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Lee Kuan Yew: "In two generations, Mandarin will become our mother tongue"

dream_waker

Alfrescian
Loyal
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUKSIN36618920090916


(Reuters) - A cacophony of Mandarin and English echo through the streets of Singapore's Chinatown as crowds of shoppers buy joss sticks and fruit as offerings to the spirits during the Seventh Month Ghost Festival.

English has long united the ethnically diverse island-state but Singapore's leaders now foresee a time when Mandarin will be the country's dominant language and they are aggressively encouraging their people to become fluent in Chinese.

"Both English and Mandarin are important because in different situations you use either language. But Mandarin has become more important," said Chinatown shopkeeper Eng Yee Lay.

Hit hard by the global slowdown, strengthening ties with China has taken on a strategic imperative in Singapore which seeks to leverage the bilingual skills of its ethnic Chinese majority to get a larger slice of China's fast expanding economic pie.

"With the growing importance of China on the world stage, Chinese Singaporeans who are competent in the language and familiar with the culture would have a distinct advantage when working and interacting with Chinese nationals," Lim Sau Hoong, chairwoman of the Promote Mandarin Council, told Reuters.

The government-sponsored campaign to promote Mandarin began in 1979 to unite under one language Singapore's disparate Chinese communities that spoke a multitude of dialects passed on by their ancestors who came from China in the 19th and early 20th century.

Unifying the Chinese majority in a country with sizeable Malay and Indian minorities was a priority and in the early days the Speak Mandarin Campaign discouraged ethnic Chinese from speaking the dialects that prevailed such as Hokkien.

Now, with a majority of Singaporeans speaking Mandarin in their homes, according to government figures, the focus is on improving fluency in spoken and written Mandarin.

"In two generations, Mandarin will become our mother tongue," said Singapore's first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew at the launch of the 2009 Speak Mandarin Campaign earlier this year.

His vision is for Singapore to become China's Southeast Asia hub as it expands its commercial interests in the region, while Singapore firms would entrench their positions in China, giving them a first-mover advantage over foreign firms.

Already, despite its small demographic size, Singapore was China's third largest foreign investor with total foreign direct investment of S$6.5 billion in 2008, a 40 percent rise from 2007, according to the Chinese government.

Trade between the countries has risen 17-fold since 1991 to S$91.4 billion ($63.34 billion) in 2008.

TRADE AND CULTURAL TIES

Singapore has come a long way since the 1970s when its Cambridge-educated Lee was suspicious of Maoist China's designs on the region and focused on keeping the country predominantly English speaking and aligned with anti-Communist powers, the United States and UK. As Singapore prepares to mark two decades of ties with China next year, 20,000 Singaporeans are working in China and scores of joint ventures are underway.

Among them is the construction of an "eco-city" in Tianjin, near Beijing, which is being designed to use renewable energy, recycled water and has an extensive public transport system.

Singapore's senior cabinet minister and head of its Monetary Authority, Goh Chok Tong, discussed the project with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao during a visit to China last week.

Among Singapore investors in China are offshore oil rig builder Keppel Corp (KPLM.SI), bank DBS (DBSM.SI), water treatment firm Hyflux (HYFL.SI), energy services provider Rotary Engineering (ROTE.SI) and Raffles Education (RLSE.SI).

Singapore developer CapitaLand (CATL.SI), which aims to build 58 malls across 40 Chinese cities, said this month it planned to nearly double the value of its assets in China to $8 billion, or 45 percent of its overall assets.

Singapore is proving to be a fertile recruiting ground for Mandarin-speaking middle and senior managers to run multinationals' operations in China where a lack of qualified managers has held back expansion plans by many foreign firms.

MITIGATING RISK

The financial crisis took a toll on Singapore's export dependent economy, reducing annual economic growth to just 1.1 percent in 2008, compared to around 8.2 percent between 2004-2007, and creating the highest unemployment rate in five years. Strengthening ties with China is seen as mitigating Singapore's risk.

