TOC is proud to unveil its new Chinese section to be headed by Mr Goh Meng Seng.

[brocoli]

吴明盛/

失败的双语政策

最近报业控股为李光耀先生出的书，《我一生的挑战——新加坡双语之路》引起了广泛的讨论。

李光耀似乎尝试在这书里为自己“平反”他扼杀方言，大幅度降低华文教育水准的“罪行”。尤其是许多以往受华文教育的国人，对李光耀关闭南洋大学，消灭华校的做法，都只能静悄悄的恨在心里，只等李光耀百年归西才会把那闷在心头的“真心话”大声的说出来。

以李光耀目前的社会和国际地位，其实是无须害怕这一小撮人在他作古后对他的指骂。毕竟他已经把新一代的新加坡人都转变成能以英语通达世界的“环球公民”，还会有谁在意这些“不合时宜”的指骂呢？也许李光耀身体里毕竟是流着华族的血，还是非常在意人们如何为他“盖棺论定”吧！

李光耀的双语政策是建立在两个基本考量：

政治整合
经济发展策略

政治整合

李光耀在五十年代是骑着受华文教育的民众反殖民主义的情绪而崛起的。李光耀之所以能成功在1959年夺取政权，全靠这班华校知识分子。

但是一旦夺得政权以后，这批华校知识分子便成为行动党党内分歧的主要原因。最终他们便分裂出来组成社阵。过后在几次的逮捕行动中，几乎所有的社阵领袖都被扣上共产党人的红帽子被关了起来。

自此以后，李光耀所领导的行动党政府就对华校生不再信任。当时的学运大多数都是由华校发起的。南洋大学做为东南亚华文教育的最高等学府就变成被整治的第一号对象。

这政治斗争的历史背景便成为李光耀致力于削弱华文教育的主要原因。行动党便以另一个“名正言顺”的政治理由来把这“以英文为主”的语言政策合理化。理由是新加坡作为一个多元种族的国家，必须有个共同语言平台好让各族都能和谐的沟通。

但是我们要仔细地检视这语言政策的逻辑。我们固然需要建立一个共同的语言平台，但有必要牺牲各族的母语水准吗？有些欧洲国家甚至有四种语言的教育政策。这是为了确保他们能在学习周边各国的语言外，还能继续保持着自己的语文文化程度。他们能做得到，为何我们不能？

经济发展策略

经济发展是另一个李光耀常用来作为偏重英语，削弱母语教育的理由。新加坡经济的发展模式是依靠大量跨国公司来本地的投资。我们为了配合这些跨国公司，也就理所当然把重点放在英文教育上。

但是纵观亚洲四小龙、日本和中国的发展史，唯有新加坡牺牲了各族的语文教育以换取经济发展。对新加坡华社来说，我们不只是牺牲了华文教育水准，而且还赔上了我们各族的方言。行动党一方面说为了加强华文的水准而推行讲华语运动，从而摧毁方言。但是另一方面李光耀和行动党议员又以他们有“精英遗传”的孩子和子孙无法应付华文学科为由，对华文教育一而再，再而三的降低华文教育水平！

香港、台湾和中国虽然都经济发展得非常迅速，但是他们不只保留了方言，并且华文水准更是远远超越了新加坡。李光耀和他的同僚是否让我们新加坡华族付上了不必要的惨痛代价？

吴明盛

不管我们从任何角度来看，李光耀最终的目的就是塑造一个以英文为主其他各族语言为次的国家。所谓的“双语政策”根本就不是一个以对等的重要性去实行真正的双语政策。这样长期削弱和牺牲本族文化的双语政策怎么能算是成功的呢？




WHat THE fARK?? I agree with him .... am i becoming his crone???

 

[elephanto]

Interesting thread, yet no response ... So sadAnyway, GMS chinese commentary on the nantah issue and billingualism, another typical skewed emotive take - and he is not alone - utterly devoid of socio-economic reality as evidenced by chinese parents pragmatically enrolling their kids in english streams......The cows can come home ... And the emotional blind spot just stays on...

 

[scroobal]

Language is always an emotive subject and an important weapon for swaying votes. It's no surprise that they govt has always watched over anyone trying to use Mandarin and the dialects and have it kept it as their preserve. Imagine a Pernakan with a Pernakan wife taking the trouble to immerse himself totally in it and continues to talk about it and champion it while those in those opposition who have done it such as Tang and Samsuddin Tung were persecuted for it. When it comes to language, reality, economics etc have little bearing. It's more a question of saying who is more likely a true Han Chinese and who is going to preserve the culture. It is not different to the race card.

