Couple of days ago, I was doing my news monitoring duty and I was scanning through the Chinese papers and my COO walked past and said "Wow, I didn't know you can read Chinese! So amazing you!" I smiled but at the back of my head I was thinking "What so amazing? For god's sake, I've never gotten anything less than an A for my Chinese and I got an A for my Specialised Writing in Chinese in Uni and I've been translating ad and press releases copies at work forever!"....I don't get it. I dunno why so many people think that I can't read or speak Chinese. Okay fine, my spoken Mandarin isn't the best in town but I dare say my written Chinese definitely worth its salt and I'm good enough to publish! I was told that I look like someone whose Chinese suck and when I was in Uni, I remember a uni mate saw that I got an A for Specialised Writing in Chinese and said "Oh I'm so gonna take it cos if Miss B can get an A, it's probably very easy!"....WTF! I'm offended!
Anyway, thing is, I do notice there're quite a number of local Chinese who take pride in being lousy in both spoken and written Chinese. Like it's something cool cos it means that they're not "ching chong" or "cheena" becos it's perceived more cool to be English-speaking. OGT agrees that yes there're a lot of them out there and in fact, some of her friends are super proud of not being effective with Chinese cos being lousy in Mandarin and Chinese means they're under the "Ang Moh Pai" (English gang) and thus it means they're cooler and every Chinese speaking individual is beneath them.
I simply don't understand why being not fluent in Chinese is something to be proud of. It's simply shallow cos I think it's way cooler that I'm effectively bilingual and that both my English and Chinese language ability is just as good. And being fluent in Chinese doesn't make me "ching chong" and what's wrong with being "ching chong" anyway? In fact, I totally embrace my Chinese heritage and I still read Chinese books and magazines. And in retrospect, I'm grateful for my strict Chinese class training cos now, I'm more marketable becos I'm able to write and speak Chinese effectively. So there you have it, I'm very very proud of the fact that my Chinese is excellent and if that makes me "ching chong", then be it!
3 comments:
Hey B, i concur!! I still recall the derogatory "chinese helicopter" used in Uni days..lolx.
OF course, it also helps that my mum was a CHINESE teacher no less!
Kudos to being bilingual! At least dont have to resort to reading the English subtitles when watching something like Farewell to My Concubine eh!
i think not so much nowadays liao la. pretty much everyone realises the benefits of being fluent in chinese since china is pretty much all the world economy can depend on these days. -hl
Haha, the "Chinese Helicopter" thing is so funny. But I dunno why most people think that your language skills gotta be mutually exclusive. Like if you're good with English means your Chinese sucks...and it means you're "jiak kang tang" when people say I "jiak kang tang" I told them no but I "jiak hung tze" one and they don't believe me. Whatever really...
HL, even till now it's still the same really...the younger peeps are still thinking "ang moh pai" means you're more superior...and there're still people I know who're damn proud of the fact that their Chinese is F9
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