China is expected to become Singapore's largest single market for non-oil exports this year, overtaking the United States, says economist Irvin Seah at Singapore's top bank DBS Group.

"We use the term 'China-ready,' meaning we will just have to grow with them," IE Singapore CEO Chong Lit Cheong, whose state agency promotes Singapore firms' investment abroad, told Reuters.

"As far as China grows 7 to 8 percent a year in a foreseeable future, we will continue to have a bigger presence there."

Singaporeans were among the first foreign investors in China after Deng Xiaoping adopted a market economy in 1978. Singapore's then prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, still in the cabinet, has visited China almost every year.

After Deng's 1992 remarks to officials to "learn from the world and, especially Singapore, and do better than Singapore", thousands of Chinese officials started flooding the city-state for trips and university degree programmes in administration.

Around three-quarters of Singapore's population are ethnic Chinese, giving many of its businessmen a cultural advantage versus the West, but the government is also trying to strengthen understanding of the Chinese culture and mindset.

"Although we speak the same language, when we look at issues we are different," said IE Singapore's Chong. "The next step is how we see China in a Chinese perspective."

Business China, an agency under Lee's patronage, is tasked to "groom 20,000 to 30,000 bilingual and bi-cultural Singaporeans with the ability to communicate effectively in the China market".

Eugene Aw, a 22-year-old Singaporean, sees his professional future in China after studying for his degree in the UK and turning down a job with an American multinational firm.

"I realised that Asia wouldn't wait for me. For now I intend to stay local (in Singapore) to gain exposure, contacts, and especially capital. And then if I can, I will spring into China." ($1=1.443 Singapore Dollar) (Additional reporting by Brenda Goh; Editing by Neil Chatterjee and Megan Goldin)
 

drifter

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
Then hor, why speak such low standard Mandarin har? and then hor let the PRC feel superior?

speak mandarin lose to PRC

speak english lose to angmo

speak hokkien lose to taiwanise

speak cantonise lose to hongkie


WTF !!!!:biggrin::wink::rolleyes:
 

EssaiveE

Alfrescian
Loyal
About time the Malays, Indians and Eurasians start getting out of here...Pity the malays though, this was originally their land.
 

dream_waker

Alfrescian
Loyal
speak mandarin lose to PRC

speak english lose to angmo

speak hokkien lose to taiwanise

speak cantonise lose to hongkie


WTF !!!!:biggrin::wink::rolleyes:


A sinkie colleague was doing presentation together with me in mandarin last week in China, when he spoke, the audience were giggling away, he was using wrong vocabulary everywhere, damn malu for me too!!
 

dream_waker

Alfrescian
Loyal
About time the Malays, Indians and Eurasians start getting out of here...Pity the malays though, this was originally their land.

If they can ditched their mother tongue to learn english, they can do the same to learn Chinese too, why need to get out?
 

peterlth

Alfrescian
Loyal
speak mandarin lose to PRC

speak english lose to angmo

speak hokkien lose to taiwanise

speak cantonise lose to hongkie


WTF !!!!:biggrin::wink::rolleyes:

Must think positive lah bro ...

Speak english better than most PRC, taiwanise and hongkie

Speak mandrain better than most angmo

Speak hokkien better than most PRC, angmo and hongkie

Speak cantonese better than most angmo, taiwanese and PRC
 

EssaiveE

Alfrescian
Loyal
in that case, I can counter argue by asking why can't the PRCs moving in here ditch their Mandarin and learn English instead? After all, they are the guests here.
 

dream_waker

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Loyal
in that case, I can counter argue by asking why can't the PRCs moving in here ditch their Mandarin and learn English instead? After all, they are the guests here.

Why should they? Would you asked an ang moh to ditch english and learn the local language when they move to sinkie?
 

