By any measure, Singapore’s ‘Speak Mandarin Campaign’ has succeeded. But, at what cost to the nation’s heritage? [First published in The Sunday Star on 5 October 2008]
MY mother-in-law is a great natural communicator. With her gregariousness and curiosity, she is capable of striking up a conversation with anyone, anywhere, and would be baffled to learn that there are specialist books that teach you how to do that.
“How do you talk to people? You just talk to them! What’s so difficult?”
She can do it in a great many languages, too. Born in Kuala Lumpur, her first language is Cantonese but she speaks Malay, Hokkien, and Hakka with considerable fluency.
She’s also fairly proficient in Teochew, Foochow, Hainanese, Mandarin and English, and speaks enough Tamil to order in a banana leaf restaurant and scold the waiters in their mother tongue if, say, the fish cutlet isn’t very fresh.
Indeed, it was her ability to communicate that found her love: it was while acting as a police interpreter for interrogations of surrendered Communist Terrorists during the Emergency that she met my father-in-law, a Singapore-born Malayan Special Branch officer of Foochow ethnicity but determinedly Anglophone upbringing.
My father-in-law eventually did learn some Cantonese and, after more than 50 years of marriage, their life together is a fascinating tapestry, weaving different cultures and languages and world views into a lasting, loving, and only occasionally grumpy union.
This might serve as a perfect metaphor for multi-ethnic, multi-lingual Singapore, except for the fact that stories like my mother-in-law’s would never be allowed on the republic’s television screens.
To be historically accurate, the characters in her saga would have to speak six different Chinese dialects, and this remains forbidden by Singapore’s broadcasting authorities as a consequence of the well-intentioned Speak Mandarin Campaign.
Singapore’s national language at the time of independence was Malay, and four official languages were enshrined: English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil.
But with many ethnic Chinese speaking their dialects and not Mandarin, it was eventually decided that Mandarin needed to be promoted intensively to provide for social cohesion.
For Malaysians hooked on Cantonese TV serials, the most striking feature of Singapore’s Speak Mandarin Campaign is the ban on the use of dialect in television programming.
It’s a curious anomaly because Singapore is otherwise extremely good at reflecting the diversity of its cultural heritage.
In the course of my work I regularly deal with people in Singapore’s National Arts Council, National Heritage Board, and National Library Board, and I have found them to be dedicated to giving a nuanced, complex and inclusive picture of their nation’s past.
As a Malaysian, it saddens me to note time and time again that Singapore does a much better job of giving voice to its ethnic minorities than we do.
All the more reason, then, that it’s strange to see that the ancestral voices of Singapore’s ethnic Chinese immigrant communities are absent from the electronic mass media. You can hear Malay and Tamil voices but not Hokkien or Cantonese. It’s all Mandarin.
I have met Singaporeans who say quietly that it’s not good enough that you can hear dialect used in theatres and in cinemas and in ge tai performances: those forms have no mindshare, as the advertising people put it.
TV is where it’s at. Free-to-air television -- and radio -- are the real repositories and transmitters of mass culture, they argue: reliably omnipresent, seven days a week, only slightly less than 24 hours a day.
As both a mirror of society and a hammer with which to shape it, television is without peer. (I write for the stage and for film, so it saddens me to have to agree that the really important stuff is on TV.)
Singapore filmmakers, not bound by the same strictures as their broadcast brethren, are including a lot of dialect in their work. The cultural reality of their milieu seems to demand it.
I remember that a couple of years ago the National Museum of Singapore screened a dozen Singapore short films, and I was struck by the degree to which dialect featured. Sometimes, one film would use three different dialects. (Cantonese was used in two of the films, Teochew in two, and Hokkien in six.)
Judging by the comments of the filmmakers at one post-screening question and answer session I attended, Singapore auteurs want to reflect the linguistic diversity of society, and audiences approve.
One young audience member said how moved she was by Lau Chee Nien’s short Old Woman.
Identifying herself as Teochew, she voiced out how much it meant for her to hear her family’s dialect in a film. For a moment, I thought she might burst into tears.
I’ve never seen clearer proof of the power of language to connect a person with her heritage on a visceral level.
It will be interesting to see if Singapore will ever relax this policy; I suspect that a strong economic argument would have to be made, showing how the linguistic diversity of Chinese dialects would bring benefits to compensate for the possible loss of social cohesion among the ethnic Chinese population.
The immense box office success of Singapore films and stage shows that tap into Hokkien humour might be one such argument.
And one could also argue that the Speak Mandarin Campaign has already done its job. According to figures from the Department of Statistics website, between 1990 and 2005 the percentage of Chinese people speaking Mandarin at home jumped from 30.1% to 47.2%, while the use of Chinese dialects declined sharply from 50.3% to 23.9%. Essentially, Mandarin has won. Social change has already taken place, and there’d be little danger in relaxing the ban on dialect.
Perhaps, Singaporeans might one day be able to turn on the TV and watch stories about their grandmothers -- and mothers-in-law -- without yearning for the dialect freedom enjoyed across the Causeway.
