lol. angel. seriously.
Originally posted by angel3070:Lee Kuan Yew's policy of destroying chinese education system and imposing english as dominant language and suppressing dialect is a complete rubbish policy in my view.
You only have to look at the standard of english and chinese of Singaporeans to see that all of his languages policies had been a total and complete failure.
The basic reason lies with the rubbish education system, a flaw that many had criticised in the past but only now after so many years did Lee Kuan Yew dare to admit that he failed.
Lee Kuan Yew is worthless at making social policies.
He is an imbecile.
He is a fucking bastard.
I have to disagree with you on that.
English standards of Singaporeans, while not very good, is not that bad either. In Asia, we are the country where our English can be understood by the West. We are in effect, something like a gateway to Asia.
For instance, where I am working now, the westerners commended on my English (though I think my English is average only), saying that its very easy to understand, and I am able to express myself pretty well. They are generally impressed when a Chinese walks in and speaks quite ok English.
If we had decided on Chinese as first language instead, I think Singapore would not have survived the 1st 40 years of its independence, honestly.
I'm fine with learning English. Proficiency in English has served us well.
However, every Chinese should learn Chinese without the old fart's insistence.
Likewise for every Malay, the Malay language and every South Indian, the Tamil language.
We should have learned our languages the fun way.
But then, Singaporeans are so pliant. They even go to the extent of speaking English only at home. We screwed up too.
Australia ranks #2 in Human Development Index 2009 but singapore is #23.
http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/
The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is developed, developing, or underdeveloped
The HDI combines three dimensions:
*Life expectancy at birth, as an index of population health and longevity
*Knowledge and education, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weighting) and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (with one-third weighting).
*Standard of living, as measured by the natural logarithm of gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity.
Originally posted by Scania:Not siding him, but the fall of the Chinese schools in Singapore were actually a way to protect Singapore from commies.
You fell for his propaganda.
"We certainly
opposed to Singapore being maintained as a military base for
Britain and that was why Lee had to crush the Left in Singapore
at all cost … The Left in Singapore also opposed to the
1963 merger because we thought it was an opportunistic adventure
on the part of Lee who wanted to exploit Tunku Abdul Rahman's
anti-communism to suppress the Left in Singapore … we
wanted merger but not in the 1963 version which proved to be an
utter failure just two years later in 1965.
"I was
completely English-educated," stressed Lim, which was
obviously a sarcastic and subtle rebuttal to the now stereotyped
and widespread notion that the Left in Singapore in the 1950s and
1960s was a "Chinese-educated" phenomenon.
Originally posted by soul_rage:If we had decided on Chinese as first language instead, I think Singapore would not have survived the 1st 40 years of its independence, honestly.
I disagree.
Originally posted by angel3070:I disagree.
It's ok, we agree to disagree.
So what will be your views, if you can decide on the path we took 40 years back?
Chinese first language? English 2nd?
Originally posted by ☃®:next is Indian tiger?
no, not indian tiger, but indian elephant, since the elephant is the national animal of india.
the russian bear is also starting to rise together with the dragon and elephant while the singapore lion and the malaysian mousedeer can only cower in fear.
Originally posted by googoomuck:I'm fine with learning English. Proficiency in English has served us well.
However, every Chinese should learn Chinese without the old fart's insistence.
Likewise for every Malay, the Malay language and every South Indian, the Tamil language.
We should have learned our languages the fun way.
But then, Singaporeans are so pliant. They even go to the extent of speaking English only at home. We screwed up too.
It's rather strange though, one thing i noticed is that Cantonese teenagers continues to speak their dialect among themselves it has always given me the impression that Cantonese is the dominant dialect group, which isn't true.
But it's rarely the case with the Hokkien or Teochew.
While i can agree that we have a part to play with the decline in dialect, i don't think the answer's as straight forward as being completely due to LKY's efforts.
Originally posted by Stevenson101:
I can't say i completely agree with you there, personally i think Chinese is versatile enough a language to pick up and master and quite suitable a language for technical purposes as well.But the fact remains that Post Independence, the world was an English speaking world. Regardless of the internal political reasons (Though i think weakening the Chinese dialect speaking majority was one of the happy accidents, not the main goal), Singapore as a whole would benefit more on the global stage then by strictly implementing English.