Sideswipe

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
When Singapore leaders held official talks with Chinese leaders, do our leaders talk in English, they Chinese with interpreters on both sides or our side speak Chinese since it's a common language between both parties. Chinese is also our official language so can use in official dialogues.
 

dream_waker

Alfrescian
Loyal
When Singapore leaders held official talks with Chinese leaders, do our leaders talk in English, they Chinese with interpreters on both sides or our side speak Chinese since it's a common language between both parties. Chinese is also our official language so can use in official dialogues.

Like what LKY said, it will happen two generations later.
 

Cruxx

Alfrescian
Loyal
speak mandarin lose to PRC

speak english lose to angmo

speak hokkien lose to taiwanise

speak cantonise lose to hongkie


WTF !!!!:biggrin::wink::rolleyes:

As an ex-Sinkie sheep, I too feel ashamed. My canto is better than most Sinkie sheep but in Hiong Gong, natives just can't understand my Sinkie-accented cantonese. :(
 

EssaiveE

Alfrescian
Loyal
Why should they? Would you asked an ang moh to ditch english and learn the local language when they move to sinkie?

What local language do we have? By right our official administrative language is English...and I have seen a lot of ang mohs who actually use Singlish correctly.
 

jw5

Moderator
Moderator
Loyal
When Singapore leaders held official talks with Chinese leaders, do our leaders talk in English, they Chinese with interpreters on both sides or our side speak Chinese since it's a common language between both parties. Chinese is also our official language so can use in official dialogues.
My guess is that it depends on which SG leader is meeting the Chinese leader.
Yaccob has been going to China quite often recently, pretty confident that he would use an interpreter. So would probably TCH, VB, Tharman, etc.
Probably those like LHL, WKS, even GCT would speak Putonghua.

Dunno why but I tend to have more respect for those Chinese who can speak English well, and also those ang mors who can speak Chinese.
One of the many reasons why I respect President Ma more than Ah Bian. :biggrin:
 

Ramseth

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
PRC? Have you watched PRC news sniplets before? PRC leaders speak Mandarin Chinese with an accent worse than my grandfather selling charcoal. ROC? Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian? OMG! They should be deported to Fujian province prison solitary confinement and banned from speaking Mandarin to cause further damage to the language for future generation. Ma Ying-jeou is quite alright though.

The best Mandarin is of course spoken by PRC and ROC TV newsreaders, actors, dubbers and government spokespeople. Listen to that to learn.

The PRC and ROC commoners' Mandarin are also all in a mess of exaggerated accentuation whichever side, but ROC generally sounds more pleasant and PRC generally sounds more pitchy and piercing to the ear.

That said, it's not a Chinese problem peculiarly. Listen to ABC or BBC news, watch American or British TV or movies, then listen to how Americans and British in the streets speak. Vast world of difference too except to those used to it.
 

dream_waker

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Loyal
What local language do we have? By right our official administrative language is English...and I have seen a lot of ang mohs who actually use Singlish correctly.

LKY said 2 generations later it will be Chinese, so starting to learn it now will be just nice.
 

Watchman

Alfrescian
Loyal
LKY said 2 generations later it will be Chinese, so starting to learn it now will be just nice.

LKY is the farking father of Singapore who screw us all .

If you don't like to speak Mandarin don't support .

Instead Singapore invested so much China . That; not learning Mandarin is not possible to have a stake there .


Don't just jump on the bandwagon just because
everyone is doing it .
 

drifter

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
Must think positive lah bro ...

Speak english better than most PRC, taiwanise and hongkie

Speak mandrain better than most angmo

Speak hokkien better than most PRC, angmo and hongkie

Speak cantonese better than most angmo, taiwanese and PRC

bro , of course singaporean english is the best in asia and in some part of eroupean countries ....that is the only thing that make me proud being a singaporean . :smile: when my japanese friend saw me speaking to angmo in japan ...they go wow.....you are soooooooo cool . :biggrin::rolleyes:
 
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