‘We migrated to spare our kid further misery with Chinese’
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‘We migrated to spare our kid further misery with Chinese’
By Kor Kian Beng from Straits Times, 27 November 2009
IN SEPTEMBER 1989, a Singaporean mother, Mrs Pauline Tan, wrote an impassioned letter to The Straits Times, criticising the way the Chinese language was taught in schools here and the impact it had on her nine-year-old son.
She said her son, then studying in Primary 3 at a Methodist school, was having suicidal thoughts because he hated having to study Chinese every day.
Wrote Mrs Tan: ‘He was constantly ridiculed and scolded by his Chinese teacher. He felt ashamed and shunned his classmates. He found Chinese boring. It is spelling, dictation, writing, tests and more spelling, dictation, writing and tests.’
As a result, she and her husband made plans to migrate to Australia. It was to spare her son further misery with the Chinese language, wrote Mrs Tan. The couple also have a younger son, who was aged five then.
Her letter sparked widespread criticisms, with many readers – especially those from the Chinese-educated community – lambasting her controversial move.
Many wrote in to express their anger over the Tans’ ‘absurd’ decision, and pointed out that Chinese-educated Singaporeans also had to overcome difficulties with the English language to compete with the English-educated for jobs.
One reader said: ‘At times, I find some English-educated Chinese Singaporeans too pampered.’
Some readers showed sympathy, saying the school and parents should have detected the problem earlier and done something to help the boy before he got into serious difficulties with the language.
For the next 20 years, there was no news about Mrs Tan and her family – until this week when she penned another letter to The Straits Times, which was published on Tuesday.
It was in response to Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew’s comments last week that the Government had made mistakes with the bilingual policy.
She wrote: ‘I am comforted that finally someone at this high level of government has come round to see my point of view, which I have voiced for a long time.’
She was also pleased with Mr Lee’s comments that the policy would be adjusted to suit students of different abilities.
Speaking to Insight on the phone from Brisbane, Mrs Tan, 60, said the family had obtained Australian permanent residency in 1990 but uprooted for Down Under only two years later.
That was because the couple wanted their elder son to complete his Primary School Leaving Examination here, and time to wind up the family business. She declined to specify the industry.
She had also harboured hopes that there might be changes to the education system after the publication of her letter – and after she contacted the Ministry of Education for help. But her elder son told her that the situation had barely improved in his school.
Mrs Tan acknowledged that the home environment was a key factor in determining a child’s interest towards the learning of any language. The couple were English-educated and spoke mostly English to the boys at home.
Still, she felt that the teaching style could have been less harsh, and the bilingual policy more flexible, to suit various types of students. ‘We definitely wouldn’t have migrated if the situation had been different,’ she said.
On the adverse reaction to her 1989 letter, Mrs Tan said that she was unperturbed by it.
She said: ‘I was just a voice saying the policy was wrong and that we should make changes. I wasn’t trying to make people follow my example.’
After all, it was not easy in the new land, as the couple encountered challenges like loneliness, she said.
The couple ran an export business, and later a property consultancy, until they retired two years ago.
But Mrs Tan said she felt she had made the right decision when she saw her sons enjoying and doing well in school again.
She declined to name her sons nor let Insight speak to them. The reason is that they are not aware that she had written to the press. She said only her husband knew about the Forum letters.
Both sons, aged 29 and 25, graduated from Queensland University of Technology and are doing well in life, said Mrs Tan.
Her elder son is now working as an IT specialist in Brisbane and the younger one is doing his doctorate studies in mathematics at Oxford University.
She said her elder son still feels bitter over his school experience.
‘When we returned to Singapore for visits, I would ask him at times if he wanted to visit his primary school. He did not want to go back there at all.’
Does the family plan to move back some day? Mrs Tan would only say that her sons now feel more Australian than Singaporean, though she still feels ‘deeply Singaporean’.
