Wednesday, January 24, 2007




Learning Chinese - Is it a necessity?...

I was just browsing through a copy of 8 Days mag, and the article on Medicorp english speaking artistes aspiring to speak fluent chinese interests me a great deal. It's ironic in a way, these people who once abhored chinese (in every sense of the language) are now desperate to learn to read, write and speak mandarin all over again. FOR WHAT? To advance their careers in the showbiz industry. All boils down to career prospects. Wow, what a noble aspiration huh... Learn chinese not for the interest but for the sake of career advancement. Actually, come to think of it, this irony might somehow apply to many of us. Including me. I was really interested in doing an internship in either Shanghai or Beijing and it hit me that I failed at the very fundamental criteria of speaking fluent chinese.

And in every aspect, my command of chinese has deterioted over the years. I can't speak, read and write good mandarin now. Nothing substantial to begin with. I was always a mediocre student when it comes to studying Chinese. And honestly speaking, a part of me feel ashamed of this fact. And definitely not proud of it.

All along, it really began as a huge irony. Me learning to speak Mandarin, that is. As far as my memory allows me to recall of my pre-school days, I remembered having thought that english was the only spoken language. Both my parents' second language was Malay and they didnt see the need to pick up chinese. HAHA.. no wonder. I learnt how to speak chinese not from my parents but mostly from my teachers & friends in kindergarten. I was deeply tramautized the first day in K1 when I realised everyone around me was speaking in mandarin. I felt like an alien, no one wanted to talk to me cos I didn't know what to say. Most likely, they would have thought I was a mute or worse, a retard. It was that bad. And I remembered running home crying and being super angry with my parents for not speaking to me in chinese before. From that day on, I had a chinese tutor. That was the first time, I felt it was a necessity to speak chinese. For the sake of blending in and feeling belonged.

The reason why my mum speaks chinese today is because of me. The simple chinese my sis and I learnt in primary school, we went home to teach our parents.

Funny come to think of it, these days, people pick up chinese, not because of the pure reason of interest and our chinese roots but instead for, other self-centred reasons.

I learnt for the sake of blending in and for the future sake's of working in Shanghai and Beijing (I do think our generation stands a very high chance of going on work stints to China) A force to be reckoned with.

My mum learnt for the sake of checking our homework. And my dad learnt so that the next time, an 'ang-moh' client ask him what that chinese phrase means, he wouldn't embarrass himself for not knowing.

That is why, in my opinion, people learn chinese for all the wrong reasons. Purely for the sake of our own benefits. A very sad fact since we are ultimately of chinese descent.


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sheesh, I feel like I'm writing an essay... okok, I just feel like writing just so to procastinate on reading my Human Capital Mgmt text. Sucha a bore...

And I do think it is a major plus if I am effectively bilingual.

Posted by Jo at 12:14 pm