Author Lee Hui Min covers a range of topics in her book, Growing Up In Lee Kuan Yew's Era. This edited excerpt is from a chapter on language.
The Sunday Times, 4 May 2014
Many think that by adding a lah or a leh it's Singlish. As Singlish is not a standard form of language, everyone has his own view on this very Singaporean form of spoken language.
There are some commonly-used Singlish words and phrases, including these examples:
Why you lai that? (The speaker is too lazy to pronounce the word, like, properly.)
What he talking ah? I catch no ball! (Catch no ball is a direct translation from a Hokkien phrase meaning "cannot understand".)
Want go makan? (Makan means 'eat' in Malay.)
Ask so much for what? So kaypoh! (Kaypoh is Hokkien for busybody.)
Singlish has become a language for communication among Singaporeans and a reflection of their identity.
Some people use Singlish out of sheer laziness, as there are no grammatical rules to follow. And some can switch to using proper standard English at formal occasions if they chose to do so.
But others can speak only Singlish because they have not mastered good English. And when they step out of the country, they realise immediately that no one understands them. With their inadequate vocabulary, they usually also fail to express their deeper thoughts well in English and give others the impression that they are shallow thinkers.
In television news programmes we often see the man in the street being interviewed. Whether in English or Chinese, the person speaks so poorly he often does not make sense.
Maybe people are just too nervous before the camera. But this problem with expressing themselves clearly seems to be more serious among Singaporeans.
Let me give an example. I was once on a bus in Singapore and overheard a quarrel between a woman from China and her teenage son. He was not happy with the way she was interfering with his choice of friends and said a lot of nasty things which hurt his mother deeply.
Holding back her tears and speaking in Mandarin, she said in a low voice: "Do you know what you have just said? Do you know that every word you uttered is piercing my heart and breaking it into pieces?"
The son, gritting his teeth, replied angrily: "I just don't like you asking me my whereabouts. You can't interfere with whom I mix with."
I know it is wrong to eavesdrop, but their exchange was too riveting. Their conservation kept playing in my mind long after I got off the bus. It made me wonder if the exchange would have been as dramatic if it was between an English woman and her son, or if there would have been some swear words if they had been American.
But what if it was a Singapore mother and her son? It might well have sounded like this: "Why do you have to say such things? You know you say this way I am very hurt?"
The Singapore mother would be no less hurt than that Chinese woman, but she would be unable to express the Depth of her feelings and emotions.
And the Singapore son would probably retort with: "Ask you don't care oredi who I go out with, why you care so much?"
You hear that kind of exchange in a Jack Neo movie, where characters with very complex emotions are capable of communicating with only basic words and phrases.
The Singapore government has long been worried about Singlish and how, if it became a dominant language for Singaporeans, they may lose the ability to communicate with the outside world. To avoid this tragic outcome, the government started another language campaign: The Speak Good English Movement!
More than 10 years ago, the television sit-com Phua Chu Kang told the story of a lowly educated contractor who spoke only Singlish. Audiences could immediately identify with him, and even children were imitating the way he spoke. Despite the exaggeration, some traits and characteristics of Phua Chu Kang could be found in almost every Singaporean.
It took former prime minister Goh Chok Tong to express concern and suggest, half in jest, that Phua Chu Kang should go back to school for some proper English lessons.
However, if Phua Chu Kang spoke the Queen's English like Mr Lee Kuan Yew, the TV character would not have been as familiar or popular. He would have come across as somewhat removed from the rest of us, rather like Mr Lee.
Let us not argue whether there is value in Singlish. The fact remains that there are young Singaporeans unwilling to give up Singlish because of their weakness in expressing themselves well on the one hand, and as a form of protest against authority on the other. They believe they are preserving their own unique lingo.
Actually, I would like to be on their side in defending Singlish. I would even ask why not promote Singlish simply because it is a truly Singapore product? Isn't it logical for Singaporeans to speak Singlish? But if we use identity to justify or explain our present language situation, we may be missing a very big problem.