My grandfather insisted that my mother and her siblings attend Chinese schools in the morning and English schools in the afternoon. Though I'm sure we like to convince ourselves that the people post independence were mindless sheeps being herded by LKY, i believe they were quite aware of the global stituation then.
Actually, in the earlier days, the Chinese in �八行 doing business with the malaysian and indonesian were using Chinese. local business use dialects and malays. english is used only for government and legal matters.
With the growing presence of america in the reason, english is used more as regional language, while chinese was nothing but a tie with the communists in china. since the 60s japan, and the 4 tigers all prosper by trading with the US. english became more important than ever before. BUT, you don't find any japanese who can't speak japs, a taiwanese who can't speak chinese or a korea who can't speak korean.
language is not only for business, it is also part of a culture. The french will tell you that the french language is their culture. The passing down of culture æ–‡åŒ–çš„ä¼ æ‰¿ cannot be done using another language.
our grandparents were aware of the global situation then by sending us to learn english, but ignoring our mother tongue, be it chinese, malay or indian will surely dilute the learning of our culture. but damn, I don't find malay who don't speak malay, or indian who speak only english. It is very sad for singaporean chinese.
sometimes I wonder if India were to prosper earlier and faster than china, would we be asked to learn english and hindu?
Originally posted by googoomuck:I'm fine with learning English. Proficiency in English has served us well.
However, every Chinese should learn Chinese without the old fart's insistence.
Likewise for every Malay, the Malay language and every South Indian, the Tamil language.
We should have learned our languages the fun way.
But then, Singaporeans are so pliant. They even go to the extent of speaking English only at home. We screwed up too.
fully agree. learning our own language should never need to be at the expense of learning english.
the european speaks more than one languages, so do practically all other races whose first language is not english, like the american, the canadian, the brits and the oz...why singaporean can only speak one language, english?
Originally posted by Scania:Not siding him, but the fall of the Chinese schools in Singapore were actually a way to protect Singapore from commies.
English should remain the first language.
Who or what makes "a commie" ?
Would you believe that anyone who is a Chinese, Chinese educated, a social activist and opposes the PAP - will stand a high chance of being labelled a "commie".
In Communist Russia and China - any concerned citizen who will dare to oppose the Communist Government, he will be labelled a "Revisionist"; and still it becomes more ironical that in Singapore - such a citizen activists will be labelled a "Communist".
Any country that is intolerant of alternative or opposing views, will have the authorities label the actions of these activists in the most negative ways - when such activists are in fact Nationalists.
The British Internal Security Department had advised the British Colonial Government not to act on LKY's advise to use the ISA to arrest those whom LKY had accused to be Communists - as the ISD reports had found no evidence to support LKY's claims.
The British ISD even clarified that those who were accused by LKY to be Communists - were in fact Nationalist clamouring for Singapore independence from Colonial Rule.
Can Dr Lim Hock Siew - educated in English as his foundation, and graduating as a western medical doctor - be a Communist as accused by LKY and arrested in the 1963 Operation Cold Store ?
Was it about "communists" - or was it all about removing the threat of politicians who are sharper and with great intellect that LKY feared ?
Originally posted by soul_rage:I have to disagree with you on that.
English standards of Singaporeans, while not very good, is not that bad either. In Asia, we are the country where our English can be understood by the West. We are in effect, something like a gateway to Asia.
For instance, where I am working now, the westerners commended on my English (though I think my English is average only), saying that its very easy to understand, and I am able to express myself pretty well. They are generally impressed when a Chinese walks in and speaks quite ok English.
If we had decided on Chinese as first language instead, I think Singapore would not have survived the 1st 40 years of its independence, honestly.
Agree with you to a certain extent.
Originally posted by Stevenson101:It's rather strange though, one thing i noticed is that Cantonese teenagers continues to speak their dialect among themselves it has always given me the impression that Cantonese is the dominant dialect group, which isn't true.
But it's rarely the case with the Hokkien or Teochew.
While i can agree that we have a part to play with the decline in dialect, i don't think the answer's as straight forward as being completely due to LKY's efforts.
I think Hong Kong plays a part in this aspect about Cantonese. Cantopop is pretty popular in this part of the region, and this helps to keep the dialect alive.
