Battle of the Linguists

yes. i am MONOLINGUAL. ie i can only speak effectively in English. but thats nt the topic of argument.

the thing is, some people have this very foolish view that even though they are nt natural speakers of the English language, they still speak it cuz they think it makes them look smart. WRONG CHOICE. it only makes them look stupid.

imagine someone who has spoken Chinese all his life(yes he has that distinguishable cheena accent which can be spotted miles away) when he speaks English, u can immediately detect that he is some poser. ok maybe nt all the time.. (cuz we hv to communicate in English to other races as we live in a multi racial society.. yadayada..) but anyway, he attempts to act ang-moh and fails miserably. but he doesn't know it or at least doesn't want to admit it cuz he believes speaking English puts him at a higher standing to those who speak Chinese. HEY. you are a fluent speaker of Chinese. why look down on people who are a reflection of who u once were (or still are, just that u are too pea-brained to actually accept it.) just speak in Chinese. no one is going to stab you with a knife cuz u spoke it that oh-so-forbidden language. Singaporean Chinese aren't that dumb. if i can understand people conversing in Chinese, i don't see why others cant.

yea there are people who dislike Chinese to the extent when they hear someone speaking Chinese they go all eeeky and stuff. but its just because of the fact that they suck at it that they give these reactions. i am guilty of it no doubt. and not because i look down on those who speak Chinese but i just DISLIKE Chinese. like totally. at least i dun force people around me to speak in English. unlike in some schools where they totally outcast you unless you change your SINFUL ways. tsktsk.

i think schools which hv a tradition of speaking English cant be blamed cuz they really cant speak English except for the small minority who are sometimes labeled as communists. they dun look down on you ok. we are just expressing our dislike for the language. anyway, communists, although Karl Marx and Stalin and Mao may nt hv been successful in their regimes, look at china today. their capitalist-communist ways hc enabled them to grow drastically over the recent decade. so. COMMUNISTS aren't that bad..

so be proud of what u can speak in. if u find that u are as retarded as myself in speaking one language. try. and if others dun understand. there's always the option of translating what you've said.. something which i find myself doing ever so often these days. its not shameful to speak Chinese. its just who you are. your culture. you are Asian. at least be proud of who you are and speak your language. even if u cant, putting in effort to speak it is also an emblem of your Asian background.

over the years, i've come to realise that Chinese is actually quite interesting. but somehow the effort required to memorise thousands of words for exams in the good old days just puts me off. other than that, i don't quite mind having to read notable works by famed Chinese authors. they are quite interesting! and somehow seem different as compared to if they were written in English. i mean the idioms and proverbs can be quite interesting and "enlightening". but of course, all wouldn't hv been possible if i hadn't made the effort to memorise the thousands of words in the first place. in fact, i think those who can manage the language well are geniuses. heh. nv thought i would ever say that. but to someone who can't really do something well, whenever he sees someone else doing the same thing effortlessly, one can't help but be in awe.

but this is an argument based on the language itself. i hv to admit that some people do hv typically Chinese practises and speak Chinese. and this sets them apart from the more ang-moh people. so rather than the language i think its a combination of both that hv made people treat Chinese speakers as such. the stereotype that Chinese speakers are cheena (ie hv ingrain Chinese practises) is so deeply etched in our minds that we always associate Chinese speakers or with such cheena ways. well, all i can say is that there is a slight difference (READ: students from relatively cheena JCs vs students from the English speaking JCs) or is it because our point of view is already so skewed that we fail to see the better side of these Chinese speaking population? there are differences in the attitudes of both parties. but are these minor differences in attitudes worth fighting over? are they valid excuses by which one human can inflict harm in the form of social exclusion on another? i've got nothing much to say besides the fact that you hv not been brought up well if you think that alienating people cuz of such silly reasons is perfectly fine.