Singapore speaks the Dragon's language
By Eric Koo Peng Kuan
SINGAPORE - When Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore announced in January 2003 that English could be used to explain Chinese characters to students in some primary schools, the experimental project aroused great debate and controversy as to its feasibility. In fact, when the mother tongue of Singapore's largest ethnic group - comprising more than 75% of the city-state's population - ceased to be a prerequisite entry requirement for its universities, there were concerns that the standards of Mandarin learning in speaking, reading and writing would be lowered.
This month Singapore once again moved to reform its Mandarin-teaching system. Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said through the media that the new changes would allow young students to enjoy learning the Chinese language and gain confidence in using it, with greater flexibility in learning pace, a more interesting curriculum, and more emphasis on reading and listening skills rather than on writing and memorizing words and phrases.
The changes, which many here say could not have been more timely, aim to ease the learning burden on thousands of young Singaporeans.
Singapore has good reasons for such a pragmatic and enthusiastic approach to cultivating the use of Mandarin among its young. The rise of China in the 21st century, for one, opens limitless opportunities for economic cooperation and cultural discourse between Singapore and China. Since the late 1960s, Singapore has pursued a policy of bilingualism in its education system. As a result, while other Chinese communities in Southeast Asia have, in general, discarded Chinese education, Singapore's Chinese community has had a better advantage in terms of communication and discourse with China since the Dragon began making overtures into Southeast Asia in the mid-1980s.
Singapore is a multi-ethnic nation where traditional Asian values clash with a liberal mix of Western influence. The national first language is English, a tongue that originally belonged to none of the major ethnic groups - Chinese, Malay and Indian. Alongside English, a host of other languages and dialects are used as communication in everyday life. However, because of the necessity of surviving in a modern, affluent social setting and to meet the demands of commercial and/or industrial activities, the English language is rapidly permeating throughout the current generation of young Singaporeans at the expense of their mother tongues, specifically the original languages of these ethnic groups - Mandarin, Malay and Tamil.
The Mandarin language is perhaps the most affected. But while the younger generation in Singapore now see less need for the use of Mandarin, the government, sensing the value and importance of maintaining the Mandarin language based on China's rise, is anxious to preserve the linguistic edge of its Chinese people.
Fighting for survival
The Chinese ethnic group makes up 76.7% of the population of Singapore. As a result, one would think Mandarin would frequently be used throughout the nation. On the contrary, an environment with favorable conditions to propagate Mandarin is sadly lacking in the context of Singapore. There are several reasons for this.
First, Mandarin is taught in schools as an academic subject to be taken seriously. This may seem to promote Mandarin speaking at first glance, and indeed, Mandarin teachers do resort to the kindling of interest in Chinese culture and history in an effort to spur their charges to learn their Mandarin lessons well. However, reality and practicality dictate otherwise. The language of instruction for all other subjects is English. Thus the opportunity to use Mandarin is restricted to lesson time in a school environment. Above all, because Mandarin is also an examinable subject, the pressure of having to do well in examinations imposes an unfavorable view of the language on the malleable mind of the young student.
Second, the local examination system arranges for students to take their mother-tongue examinations much earlier than other subjects at the general certificate of education "O" and "A" levels, ideally freeing more revision time for the student preparing for these major crossroad examinations. (Although English is taught to students of all races, it is compulsory for each ethnic group to study its mother tongue as well, if that tongue is one of the republic's four official languages. Thus ethnic Malays study Bahasa Melayu or Malay, and ethnic Indians study Tamil.)
Of course, mother-tongue teachers work closely with their other colleagues in fulfilling such a goal by training and ushering as many students as possible to pass and do well on their first attempt. As a result, the study of Mandarin is reduced to the status of an obligatory subject, where studying and learning is a chore, to be quickly avoided once the examination has been passed.
This is not to say that Mandarin teachers themselves contribute to lack of interest in learning the language because of the system. On the contrary, their approach is a sound and realistic examination-preparation strategy that has been used for years. In reality, many students simply can not afford the time for frivolous pursuits and a better appreciation of Chinese culture and language.
Third, Mandarin speaking is not encouraged culturally or practically in society. Because racial harmony is paramount in a multi-ethnic society such as Singapore's, at the workplace, all jargon, terminology and official correspondence are in English. It is also impractical and unnecessary to translate English technological or commercial terms into Mandarin expressions. In general, Mandarin usage is negatively perceived as a language of the local market and therefore a mark of coming from a lower background of education. It may also lead to the perception that those speaking Mandarin do so because they have not mastered English. Moreover, speaking Mandarin in the presence of non-Chinese people is a mark of disrespect and bad social manners.
Fourth, among Chinese people a variety of dialects serve to fragment and undermine the use of the Mandarin language. Singaporean-Chinese tend to regard dialect speaking as a preservation of cultural features and values. Curiously, in Chinese communities in Malaysia or Taiwan, the view is the exact opposite - one would speak Mandarin rather than a dialect as a mark of elegance and education.