 

[Goh Meng Seng]

Interesting thread, yet no response ... So sadAnyway, GMS chinese commentary on the nantah issue and billingualism, another typical skewed emotive take - and he is not alone - utterly devoid of socio-economic reality as evidenced by chinese parents pragmatically enrolling their kids in english streams......The cows can come home ... And the emotional blind spot just stays on...

It is not emotive at all. It is just logical conclusions made here.

Why did the MNCs in Taiwan, Korea, HK and even China would employ people who can hardly speak English while in Singapore, Chinese educated people couldn't find a job here? Ironically, many Chinese educated people from Nantah venture out to the world and they make it big out there.

This actually means that PAP has systematically controlled the employment channels here in Singapore so much so to deprive and marginalize those with Chinese education. By using this method, it took 20 years to kill off Chinese education and Nantah altogether.

Well, karma bounce actually. Now PAP and its cronies could hardly find anyone who could converse effectively in Mandarin and most importantly, understand the Chinese mindset to help them in China businesses. Why do you think Singapore screwed up in Suzhou?

Goh Meng Seng

 

[red amoeba]

a delicate balance.

this is real problem facing all rulers of Singapore - be it PAP or WP or SDP.

if you go all out to promote Chinese & dialects, you risk the wrath of the Malay neighbours - this is written in his book. This is real.

Be realistic here, we are surrounded by Malay speaking countries. Malaysia and Indonesia all have Malay / Bahasa as national language. Taiwan, HK, China are surrounded by their own kind, their population is relatively 99% homogenous. Ditto for Thailand, Thailand, korea - which is why it is possible for them to emphasize on their native language.

If you look at the trends, PRCs are all learning English - and their situation is just like our kids struggling to learn Chinese. Many of them are studying in US universities and they are returning to be able to speak good English and Chinese.

Give PRC 20 - 30 years, their spoken English and Chinese will be much better.

Ask yourself, would you send your kids to a Chinese speaking school that teach everything in Chinese?

 

[Goh Meng Seng]

a delicate balance.

this is real problem facing all rulers of Singapore - be it PAP or WP or SDP.

if you go all out to promote Chinese & dialects, you risk the wrath of the Malay neighbours - this is written in his book. This is real.

I am not even talking about asking PAP to promote Chinese and dialects; just leave them alone but will they? They didn't.

Goh Meng Seng

 

[red amoeba]

It is not emotive at all. It is just logical conclusions made here.

Why did the MNCs in Taiwan, Korea, HK and even China would employ people who can hardly speak English while in Singapore, Chinese educated people couldn't find a job here? Ironically, many Chinese educated people from Nantah venture out to the world and they make it big out there.

This actually means that PAP has systematically controlled the employment channels here in Singapore so much so to deprive and marginalize those with Chinese education. By using this method, it took 20 years to kill off Chinese education and Nantah altogether.

Well, karma bounce actually. Now PAP and its cronies could hardly find anyone who could converse effectively in Mandarin and most importantly, understand the Chinese mindset to help them in China businesses. Why do you think Singapore screwed up in Suzhou?

Goh Meng Seng

no matter how proficient the Chinese is, we will still get screwed in Suzhou.

it is not because of the language, it is because we are not as cunning. Its our mindset, he said in his book, we were too naive to think the PRC will adhere to the contract.

which is why, for subsequent projects, we take the consultative role, we take $$ and offer advise, they do the legwork.

 

[TracyTan866]

It is not emotive at all. It is just logical conclusions made here.

Why did the MNCs in Taiwan, Korea, HK and even China would employ people who can hardly speak English while in Singapore, Chinese educated people couldn't find a job here? Ironically, many Chinese educated people from Nantah venture out to the world and they make it big out there.

This actually means that PAP has systematically controlled the employment channels here in Singapore so much so to deprive and marginalize those with Chinese education. By using this method, it took 20 years to kill off Chinese education and Nantah altogether.

Well, karma bounce actually. Now PAP and its cronies could hardly find anyone who could converse effectively in Mandarin and most importantly, understand the Chinese mindset to help them in China businesses. Why do you think Singapore screwed up in Suzhou?

Goh Meng Seng

Well said. PAP has failed badly in this

 

[red amoeba]

I am not even talking about asking PAP to promote Chinese and dialects; just leave them alone but will they? They didn't.

Goh Meng Seng

i agree with you regarding preserving the dialects. I personally believe strongly in that.

I am not siding LKY, he mentioned something regarding, in terms of priority, if we need to ditch something in order to attain mastery of English, Chinese, he feels if we don't ditch dialect, it hampers the mastering of Chinese.