Taiwanese, well they have Hokkien songs, however, somehow to my novice ears, Cantonese songs tend to sound nicer than Hokkien songs, no offence intended.
me is thkful dat my languages are beri power.
shld test prcs on their engrish before they cm.
To all readers….please just because he barks doesn’t mean that you should hastily Jump…
I was just wondering if generally Singaporean learned the right lesson coming out of this rare acknowledgement. Or it is his subtlety of charting new direction for Singapore?
I just thought that this is not about the right brain vs left brain or adopting English as priority....but rather how policies was set without much questioning and debate....or examine….the system..So stop repeating the past hast decision. .....there are hardly any debate of the direction of What Singapore should Take....
So what if we took the wrong path in English? I mean if today America or Europe still dominate the future economies would he make such revision remarks?
GCK Said Singapore should be made relevant but should relevant means "common" Does Singapore really want to be seen the homogenous as the rest of the region? By the way PRC has an image problems it isn't well like....Should Singapore be Unique...differentiate from the main competitors in the region?
The future language isn't about Mandarin or English bilingual.........U got to be able to understand at least 3 APEC languages.......
I was once in a meeting with Spanish, English, Korean....and the common language in that meeting was Spanish.
........so asked yourself these questions....
1) Do you really want to sound like a PRC when u speak English? When your MNC counterpart could not distinct you to be PRC or Singaporean?
2) Do you really want to pronounce ph as phy because most chinese have a hardtime grasping the "H" and if you are old and your crown fall off....!!
3) Lastly after 40 years of independent Singapore finally reach a world stage where we are not mistaken to be in China....but the southern tip of Malaysia....So lets not confused the world again by projecting ourseleves as chinese from China.....Hellloooo!!!
We speak with a singlish accent so be it....we don't sound PRC so be it...
Originally posted by Atobe:
Was it about "communists" - or was it all about removing the threat of politicians who are sharper and with great intellect that LKY feared ?
Uncle,
I will take yr last statement, LKY do not fear anyone, in fact, he respect anyone who is smart and clever. Having said that, he will remove anyone who block his way to the top, whether you are a intellectually wise doctor or a stupid gangster, he knows how to play his game. The question is, how can there be people who are sharper with great intellect get removed by him.? The British are there for the taking, he aligned his policy with the British and gained their support, once that is done, the stupid brits will arrest anyone he said, because to the Brit, they dun care whoever they are, yellow, dark or brown skins are not their concern, they can always push that blame to a stupid lawyer LKY, who is the PM then. Luckily enuf, the cold war with the commies was at it height during this time, and to the west, anything that is chinese or russians, cannot be trust, and Singapore was alway at western influences, therefore, if Uncle Lim was able to comprehend the enviroment and situation of that time, he should be on the British side before LKY did, so, in a way, we youngster see him as plain stupid, not highly intellect enuf to match LKY
Originally posted by Arapahoe:To all readers….please just because he barks doesn’t mean that you should hastily Jump…
I was just wondering if generally Singaporean learned the right lesson coming out of this rare acknowledgement. Or it is his subtlety of charting new direction for Singapore?
I just thought that this is not about the right brain vs left brain or adopting English as priority....but rather how policies was set without much questioning and debate....or examine….the system..So stop repeating the past hast decision. .....there are hardly any debate of the direction of What Singapore should Take....
So what if we took the wrong path in English? I mean if today America or Europe still dominate the future economies would he make such revision remarks?
GCK Said Singapore should be made relevant but should relevant means "common" Does Singapore really want to be seen the homogenous as the rest of the region? By the way PRC has an image problems it isn't well like....Should Singapore be Unique...differentiate from the main competitors in the region?
The future language isn't about Mandarin or English bilingual.........U got to be able to understand at least 3 APEC languages.......
I was once in a meeting with Spanish, English, Korean....and the common language in that meeting was Spanish.
........so asked yourself these questions....
1) Do you really want to sound like a PRC when u speak English? When your MNC counterpart could not distinct you to be PRC or Singaporean?
2) Do you really want to pronounce ph as phy because most chinese have a hardtime grasping the "H" and if you are old and your crown fall off....!!
