Over the recent furore of xenophobia as claimed by the media
and people in high places, it has somehow added fire to feed the anger of
Sinkies towards foreigners. There were many comments by bloggers in TRE showing
contempt for foreigners for not being able to speak English.
Language has become the latest kid for bashing. Foreigners
coming here must speak English and nothing else. Hindi, Tagalog, Thai etc are
not acceptable. Sinkies refused to speak to them if they can’t speak English.
What is laughable or obnoxious is that they even rejected Mandarin as a
language of Sinkies. What’s happening?
The immediate question is whether Sinkies are daft or smug
or both. The next question is that our education system and our national policy
on bilingualism must have failed miserably. These Sinkies, true blue Sinkies,
not newly minted type, did not know that Mandarin is one of the four official
languages of Sinkieland. Cannot speak, refuse to speak Mandarin, feeling hurt, insulted
when foreigners speak to them in Mandarin! And sadder still, many knew how to
speak Mandarin but refused to communicate with the foreigner in Mandarin. The
foreigners must speak English.
What is the justification? Sinkies will not bend backwards
to accommodate foreigners by speaking to them in the foreigner’s language, which
happens to be one of our official languages, and deliberately making things
difficult to the foreigners by demanding to speak in English and nothing else.
Other than creating four official languages to level the
playing field, other than having the mother tongue as a social ballast to keep
the westernised Sinkies rooted to their own culture, language is simply a tool
for communication. The basic aim of bilingualism is to arm Sinkies to be able
to communicate with East and West, which is one of our strength. Now jokers did
not want to speak anything else except English to spike foreigners. Jokers
refused to acknowledge that Mandarin is one of our official languages. Maybe
some jokers don’t even know of this fact.
It is not funny.
Most families,including those Ah Lian ,domestic helpers speak English at home to their children.This has been going on for years.
ReplyDeleteEnglish is the only language they can communicate and thus expectation on others to speak to them in English is a norm.
Blame their short sighted and incompetent leaders that resulted in this.I mean family leaders.
Don't let the Pretend Action Politicians mislead us with talks of xenophobia.
ReplyDeleteOur focus should be on the people who created the problem.
It's NOT the foreigners.
The real problem is the Pro Alien Party.
aiyah redbean why u flogging this dead horse topic again? it's the same as your post 'i not prc' on 21 june. it had 50 comments. enough lah. move on to something else.
ReplyDeleteThe power of social media is to keep hounding on a topic, keep repeating it until something is done to it. It is unlike the main media that reports and forgotten, don't talk about it anymore for the right reason or wrong reason, or for convenience of not wanting to talk about it again.
ReplyDeleteLook at how the western media have been repeating their attacks on North Korea, everyday repeating the same old story. It is to plant ideas in the innocent masses subconscious.
Worth reading:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Sinkie
WOW! I've been doing sinkies (emergency wash) all my life, and now I find out there's a word for it!
ReplyDeleteHey, I like my balls to be clean before a hot gal gargles with them :-)
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