 |
| Stumbling upon a quote from my friend Heem Wei |
Firstly, I am appalled by just how few of the candidates actually speak well - it seems that being eloquent or articulate is not really that important in Singapore. Now it is not just the PAP candidates who speak poorly, it seems they all do across the opposition parties and I cringed when I heard Low Thia Khiang of the WP speak - he was speaking in epic Singlish, he has no concept of plural (well, because we don't use plural in Mandarin) and I was like, geez - if you were speaking in Singlish to connect with the man on the street (or hawker centre) then fair enough lah, but this was an interview with CNA. Oh dear, aiyoh. I'm afraid an election is really the ultimate popularity contest and surely being able to speak eloquently must be a prerequisite. Some of these candidates really need a session with Angmohdan to sort out their public speaking skills.
Secondly, my friends who are opposition supporters have no faith at all in the local mainstream media; they seemed to expect them all to be extremely one-sided in their coverage - I actually do have some friends who are working as journalists in Singapore and they are clearly opposition supporters. And even if they weren't, I would have at least expected them to cover the event fairly rather than be completely manipulated by the PAP - but then again, perhaps that's me being too naive about the whole issue. After all, everything my friends write or produce are being subject to censorship by a head/chief editor before it can be read or seen by the public. Is it really that bad in Singapore, especially in the age of social media when people are no longer reliant on the ST for information?
Do I expect a change - however minor this time? No I don't. I truly admire the patience of those opposition supporters who are fighting so hard this time - with the whole SG50 euphoria and the post LKY death effect, they have an uphill battle to say the least. And I look at this whole situation and I think, I've been away from Singapore for nearly 20 years and so little has changed politically. Sigh. It gives me little pleasure to say that I had made the right decision to leave all those years ago and seek greener pastures abroad because I am glad I didn't speak the last two decades in Singapore feeling incredibly frustrated about the system here. No sir, life is way too short.
 |
| Having froyo after my Lasik operation |
So that's it from me for now from AMK, do let me know your thoughts on the issue and I look forward to hearing from you. If the status quo remains, will you still want to continue to wait for change to happen one day... eventually? Thanks for reading.
I am amazed that all the emphasis on literacy and education has not produced articulate candidates in Singapore.
ReplyDeleteThe level of sophistication when it comes to political spin here is just ... a good 30 to 40 years behind the west. The voters are not sophisticated, so the message doesn't need to be, hence the candidates don't need to try very hard.
DeleteI don't foresee anything changing not even in the next 50 years which is why i'm on my plan A to GTFO.
ReplyDeleteI am with you there bro!!!
DeleteLow Thia Kiang is Chinese educated obviously his English wouldn't be as good. Regardless, he has built a party with many capable people contesting. I know you are very linguistic, very successful, very yandao and write very interesting articles, but sometimes you can be cocky as hell. Maybe some humility can help.
ReplyDeleteWell John, with all due respect, I was English-ed (well, everyone my age is - there weren't any Chinese schools left by the time it got to my batch) but does it mean that my Mandarin must absolutely suck? No, it doesn't - I did make an effort with my Chinese and today, I was doing trilingual announcements in English, Mandarin and Malay at an event in Bishan. Even if Mr Low was Chinese-ed, my response is so what? It doesn't mean that his English is destined to be awful. I never did Malay as a subject at school at all, but I still have a decent grasp of it having grown up in Singapore.
DeleteAren't you making assumptions that ALL Chinese-ed people MUST suck at Chinese and all English-ed people MUST suck at Chinese (or whatever their L2 is)? That's just ridiculous. Heck, I speak so many foreign languages because I worked my butt off learning them - not because I am simply 'english-ed'.
I am not saying that WP isn't a party with capable people contesting - i'm just saying that Mr Low should recognize that he needs help with public speaking and that people like myself would gladly give him that help if he is humble enough to accept it. You know how vehemently anti-PAP I am - I just want to see WP present a better image when it comes to the political game.
Perhaps in Singapore, it is okay for a candidate to speak in broken English - in other countries, it would be unthinkable ... imagine say a Korean candidate who couldn't speak decent, grammatically Korean. Or a German candidate who can barely speak German....
Hey Limpeh, are you seriously comparing your education experiences with Low? He lived in an era where bilingualism was not the norm. And yes you can speak Mandarin, but your pronunciation is not exactly flawless too. Coming to that, I did not say that your L2 must absolutely suck, but generally yes, it will be less fluent. For fucks sake, even LKY and LHL, even with their limitless resources, their L2 Mandarin is not that good to Low, so yes that statement is mostly true. Singapore is a super multilingual country so knowing many dialects and national languages would be more favourable in rallies than just fluent accented English which you are favouring. Comparing them to UK on other monolithic countries is therefore unfair. Unless you are comparing to Switzerland, which they know many languages but only fluent for their first language.