Perhaps the way he set out to do it is a bit hard handed, using campaigns and propaganda and the law the enforce this.

he based it on the theory that normal (attention- the word is normal not you or me or many forummers who are linguists of their own kind) - which is easily 80% of the masses - cannot cope with more than 2 languages.

 

[brocoli]

I am not even talking about asking PAP to promote Chinese and dialects; just leave them alone but will they? They didn't.

Goh Meng Seng

Goh Meng Seng is right, just leave it alone... why purposely kill it?

its worse than cultural revolution...

last time, older folks from my granny generation, may not be able to write @ all or speak in english, but they can speak pasar malay, hokkien, teochew, cantonese...

nowadays kids from my generation cant even write or speak in 1 language... KNN..


bilingualism is not his greatest legacy but greatest failure..... just leave Nantah alone lah....

it may be sick and useless goose in the 70s and 80s but it could be a goose that lay golden eggs now.... but the control freak have to kill it... stupid old fool

 

[scroobal]

Excellent points

a delicate balance.this is real problem facing all rulers of Singapore - be it PAP or WP or SDP.if you go all out to promote Chinese & dialects, you risk the wrath of the Malay neighbours - this is written in his book. This is real. Be realistic here, we are surrounded by Malay speaking countries. Malaysia and Indonesia all have Malay / Bahasa as national language. Taiwan, HK, China are surrounded by their own kind, their population is relatively 99% homogenous. Ditto for Thailand, Thailand, korea - which is why it is possible for them to emphasize on their native language.If you look at the trends, PRCs are all learning English - and their situation is just like our kids struggling to learn Chinese. Many of them are studying in US universities and they are returning to be able to speak good English and Chinese.Give PRC 20 - 30 years, their spoken English and Chinese will be much better.Ask yourself, would you send your kids to a Chinese speaking school that teach everything in Chinese?

 

[brocoli]

Excellent points

Excellent points my foot,

go ask jim rogers why is he in SIngapore.

go ask Allan Wu and Wong Li Lin why are they in SHanghai....

http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/s...u_and_wong_li_lin_relocating_to_shanghai.html

Celebrity couple Allan Wu and Wong Li Lin, and their two children, have relocated to Shanghai three weeks ago. STOMPer TommyKnocker wonders if this is a start of a new trend -- Singaporean celebrities moving abroad to seek greener pastures.

According to a report in The New Paper, the reason given by the 39-year-old American actor-host and his 38-year-old wife is that they want their kids -- Sage and Jonas -- can speak better Mandarin.

Wu said in an interview that the reason for the relocation is not about money.

He explained:

"If it's about money, I could have just stayed in Singapore where everyone knows who I am and I get paid without working very hard.

"I'm starting all over again there. I just reached there and there's no money to be made yet."

 

[HorGauGan]

aiyah!!!

[video=youtube;BHWb4OA0JsY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHWb4OA0JsY[/video]

 

[scroobal]

Stepping on dangerous grounds by such comments. I would very careful how you spin this. I also disagree with those comments. Why would the PAP want to prevent the Chinese educated from being employed. Makes no sense. It makes more sense for the PAP to force employers to employ Chinese Ed to gain votes. In fact they started to employ them in large numbers to get their votes. These guys struggled. The influential ones were kept in the payroll of stat boards like PA and asked to do PAP campaign work.

It is not emotive at all. It is just logical conclusions made here.This actually means that PAP has systematically controlled the employment channels here in Singapore so much so to deprive and marginalize those with Chinese education. By using this method, it took 20 years to kill off Chinese education and Nantah altogether. Goh Meng Seng

 

[Goh Meng Seng]

Nothing "dangerous" about it. It is well recorded.

Goh Meng Seng

Stepping on dangerous grounds by such comments. I would very careful how you spin this. I also disagree with those comments. Why would the PAP want to prevent the Chinese educated from being employed. Makes no sense. It makes more sense for the PAP to force employers to employ Chinese Ed to gain votes. In fact they started to employ them in large numbers to get their votes. These guys struggled. The influential ones were kept in the payroll of stat boards like PA and asked to do PAP campaign work.

 

[brocoli]

Stepping on dangerous grounds by such comments. I would very careful how you spin this. I also disagree with those comments. Why would the PAP want to prevent the Chinese educated from being employed. Makes no sense. It makes more sense for the PAP to force employers to employ Chinese Ed to gain votes. In fact they started to employ them in large numbers to get their votes. These guys struggled. The influential ones were kept in the payroll of stat boards like PA and asked to do PAP campaign work.

utter rubbish, PAP of course did not deliberately prevent the Chinese educated from being employed... but they systematically implicitly lower the employability of those Chinese educated with their cultural revolution campaign and mass brain washing...