3) Lastly after 40 years of independent Singapore finally reach a world stage where we are not mistaken to be in China....but the southern tip of Malaysia....So lets not confused the world again by projecting ourseleves as chinese from China.....Hellloooo!!!
We speak with a singlish accent so be it....we don't sound PRC so be it...
You have not widely visit the world enuf, if you are in Tapei, beijin or shanghai talking to American trained management, scholars and trainers, they speak fluent American english with a New yorker accents. Therefore, in near future, we can see PRC speak perfect slanted American English, and they are hunger for it. For those PRC who are here in Singapore, these are the begining stage, and also these group are those from rural areas, they dun understand english or singlish, not wrong, after all, they are from China Chinese, you cannot expect them to speak like singaporeans singlish, but those who are educated here will find it hard to speak American english.
Finally, if you really want to learn speaking good Chinese as the Chinese does, visit my geyland or joo chiat kopitiams, there are lots of beautiful and sexy Chinese teacher here with special services waiting for you.
Originally posted by angel7030:You have not widely visit the world enuf, if you are in Tapei, beijin or shanghai talking to American trained management, scholars and trainers, they speak fluent American english with a New yorker accents. Therefore, in near future, we can see PRC speak perfect slanted American English, and they are hunger for it. For those PRC who are here in Singapore, these are the begining stage, and also these group are those from rural areas, they dun understand english or singlish, not wrong, after all, they are from China Chinese, you cannot expect them to speak like singaporeans singlish, but those who are educated here will find it hard to speak American english.
Finally, if you really want to learn speaking good Chinese as the Chinese does, visit my geyland or joo chiat kopitiams, there are lots of beautiful and sexy Chinese teacher here with special services waiting for you.
morning, you woke up so early to post at sgforum eh.taken ur breakfast yet
Originally posted by Arapahoe:To all readers….please just because he barks doesn’t mean that you should hastily Jump…
I was just wondering if generally Singaporean learned the right lesson coming out of this rare acknowledgement. Or it is his subtlety of charting new direction for Singapore?
I just thought that this is not about the right brain vs left brain or adopting English as priority....but rather how policies was set without much questioning and debate....or examine….the system..So stop repeating the past hast decision. .....there are hardly any debate of the direction of What Singapore should Take....
So what if we took the wrong path in English? I mean if today America or Europe still dominate the future economies would he make such revision remarks?
GCK Said Singapore should be made relevant but should relevant means "common" Does Singapore really want to be seen the homogenous as the rest of the region? By the way PRC has an image problems it isn't well like....Should Singapore be Unique...differentiate from the main competitors in the region?
The future language isn't about Mandarin or English bilingual.........U got to be able to understand at least 3 APEC languages.......
I was once in a meeting with Spanish, English, Korean....and the common language in that meeting was Spanish.
........so asked yourself these questions....
1) Do you really want to sound like a PRC when u speak English? When your MNC counterpart could not distinct you to be PRC or Singaporean?
2) Do you really want to pronounce ph as phy because most chinese have a hardtime grasping the "H" and if you are old and your crown fall off....!!
3) Lastly after 40 years of independent Singapore finally reach a world stage where we are not mistaken to be in China....but the southern tip of Malaysia....So lets not confused the world again by projecting ourseleves as chinese from China.....Hellloooo!!!
We speak with a singlish accent so be it....we don't sound PRC so be it...
The future language isn't about Mandarin or English bilingual.........U got to be able to understand at least 3 APEC languages.......
This I fully agree, many european speaks more than 3 languages.
I was once in a meeting with Spanish, English, Korean....and the common language in that meeting was Spanish.
I attended meetings in paris where the language of the meeting was French, and Indonesian in JKT. I was told in south america they conduct meeting in spanish.
I once attended a meeting in houston on china bz dev, while the language of meeting was english, more than half the white americans across the table spoke very fluent mandarin, and I knew then why the hq believed they could better handle china from houston than from singapore.
English is an important language for international business, but our advantage in the language is reduced when others pick up english. but when it comes to local business, we will be greatly disadvantaged if we dont know the local language, whatever that is.
1) Do you really want to sound like a PRC when u speak English? When your MNC counterpart could not distinct you to be PRC or Singaporean?
We can never sound like a PRC, they learn american pronunciation and our singlish pronunciation originated from victoria english, big difference in accents, especially among PRC.