A difficult language to learn
Mandarin is reputed to be one of the most difficult languages to learn in the world. Its system of ideographs used for writing, and the four distinct tones in pronouncing similar monosyllables, have baffled many non-Chinese attempting to learn the language. It is no different for Singaporean-Chinese children brought up in a multilingual and multicultural environment.
The Chinese ideograph system of writing has remained unchanged since ancient times. The Chinese word, or character, is a symbol used to represent an object, idea, action, concept or adjective. It is pronounced in a fixed monosyllabic way. The way of writing the character is also strictly fixed, with a pre-set number of brush strokes in a fixed arrangement. The absence of an alphabet meant that new characters had to be invented over the ages, and some 50,000 characters are now current in Mandarin. Learning Chinese, therefore, entailed strict adherence to study and rote learning. In the context of today's modern education system, which calls for flexibility and analytical thinking, utterly opposing routes of learning are imposed on the already overtaxed Mandarin student.
The monosyllabic and tonal features of Mandarin can be very confusing to the learner. For example, the sound of the word shi could mean "yes", "death", "gentleman", "use", "envoy", "eat", "truth", "history" and so on, depending on which of the four tones are used in pronouncing the word, or with which other Chinese ideographs it is used, and in what context.
When asked how one actually overcomes such difficulties and starts learning the language, a Mandarin teacher said that for the Chinese race, it is an inborn ability and improves with age. He could not explain precisely why this is so.
Research into linguistics has shown that the evolution of Mandarin, classified as a Sino-Tibetan language, was practically unique. It has one of the few surviving character-based writing systems in the world. Whereas other Asian languages such as Korean and Japanese use or have used writing systems heavily influenced by Chinese, both of these languages eventually developed phonetically based writing systems.
To many, a character-based language is simply unsuited for modern times, no matter how deep the cultural wells or long the history from which the language is drawn. With the onset of globalization and the exchange of ideas, it is necessary for a language to be able to accommodate foreign ideas, expressions and concepts.
The English alphabet, for example, can spell at the very least the basic sound of a Chinese character, bringing across the idea that a cat is called a mao in Mandarin. But a person explaining in Mandarin would be hard pressed to describe what the same animal is called in English, without the aid and adoption of the English alphabet. The level of learning for a character- or alphabet-based language, however, varies from individual to individual, and there really isn't a fixed pattern as to whichever type of language is more difficult.
Why the big fuss?
Ultimately, Singapore's focus on cultivating a love of learning Mandarin has much to do with the rise of China. It is also a wise strategy simply to capitalize and improve on an educational policy already set in place long ago, to exploit the advantages yielded from the efforts of sustaining and maintaining bilingualism. As a result, Singapore has a high percentage of trained members of the workforce with both English- and Mandarin-speaking skills.
The painstaking efforts of state-sponsored campaigns in encouraging the use and learning of Mandarin are also relevant in the local context. In the 1960s, the then newly established People's Action Party of founding father Lee Kuan Yew, father of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, saw Mandarin as a unifying factor in eliminating differences separating the various groups of ethnic Chinese, which were loosely organized into clans and associations then based on provincial dialect groups in China. Always a touchy issue, racial harmony is regarded as paramount in multi-ethnic Singapore, to be maintained as a key to preserving political stability. As time goes by, new generations of young Singaporean-Chinese tend to see themselves as Singaporean nationals first, rather than belonging to some clan or dialect group.
By the late 1990s, after three decades of rapid industrial modernization and economic growth, this younger generation of Singaporeans began to see fewer reasons to master the Mandarin language, nor did they see any relevance in learning traditional Chinese cultural pursuits such as calligraphy, wayang (puppet theater) or Chinese poetry.
Sensing this progression, the government now is anxious to preserve the linguistic edge of its Chinese people before its dies out naturally in a non-conducive environment. In must be noted, however, that the state-sponsored "Speak Mandarin" campaign, aimed at encouraging the use of the language by the local Chinese population, is unique. No other Chinese community elsewhere in the world has been guided by its state government to learn Mandarin. In most places, this simply becomes a natural option; either you do it privately or you don't. So it is no surprise that second- or third-generation Chinese immigrants living in Europe and America cannot speak Mandarin.
Achieving a proficient level of Mandarin speaking, writing and reading takes years, if not decades, of continuous effort. Prime Minister Lee was certainly not wrong to address this issue, and quickly. In a few years' time, with callous neglect, Mandarin in Singapore may be reduced to a language used only privately at home among family or friends or for watching Chinese television programs. The rise of China has reawakened the awareness of the importance of the Mandarin language and a new value is recognized in its mastery. Singaporean-Chinese should at the very least have an awareness of their cultural and linguistic roots if they are to have any sense of national identity.
Eric Koo Peng Kuan is a freelance writer who holds a master's degree in strategic studies from the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies (IDSS) at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He currently writes commentaries and analysis articles on international affairs, security issues and terrorism.
(Copyright 2004 Eric Koo Peng Kuan.)
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