporean English with an accent he is totally unfamiliar with, how do you think that poor Japanese or Brazilian guy is going to cope eh?

There's this guy at my gym - I spotted the ACS T-shirt and I went to make conversation given that he was obviously Singaporean and yup, being an ex-ACS boy, he couldn't speak Mandarin or Hokkien but his English was so... Singaporean that this other English friend of mine came up to me and said, "I know it's none of my business... but that poor guy can barely speak English, why don't you just speak to him in Chinese? Why do you insist on talking to him in English?" And I had to explain that, a) this ex-ACS Singaporean can't speak Chinese and b) that's just the way he speaks English and it's pretty typical of Singaporeans. (Boy that white guy was left confused.)

Many Brits are confused as to why Singaporeans don't just use Chinese instead.

So that's Limpeh's take on the issue - if you're going to be a banana, at least be a darn fine banana and speak English really well and heck, whilst you're at it, learn a European language like French or German. Don't be a crap banana who can't speak any language properly. You know, the right term for such people shouldn't be 'banana', it should be stupid. And if you're going to be a self-righteous Chinese chauvinist who is going to given bananas a hard time, then at least speak Mandarin properly. You'll be amazed how low the standard of Mandarin is in Singapore and Malaysia...

As usual, please let me know what you think - feel free to leave a comment below. Thank you, kum siash!