DeleteWell, last night as I did my announcements, i was told that my Mandarin didn't sound local, but I never professed that my Mandarin was good enough to be say, a newsreader for a Beijing-based radio station - i am just saying that I can pick up the microphone at a very busy, crowded event and confidently do announcements in 3 languages without people laughing at how awful my Mandarin is. My Malay on the other hand, is accented and not good at all and I kept apologizing for how buruk my Malay was but the feedback was, hey after nearly 20 years in the UK and you can still speak Malay? Do you know how many Chinese Singaporeans spend all their lives here and still can't speak more than a handful of words?
DeleteAs for bilingualism being the norm, who do you blame? The education system? The teachers? The family? I really don't want to attack Mr Low (especially since he is from the WP which i do support) but I am making a simple point: as a politician, your words are your greatest weapon and if he needs help with his English, heck there would be hundreds of people who would gladly give him a hand. And likewise, say if i were to be in a role where I needed to improve my Mandarin, i would be the first to humbly go for lessons and seek help. I just think it is silly to say, "oh he is Chinese-ed therefore blah blah blah" - IMHO, that is a painfully Singaporean way to look at the issue. I am NOT young, aiyoh, i am 39 this year and balding. But my education and learning never stopped, I am constantly studying, doing courses, improving myself every year and discovering new things about myself. For you to make such a big deal of Mr Low's education (which must have happened an awfully long time ago) and claiming that he is somehow held back from speaking English properly because of it ... I don't even know where to begin with you. I have picked up new foreign languages which i have learnt to a very high standard as an ADULT, long after I have left school.
In any case, the younger generation is increasingly English speaking because of the education system and if any politician wants to engage with the younger generation, then speaking English reasonably well is a must to covey the message. You don't want the kids to be distracted from your message by your bad English. Sorry to be that blunt, i am just putting on my PR & Marketing expert hat here.
As for Switzerland, many Swiss speak at least 2 fluently: French and German (and most speak English too), it is Italian that gets neglected. And only 65,000 speak Romansch.
In any case, there are plenty of examples to demonstrate that it's never a case of "either-or" when it comes to languages in Singapore. We have plenty of schools where Chinese is offered as a first language and many go on to become totally fluent in both Mandarin and English - it does really depend on one's situation as a working adult. I have two sisters, both of whom were brilliant at Chinese at school: one uses Chinese more than the other in the work place, hence one is better than the other in Chinese. Basically, it is 'use it or lose it'. By that token, I have not used my Chinese enough to maintain it at the standard that it was, but at least it is still there when i need to draw upon it.
DeleteThe problem with you Singaporeans is that you are just way too defensive about your accents. If I told you, hey you need to learn how to use this new piece of software to do your job, if i had presented you with a new app to use, you would not hesitate to sit down to spend hours learning how to use it. But the moment one raises the issue of English, ooooh you get sooo upset. Indeed in the case of Mr Low, it wasn't even his accent I was talking about - i was referring to his poor grasp of grammar rather than his accent. How should the two - a piece of software / English - be any different?
I thought you of all people, will have empathy for Low, knowing first hand the difficulties language learners face. Consider you learning German. I'm sure you try your very fucking best. But do you really believe you will get all prepositions, gender, tenses perfect when you speak? Imagine a German saying, fuck you, stop speaking, I hear many errors, learn harder you piece of shit. Instead most would try to understand what massage you are conveying, nodding approvingly. Coming to Low, I get it, his grammer sucks. But do you seriously think he have not tried his very best? Few achieve fluency in both, many don't. I'm not saying English fluency as a politician is not important in conveying to the young, but he was not born in an English environment, just like LKY not having fluent Mandarin. Clearly that was their limit already. You are just highly critical about Low, Gilbert, Kin Lian, your mother etc..... unlike you, they do not have the opportunity, technology and resources. Yes I know you speak the queen's English, you are pedantic about grammatics. It is painful to your ears and eyes. What you seem to lack is empathy. Maybe I am ignorant and misunderstood you, so please correct me if so.
DeleteThank you for your comment John. Limpeh will get a cup of kopi and write a long reply for you - I was just talking about this with another person today and have the perfect response for you as he also asked similar questions and i gave him a very good answer. Akan datang.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteYes indeed, I worked in Germany twice last year and i did struggle with German - I can speak it but it is riddled with errors, both in terms of my grammar and pronunciation. But my German colleagues knew that I was a foreign expatriate there to do a contract - that I was not trying to pass for a German local, to try to win the hearts and minds of German voters in their language. Even for my big role on German TV, I played the part of a German-speaking foreigner, not a local German person: so the locals I met with were all extremely nice to me and encouraging.