‘It’s such a pity that Singapore has lost some talented people as a result of some of its policies,’ she said. – ST
Republished from Straits Times, 27 November 2009
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what for.
even ah moh, korean are learning mahdarin/chinese - ni hao!
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Good move. Don't let your weakness pull you down.
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Whether people want to learn or is not interested to learn is their own farking business and no cursed despot with a zombie wife has the right to tell people how to live their lives and to make their lives miserable.
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The son also don't need to serve NS. Mrs. Tan threw one stone and hit two birds.
She don't have to be modest though. When she has emigrated, her loyalty with Singapore is basically over. What feeling of 'deeply Singaporean'?
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Originally posted by googoomuck:
.... When she has emigrated, her loyalty with Singapore is basically over. What feeling of 'deeply Singaporean'?
your statement is a fallacy.
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During secondary education, I whined and cried over physics which was a compulsory 'O' level subject for students in my school. I flunked almost every test, except one which I manage to get a good grade ( I still keep that very test paper till today! ). In JC2 I finally started enjoying physics and started to score in it (my JC had no suitable subject combination without physics for me). In hindsight, its all thanks to the system that didn't give me an easy way out.
In secondary school I pretty much dropped everything that I could- 3rd language, music, CCA.
Good thing they didn't let me drop mother tongue, physics and geography! Or no L1R5 to mention! -
Back to the topic. Mrs Tan wasn't talking about the system's giving or not giving a person an easy way out. She had a point.
The Chinese is a very diversed group of people. Besides, Singapore had been under British ruled for 150 years. While many Chinese claim to be third or foruth generation Singaporeans, there are Chinese people out here who had been here generations, maybe more than fourht generation. Chinese language and culture is remote to this group of people."Still, she felt that the teaching style could have been less harsh, and the bilingual policy more flexible, to suit various types of students. ‘We definitely wouldn’t have migrated if the situation had been different,"
She nailed the problem on the head. Drilling, memory work, rote learning just to understand our ancient culture (not even modern culture here). AT WHAT PRICE? -
Originally posted by redDUST:
your statement is a fallacy.
Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one.
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I think the problem lies with the english educated chinese.
This problem should had been resolved when Singapore became independent, but sadly, the ruler himself is an english educated anglo bastard, so the wrong education system was destroyed.
English system for chinese or chinese system for chinese?
It seems like a no brainer but yet.
sad.
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Originally posted by googoomuck:
Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one.
on a contrary, mine is not an opinion.your statement can be proven to be a fallacy.i could `ass-you-up', but i reckon you got enough shit on you already.
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The bilingual policy would not have got so wrong if the emphasis is placed on promoting English-Chinese, English-Tamil or English-Malay as a summation of bilingual Singaporeans.
English can be use in our daily conversation with people of similar lingo or in business dealings. However, the additional mandarin, malay or Tamil languages would greatly enhance our identity, strengthen our roots in the native land of a diversified Singapore.
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The crux of the problem is that the guys up there couldn't decide if it was culture or language that they wanted. Worse still, they set sailed without knowing where they were going and what they wanted.
If it is culture than Chinese can learn culture in dialects - more personal, more relevant and more direct. This creates interest and a longing to learn somethings that is our own southern Chinese heritage.No problem about this because the Singapore Chinese had been doing this, long before the arrival of the PAP.
Like the Tamil in India, learning Tamil and not Hindi, the national language. Tamil is the language of administration and education in the state of Tamil Nahdu. This has never been an issue with the Indian communities here and has not been an issue in India.
If it is language than why the hell do we set a standard as high as China's? Is Singapore a part of China? Knowing full well that the southern Chinese for scions, never spoke a word of Mandarin, never part of the northern diaspora, never part of their lingua francas.
If it is language and given its alienation to us, than we should make Mandarin as interesting as possible and as relevant as possible. Recognise it's status as a foreign language to many Chinese. Did they bothered or considered this from the outset? -
Originally posted by 4sg:
Recognise it's status as a foreign language to many Chinese. Did they bothered or considered this from the outset?