It will take years staying in the region for any caucasian to be able to distinguish a PRC, ROC, HongKonger, Singaporean, or Malaysian, just as difficult for asian to distinguish a dutch, austrian, english, danish....
3) Lastly after 40 years of independent Singapore finally reach a world stage where we are not mistaken to be in China....but the southern tip of Malaysia....So lets not confused the world again by projecting ourseleves as chinese from China.....Hellloooo!!!
even during the 90s in the first MNC I worked for, a guy from Leverkusen actually asked me if I were proud of the great wall, haha.. Ignorant people are ignorant because they don't know, not because others confuse them. Many Singaporean Chinese are confused themselves with their ethnic identity, looked chinese, but can't find the chinese - ness, and don't like to be called banana.
Speaking proper mandarin is not projecting ourselves as chinese from china, just like speaking proper english doesn't mean our ancestors kneel to her majesty the queen.
There is no such thing as the PRC chinese, the people in beijing, shanghai, and guangzhou all speak mandarin with diffferent accent, and singapore mandarin is more similar to the ROC mandarin.
Asian Chinese are differentiated by our culture, not by the language we speak.
please just because he barks doesn’t mean that you should hastily Jump…
This is a good ending statement, it is our language, and our culture, what we inherit from our parents, what we need to pass on, whether we are in singapore, or when we move out go elsewhere, the government don't decide for me. While admitting making mistake in the past, he is making another mistake now, by telling the teachers how to teach.
Originally posted by soul_rage:
I think Hong Kong plays a part in this aspect about Cantonese. Cantopop is pretty popular in this part of the region, and this helps to keep the dialect alive.Taiwanese, well they have Hokkien songs, however, somehow to my novice ears, Cantonese songs tend to sound nicer than Hokkien songs, no offence intended.
Ah. But curse words sound so much better in Hokkien.
Asian Chinese are differentiated by our culture, not by the language we speak.
Language IS culture.
Language is part of the non material culture of the people.
You don't seem to grasp that.
Language IS culture.
For example eating pork is not in the food culture of muslims, eating beef is not part of food culture of hindus, eating insects is part of food culture of thais but not that of western people.
Eating using hands is part of culture of malays but not that of chinese.
Use chopsticks to eat is chinese culture but not that of muslims.
Use chopsticks as a way to eat is part of chinese culture, use certain type of language or dialect to communicate, to speak is part of the culture of southern chinese people.
Use certain languages IS part of the culture of people.
We must be clear.
Originally posted by Rooney9:morning, you woke up so early to post at sgforum eh.taken ur breakfast yet
Huh!!! hello, this is a political forum, no personal issues discussion ya.
Originally posted by angel7030:
Huh!!! hello, this is a political forum, no personal issues discussion ya.
This must be surreal coming from a "hum" with its own hangup of its own false relevance to the forum as a Taiwanese "hum".
Originally posted by angel7030:Uncle,
I will take yr last statement, LKY do not fear anyone, in fact, he respect anyone who is smart and clever. Having said that, he will remove anyone who block his way to the top, whether you are a intellectually wise doctor or a stupid gangster, he knows how to play his game. The question is, how can there be people who are sharper with great intellect get removed by him.? The British are there for the taking, he aligned his policy with the British and gained their support, once that is done, the stupid brits will arrest anyone he said, because to the Brit, they dun care whoever they are, yellow, dark or brown skins are not their concern, they can always push that blame to a stupid lawyer LKY, who is the PM then. Luckily enuf, the cold war with the commies was at it height during this time, and to the west, anything that is chinese or russians, cannot be trust, and Singapore was alway at western influences, therefore, if Uncle Lim was able to comprehend the enviroment and situation of that time, he should be on the British side before LKY did, so, in a way, we youngster see him as plain stupid, not highly intellect enuf to match LKY
It is best for a Taiwanese "Hum" to get out of the local discussion when it is only familiar with the propaganda filth fed to for the daily diet of the "hum" ?
There is no integrity in a foreign Taiwanese "hum" - who does not even have the integrity of any honorable Taiwanese that will oppose any political tyrant that will abuse and incarcerate its own comrades for 20 years and more.
Are you qualififed to pass any comments for what ever it is worth from a "hum" ?