DeleteOnto Mr Low: now if he was say working in any other business, say he ran a successful shop in Singapore, i wouldn't even blink at the way he spoke English as it is in fact pretty typical of Singaporeans of his age. i have been in Singapore for nearly 3 weeks now and have heard plenty of Singlish in the last 3 weeks. I have even been speaking in Singlish with my Singaporean friends. The key difference however, is that he is in politics, unlike say a private individual who is working a job like a restaurant owner, an architect, a teacher, an engineer etc. He is putting himself out there on a public platform, trying to engage voters and win theirs hearts & minds.
Now the voter profile in Singapore includes everyone from young (predominantly) English-speaking Singaporeans who are unable to read a Chinese newspaper to the older generation who are the Mandarin and/or dialect speaking older generation (like my dad): they generally do not speak any/much English. Politicians have a very demanding role indeed as they have to represent all in their wards and thus have to appeal to all - they cannot just appeal to a certain segment on the electorate and neglect another portion as that would reduce their appeal and thus make victory at the election less likely.
So I turned the question around: would I be as critical of a highly educated candidate who speaks English flawlessly but really struggles in Mandarin and doesn't speak a word of Hokkien, Cantonese or Malay? Yes, by the same token, I would indeed as this is a job that does require one to be effectively multilingual in order to communicate across so many different ethnic groups in what is a very linguistically diverse landscape. Some candidates in this election fare better than others when it comes to this aspect - please just note that I am acknowledging just how difficult the Singaporean politician's challenge is and it is not about 'oh as long as you've tried your best, that's alright' - no, I'm afraid you're not encouraging some primary 5 kid to study harder for his exams, we're talking about a game when the stakes are very high; if they mess up, then Singaporeans are stuck with the PAP for yet another term (and yes I am very anti-PAP) and so I get your point about him trying his best; my response to that is, well in this game, that's not good enough - and that's a fact. You don't play this game to try your best and lose (and let the PAP win) - you play this game to win and kick out the PAP. That is where you and I differ: i don't believe that 'trying your best' is good enough, i am a man who wants to see results and if there is someone else who can do a better job than me when it comes to communicating in English to younger voters, then i would be the first to ask my colleague to step forward and I would step back.
It is nothing to do with empathy because politics is not about 'oh you've tried your best but you've lost to the PAP again'. It is a highly unforgiving, high stakes game where you have an objective and you should never lose sight of your goal. Like i said, I never judge private citizens who speak English poorly in Singapore - just those who enter politics. Therein lies the difference.
You realize that I do support the WP and want them to succeed, right?
I do seriously wish for the WP to succeed too, despite all the propaganda directed against them. The media in Singapore is tilted all against anyone and anything of the opposition, as we have witnessed from the way they treated Francis Seow, JB Jeyaretnam, Tang Liang Hong, Chee Soo Juan and others. Recently, a Malay friend in the gym was also asking me about the GE 2015, and said that he would rather spoil his vote or vote for the opposition, and since spoiling votes equate giving the PAP an extra chance, he would rather vote for unknown people in the opposition even if it is a small party like the NSP. We even talked about the case of Vincent Wijaysingha and his exodus to New Zealand, after his sexuality was disclosed and when he had difficulty finding work in both the private and public sectors in Singapore. Now that is called fixing the opposition.
DeleteAfter listening to Dr Chee Soon Juan's speeches the past 2 days i think he is the best speaker amongst all the opposition and ruling party included. He is able to give speeches in English, Chinese, Hokkien, Teochew and some even some phrases in Malay and Tamil all without a script!
ReplyDeleteToo bad he most likely won't get into parliament because he would pose the most danger to the PAP as SDP's ideologies are considered left wing. Compared to them WP seems to be center-right and more palatable that people have even considered them to be PAP-lite.
You probably would have heard the news by now. I am speechless. In light of my temporary inability to formulate sentences coherently, I shall quote someone else.
ReplyDeleteInsanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
Time to start planning for my inevitable departure from this mindless moronic island.
Funny you should mention - I just had the same conversation with my sister in Singapore on Facebook... I told her I'm not disappointed like her as I never got my hopes up in the first place.
DeleteMe too actually. In fact this is exactly what I predicted. No opposition gains, possibly the loss of punggol perhaps aljunied.
ReplyDeleteIt still hit me hard though. Somewhere deep down I was still hoping for wp wins I marine parade and East coast. If Singaporeans can't see the merits of voting in opposition candidates of oxbridge calibre, then there is truly no hope for democracy in this country. Sigh.
I really wish I was in the UK. Sky news did such an amazing job covering your elections. The debates were just incredible. The insight offered by young people on their stand-up and be counted programme was mind blowing. The prime minister being grilled by 18 year olds. There nothing of the sort here. Just blatant propaganda and people falling for it. No social issues talked about, or any other issue in fact.
Sorry I needed to rant haha.