I think Lee Kuan Yew was more eager in finding some way to destroy dialects at the time.
It posed a threat to him.
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Originally posted by angel3070:
I think Lee Kuan Yew was more eager in finding some way to destroy dialects at the time.
It posed a threat to him.
He was a destroyer and builder, playing god.
He once scorned Mao by saying "Mao's work on China is like painting on mosaic. When the rain comes, it washes the paint away."
I can't help smiling in agreement with him. -
Originally posted by 4sg:
He was a destroyer and builder, playing god.
He is just an anglo dog to me.
I don't think he is fit to be leader of Singapore.
To me, Lim Chin Siong is my leader of Singapore, not Lee Kuan Yew.
Lee Kuan Yew is just an anglo fucking dog.
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I find her response a little too extreme as well. A change of schools could have sufficed. Or may be just pulling her kid out from Chinese classes.
I grew up from that same system of Chinese education that her son was in. It REALLY SUCKED.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of migration. I guess most of us who were more English-leaning just figured out other ways to learn the language. Ended up reading more Chinese comics, copying homework from the better kids, and flunking tests often.
That wasn't the hideous part. The hideous part was that doing badly in Chinese meant that the PSLE grade would plummet as well. The system sucked... but a lot of people just sucked it up.
Being ridiculed was something she could have taken up with the school. What kinda teacher ridicules a student for weak subjects or allows/encourages other kids to ridicule others? IMO, it was just bad teachers to begin with.
In anycase, the article was a little too dramatic at the end. 29 years old, and an IT specialist. There are better reasons than "still traumatized" to give to not go back and visit some shitty ol primary school. Hokkien say, "eat full too free ah?"
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Originally posted by angel3070:
I think Lee Kuan Yew was more eager in finding some way to destroy dialects at the time.
It posed a threat to him.
It posed a threat to the unity of SIngaporeans. -
Originally posted by Shotgun:
I find her response a little too extreme as well. A change of schools could have sufficed. Or may be just pulling her kid out from Chinese classes.
I grew up from that same system of Chinese education that her son was in. It REALLY SUCKED.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of migration. I guess most of us who were more English-leaning just figured out other ways to learn the language. Ended up reading more Chinese comics, copying homework from the better kids, and flunking tests often.
That wasn't the hideous part. The hideous part was that doing badly in Chinese meant that the PSLE grade would plummet as well. The system sucked... but a lot of people just sucked it up.
Being ridiculed was something she could have taken up with the school. What kinda teacher ridicules a student for weak subjects or allows/encourages other kids to ridicule others? IMO, it was just bad teachers to begin with.
In anycase, the article was a little too dramatic at the end. 29 years old, and an IT specialist. There are better reasons than "still traumatized" to give to not go back and visit some shitty ol primary school. Hokkien say, "eat full too free ah?"
any countries she emigrate, there are bound to be chinese speaking people.
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Originally posted by Shotgun:
I guess most of us who were more English-leaning just figured out other ways to learn the language.
Lim Chin Siong would have resolved this problem.
He would had let english play a lesser role and dialects and mandarin promoted to dominant role.
This is the natural way.
But those anglo dogs like Lee Kuan Yew would be relegated to secondary role in society.
He wouldn't allow.
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Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:
It posed a threat to the unity of SIngaporeans.What do you mean?
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The sad thing is that the angmoh don't even see you as part of them even if you're anglophile .....who don;t speak and write chinese
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If angela who's a white in melbourne can speak good mandarin I don't see why we can't here in sg
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Originally posted by Catknight:
The sad thing is that the angmoh don't even see you as part of them even if you're anglophile .....who don;t speak and write chinese
one sentence - laughed at you, ha ha ha - fake banana! -
Originally posted by Catknight:
The sad thing is that the angmoh don't even see you as part of them even if you're anglophile .....who don;t speak and write chinese
That's why I say Lee Kuan Yew is an anglo dog and not proper englishman.
He is only fit to be their dog, guard british interests in Singapore.