Goh Meng Seng should fight for chinese issues since Low wun.....

 

[Goh Meng Seng]

LKY thought that we need to "ditch dialect" in order to master Chinese but the truth is, all over China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, in spite of the many dialects they have, they could still master Chinese very much better than us!

If LKY is really worried about people unable to master Chinese, the promotion of English WAS THE MAIN HINDRANCE! Why not ditch English? The truth is, nobody from strong dialect background is complaining about any difficulty in mastering Chinese but only those from English educated background families are complaining that their children and grand children cannot master Chinese!

Dialects share the same Chinese characters and there is really no reason to blame dialects for the inability of mastering Chinese. Now, after dialects are almost wiped off, did our children and younger generations do better in Chinese? Absolutely no!

Goh Meng Seng

i agree with you regarding preserving the dialects. I personally believe strongly in that.

I am not siding LKY, he mentioned something regarding, in terms of priority, if we need to ditch something in order to attain mastery of English, Chinese, he feels if we don't ditch dialect, it hampers the mastering of Chinese.

Perhaps the way he set out to do it is a bit hard handed, using campaigns and propaganda and the law the enforce this.

he based it on the theory that normal (attention- the word is normal not you or me or many forummers who are linguists of their own kind) - which is easily 80% of the masses - cannot cope with more than 2 languages.

 

[brocoli]

LKY thought that we need to "ditch dialect" in order to master Chinese but the truth is, all over China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, in spite of the many dialects they have, they could still master Chinese very much better than us!

If LKY is really worried about people unable to master Chinese, the promotion of English WAS THE MAIN HINDRANCE! Why not ditch English? The truth is, nobody from strong dialect background is complaining about any difficulty in mastering Chinese but only those from English educated background families are complaining that their children and grand children cannot master Chinese!

Dialects share the same Chinese characters and there is really no reason to blame dialects for the inability of mastering Chinese. Now, after dialects are almost wiped off, did our children and younger generations do better in Chinese? Absolutely no!

Goh Meng Seng

exactly, he keep boasting that no1 have an advantage with english policy since no1 1st language is english

but 1st language of his peranakan gangster cabinet is english, what a hypocrite... he abolish dialect cause he cant speak dialect and have to practise like mad for it....

if he is dialect speaking will he still put english as 1st language?



we also cant have the peranakan bitch, nicole seah, who cant speak mandarin elected....

Tin Pei Ling speak far better mandarin

 

[red amoeba]

LKY thought that we need to "ditch dialect" in order to master Chinese but the truth is, all over China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, in spite of the many dialects they have, they could still master Chinese very much better than us!

If LKY is really worried about people unable to master Chinese, the promotion of English WAS THE MAIN HINDRANCE! Why not ditch English? The truth is, nobody from strong dialect background is complaining about any difficulty in mastering Chinese but only those from English educated background families are complaining that their children and grand children cannot master Chinese!

Dialects share the same Chinese characters and there is really no reason to blame dialects for the inability of mastering Chinese. Now, after dialects are almost wiped off, did our children and younger generations do better in Chinese? Absolutely no!

Goh Meng Seng

the reality is: english educated parents are speaking to their children in English bcos they are hopeless speaking chinese, and they push their kids to chinese enrichment classes.

chinese educated parents are pushing their kids to learn english becos they suffered from not mastering english.

english is our defacto language - a language that can allow you to communicate with malays / indians (i am not including FTs). If we go by what you suggest, ditch english, you are going to create a diversified country. Or you suggest malay then as unifying language?

we are different from China and the countries you mentioned - note that these countries are homogenous largely. we are not.

as i mentioned, i agree with you that ditching dialect is a waste because it can better convey our culture and history and make each Chinese slightly more unique. i love my own dialect as well.

but i certainly disagree with you regarding ditching English over chinese.

 

[red amoeba]

exactly, he keep boasting that no1 have an advantage with english policy since no1 1st language is english

but 1st language of his peranakan gangster cabinet is english, what a hypocrite... he abolish dialect cause he cant speak dialect and have to practise like mad for it....

if he is dialect speaking will he still put english as 1st language?



we also cant have the peranakan bitch, nicole seah, who cant speak mandarin elected....

Tin Pei Ling speak far better mandarin

mudland and indon both have bahasa as national lang, both have chinese / malay / tamil dominated schools.

look at where they are / what have they achieved.