Have you ever been told that you suck at speaking a particular language?

Most Singaporeans can speak in two tongues. The more linguistically-inclined ones can converse in three or four. Sad to say, I belong to the former group. I've tried learning spanish by reading the complete idiot's guide, but the las and los alone turned me off a great deal. (And believe me when I say that objects have genders in spanish.)

Back on track, someone told me that my mandarin sucked. It's no surprise actually, since it explains my Merit for Chinese oral at O Levels. To be honest, I was pretty offended. Duh, you might say, but I have seen people rejoicing over being lousy in mandarin/chinese. Basically, they seem deluded by the belief that flunking chinese automatically grants them proficiency in the english language, meaning that they think they are very ang moh pai and not cheena lor. Like wtf?

Being cheena carries a social stigma among many young people. Someone once told me that a person actually got laughed at when he spoke in mandarin in the school library. I was amused at how ludicrous some people can get. Granted that I do sometimes make fun of people, I do know when to draw the line. You can be cheena for all you want, but if we click, we can still be good friends. Some avoid cheena people like the plague, possibly because they reckon that mandarin will forever be a notch below the english language. I am so high-class because I speak english. What's your name? Xiao Ming? Don't you have an english name? Stay away from me, you cheena mama!

Of course, that isn't always the case. Some genuinely can't speak mandarin for nuts, and they feel more comfortable with people whom they can converse fluently with. Don't accuse me of being biased towards cheena mamas. Those who suck at english should brush up on the language too. I'm sure english teachers have been deafening us with their "english is the universal language" chants since primary one. All in all, learning a new language is always helpful. When antagonised by someone, you'd have a bigger arsenal of curse words, instead of the same old knnbccb.

This entry was posted by Kelvin, on Friday, December 23, 2005.