Some of our students have a very high standard of English. They usually come from English-speaking homes with good backgrounds. So they have a solid foundation in English. But if our students need the help of tutors or must come from good English-speaking homes before they can master the English language, something is very wrong with the way English is taught in our schools.
The older generation spoke English with a mix of other languages because they had no chance to learn the language in a proper and systematic manner. But today's younger generation have all had at least 10 years of formal, mainstream English education. And if they still cannot speak English well and write properly in the language, it is totally unforgivable.
Mr Lee Kuan Yew once praised the beautiful language he read in Harvard University's campus newspaper and lamented that Singaporeans' English would never reach such a high standard.
But given our education system, how do we expect our students to care about the beauty of the language they use? Moreover, society's expectations of language remain at a practical level for communication purposes only, rather than to stress the importance of good pronunciation, or beauty in expression.
So although Singlish may make us feel closer to one another and brings with it a strong sense of the Singapore identity, the language is coarse and unrefined. Its widespread use shows up a serious shortcoming in our language teaching and education system.
Translated from Chinese by Leong Weng Kam
An ordinary voice in the Singapore Story
By Leong Weng Kam, The Sunday Times, 4 May 2014
By Leong Weng Kam, The Sunday Times, 4 May 2014
When freelance journalist Lee Hui Min was browsing the bookshops in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong some years ago, the only Singapore books she could find aside from tourist guidebooks were Mr Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs and other books by him or about him translated in Chinese.
Sometimes, she would spot titles on Singapore society and its political system by Chinese scholars, popular among Chinese readers keen to know how the Little Red Dot became so successful despite its size.
But she never saw anything written by ordinary Singaporeans, especially younger people who grew up when Mr Lee was prime minister.
"Where is the people's voice in the Singapore Story, I wondered," recalled Ms Lee, 40, who is single and has worked as a teacher, Lianhe Zaobao reporter and columnist and radio producer.
She decided to write a book, and one that would point out Singapore's shortcomings so that people would discuss them and suggest ways to change for the better.
"There are enough books praising Singapore's success and I didn't need to write another one," explained Ms Lee, now a freelance contributor to the BBC.
The daughter of a retired businessman and his homemaker wife, Ms Lee and her younger brother went to a PAP Community Foundation kindergarten in Ang Mo Kio before attending a neighbourhood primary school there in the 1980s.
Although English-educated up to Nanyang Junior College, from which she graduated in 1991, Ms Lee has a bachelor's degree in Chinese language and literature from Nanjing University in China and a master's in international relations from Nanyang Technological University.
Four years in the making, her book in Chinese titled Growing Up In Lee Kuan Yew's Era was launched at the National Library Building in Victoria Street on April 19.
The 261-page book traces her growing-up years living in a zinc-roofed wooden house in rural Singapore during her childhood, a rental one-room flat in Jurong, and later, a three-room flat in Ang Mo Kio where she now lives.
It describes her experiences living with government policies, especially from the 1970s and 1980s, which had an impact on her life. They include the bilingual education policy, streaming in primary school and the Speak Mandarin Campaign.
Other issues she touches on include Singapore's media controls, public housing policy, elitism and government scholars and the policy changes that have followed the 2011 General Election, which saw the ruling People's Action Party losing its first GRC and its popular vote plunging to a historical low of just over 60 per cent.
Of all those issues, she said, government policies on language and education affected her most. "I went through streaming in school and saw how my classmates suffered with all the labelling," she said. "I have also been a Chinese language teacher."
She devotes almost a whole chapter to Singlish and makes clear her dislike of it. She thinks the education system is to blame for the widespread use of Singapore-style broken English because there has been insufficient emphasis on the humanities and the importance of having a good grasp of languages.
"Students in school are even discouraged from taking literature as an examination subject simply because it is more difficult to score a distinction in than in maths and the sciences," she said.
Mr C.C. Chin, 73, an independent scholar of leftist history, who wrote a foreword for her book, said: "It is rare to find a young writer who writes so courageously."
Publisher Lingzi Media's executive director Denon Lim, 50, said a China edition will be out soon and he is considering an English translation as well.
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