Jiang Hua Yu

Remember all the silly campaigns the Singapore government would have her citizens follow when we were growing up in the late 70s!? The 'courtesy' campaign with stupid Singa the Lion, the 'speak mandarin' campaign where they had commercials on tv relating that the ah mas (grammas) and ah gongs (grandpas) at home quit speaking the only Chinese dialect they have spoken all their lives and learn to speak Mandarin from their 3 year old grandchild?! I know there are tons more 'coz every Monday in school, I remember as a very very bored 13, 14 and 15 year old teenager at assembly rolling my eyes while the bloody principal of Nan Hua Secondary School, Mdm Chow (an old ass lady who spoke English with a North American accent) would say shit like "this week is water conser-wayyyyyyyy-tion week!'. Okay, I said, she spoke with an accent, I didn't say she pronounced everything well. Or... "this week is lend-not-borrow-week". How about 'shut the phuck up week' I would always think lol. Obviously she never did... not especially when she caught me with an 'illegal' hairstyle that my mom had cut for me. But, once again, that's a story for yet another day...

My title says 'jiang hua yu' directly translated means 'speak Mandarin'. I think I might know why our Singapore government still encourages us to speak not our first language (well there is no 'speak English' campaign that I know of... at least there wasn't when I was there) and instead, our mother tongue. For most of us Singaporeans, Mandarin is our second language. Like our first language, we don't speak it perfectly like someone from Beijing or Taiwan would. okay, we don't even speak it well, let's be honest here. We are mere borrowers of English and Mandarin and we butcher the languages... much like you Americans who claim English as your own. Face it, it's called English. Not Americanish. So it's not yours other than those words you insist on spelling wrongly. They are spelt 'aluminium', 'maths', 'fillet', 'moustache', 'quarelled', 'grey' etc. The list is endless... You now understand why my spelling is still sometimes whacked out of control 'coz I honestly still don't know if I'm coming or going lol. I grew up in a British colony for crying out loud! Dates are written day, month and year... not month first, day then year?! Same goes for my pronounciation which sometimes ignites thunderous laughter from the king. That's ok... I, too, find it pretty funny SOMETIMES :)

When we Singaporeans speak English (or better known as Singlish); to another Singaporean especially, we tend to mix our sentences with splashes of Chinese words and/or phrases ie, Mandarin and/or any dialect both party might understand - sometimes with Malay too. With lazy accents, sometimes even leaving entire alphabetical sounds off certain words, we do run into pretty hilarious double language entendres. For example, my friend, L and I were on the phone earlier today. She is also from Singapore and like me, Hokkien. She was at the airport on her way to Chicago to see her beloved husband and killing time before boarding. Our topics switched from talking about our mutual friend G, to our days in American colleges, our lives in different American cities, to food (of course, which conversation with a Singaporean could go without food?!), to Americans in general, to some guy who chose to sit next to her despite the gazillion other seats at the gate to pick, to the US government listening-in to our phone conversations... we drifted to talking about Oprah - why of course! Who can talk about Chicago without mentioning Oprah lol. Okay L, don't have a heart attack, I'm only joking! So here we are talking about Oprah and L asks of my opinion of O 'coz she can't stand her... not her crusade she insists but just O in too many ways... so I asked curiously, 'ALL AH?' as in 'you don't like ALL of her talk show episodes on tv or was it just that recent one on SECRETS which was bloody ridiculous and moronic'. Of course, when I pronounce all, I'm practicallying missing both the 'L's' in the word which sounds like 'Or' without the 'r' lol!! ...and she replied 'no lah not 'coz she's or!'. 'Or' in Hokkien, means 'black'. OMG did I burst out laughing - so did she when I repeated what we both had said. Yes, funny incidents like that. Or the time when the king and I (hahaha, ok, not THE King and I lol) went to see 'Stranger Then Fiction' with Will Ferrell. There is a part where he brings a box of presents to the woman he's in love with (who is a baker) and he says, 'I brought you some flower'. ...now growing up, we were taught that 'flower' is pronounced 'flaow-wer' and 'flour', pronounced 'fla' - not like how both words are pronounced like 'flower' here. I was seriously confused when I heard he'd brought 'flowers' to this woman in a box with six bags sitting in it. I slid over and asked the king in a whispering voice, 'why did he bring flower seeds to her'? Wondering why he didn't just bring flowers like a normal man - then again, he wasn't really playing a 'normal man' to begin with. Of course, komt hisses back 'FLOUR for baking LAH!' and then laughs like an insane mad man. Of course, the light bulb in my head went 'ding!' and momentarily, got slightly brighter lol. My natural response... 'you mean FLA?!'

Maybe the Singaporean government should think about the 'speak one language well' campaign. No doubt I'm thankful that I speak at least two core languages - not well but good enough - there are days when I'd rather be able to speak one language really really well and know the meaning of every single word in that language, every phrase, idiom and slang then a few half arsed languages that I can't really be too proud of. I suppose I can't complain. If I only spoke one language, life would be SO boring and colorless - I mean, colourless!!