Showing posts with label Language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Language. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Singapore-Malaysia Ties: When Words Get In The Way
First published in Singapore's Straits Times on 4 November 2005
MALAYSIANS who find Singapore largely congenial and who have settled here - I'm talking about myself, yes, but also half a dozen others whose names I'd happily reveal if subpoenaed - find the whole subject of Singapore-Malaysia relations enormously tiresome when it comes up, say, at dinner parties.
My usual response is subtle.
In the manner of Roger Moore, I have become adept at communicating turbulent, complex emotions with my eyebrows: a mixture of melancholy, cunning, boredom, and that sensation of wanting to abandon one's espresso and flee.
Sometimes, this is sufficiently eloquent to get the subject changed to something less controversial, such as the Question of Palestine, or the nature of God, but sometimes, as my wife is fond of reminding me, eyebrows just aren't enough.
Actual speech must begin at this point, and therein, I submit, lies the whole problem.
My pet theory on Cross-Straits Tensions, which I will now divulge without my usual recompense of a bourgeois dinner, is that while the actual issues are no doubt inherently complex, things are made additionally irksome because the leaders of Singapore and Malaysia use language in very different ways, and each party finds the other's style alien and offensive.
(Before I continue, possibly invoking the wrath of various important people who have proper jobs, I should admit that I'm merely a playwright, and therefore have as much credibility in an Asian society as, say, a scoop of washing powder, or a sleeping dog. I do, however, spend a lot of time making mental notes on how people speak so that I can reproduce it in a play and earn a living thereby, so I'm not wholly unqualified to talk about this.)
Simply put, the problem is that Malaysian political speech is hardly ever straightforward and often playful, while Singaporean political speech is always direct and hardly ever ironic.
Even when they're all speaking English, they're effectively speaking different languages.
In Kuala Lumpur, someone reading or hearing an utterance of any sort by a Malaysian politician automatically and subconsciously adjusts it for context to arrive at its real significance. Nothing is assumed to mean exactly what it says.
To wit: If something were said while addressing an annual party conference, it would sound more ethnically chauvinist than the speaker might really be; if it were said in response to a question by a foreign journalist, it would sound more belligerent than the speaker actually feels; if it were said to a local journalist, it would sound more confident than circumstances might warrant.
If something is flatly denied, it's probably at least partially true, and everyone understands both that it's true and that it's necessary to deny it.
If an accusation isn't addressed at all, it's probably false, but is occasionally true. If an accusation is met with the threat of legal action, it's probably true, but is occasionally false.
A comment about religion is almost always understood to be about secular power struggles.
A seemingly irresponsible and outrageous remark is generally accepted as the product of a sardonic sense of humour that doesn't come across in print.
Delivery and tone of voice are so important: a gentle lilt leading up to the sting; a slow, damning drawl; a razor-sharp quip.
On certain occasions, of course, an irresponsible and outrageous remark can indicate a lack of preparedness, or, if it was said between 4 and 5pm, a low blood-sugar level on the part of the speaker. These things are understood.
Language in Malaysian political culture is a joyful, vibrant, colourful thing. The most inflammatory assertions and the most flamboyant metaphors are reserved for opponents and issues of consequence; if something is dealt with simply and directly, it can't be of any importance.
In short, a Malaysian listening to a Malaysian political figure - whether from the government or the opposition - knows instinctively to compensate for the hyperbole, to pay attention to understatement, to grasp the indirect reference, to discount the obviously rhetorical, and to revel in the ironies.
Malaysians simply do not take each other literally, and do not expect to be taken literally. Indeed, taking things too literally is a social gaffe: If inadvertent, it reveals a lack of sophistication; if deliberate, a lack of manners.
In Singapore, however, ambiguity and rhetorical flights of fancy have no place. The culture of official communication values precision, directness and economical delivery. So ministerial statements are always measured, unflashy, thought through; can you think of one that hasn't been?
Bombast is absent, as are whimsy and repartee. Everyone's been briefed; off-the-cuff remarks emerge in complete paragraphs.
Even the jokes of Singapore ministers are always carefully signalled as such in press reports, lest there be misunderstanding. Clarity is key; oratorical flourishes are suspect.
Singaporeans expect to be taken at face value, and in return, they take others at face value; they cannot conceive of having to not take someone at face value in order to communicate effectively.
Looking back at the past decade or so, it seems to me that when the important people of the two countries have talked about important things, a tragic disconnect has sometimes occurred.
In the most extreme, unfortunate cases, substantive disagreements have been needlessly worsened because Singaporeans have taken Malaysian statements as evidence of aggression, irrationality, and mendacity, while Malaysians have unfairly interpreted Singaporean speech as inflexibility, belligerence, and gracelessness.
All that's past, we're told. Relations, they say, have hit a new high, and everyone's talking again. But unless we learn to celebrate our different ways of speaking, by listening carefully and trying to interpret things the way another person from the speaker's country would, talking might turn out to be less of a solution than a problem.
And for those of us who have a deep affection for both nations, we would have to remain in strained silence, refusing to comment, distress written all over our eyebrows, plain for all to see.
Copyright © Huzir Sulaiman 2008. All rights reserved.
MALAYSIANS who find Singapore largely congenial and who have settled here - I'm talking about myself, yes, but also half a dozen others whose names I'd happily reveal if subpoenaed - find the whole subject of Singapore-Malaysia relations enormously tiresome when it comes up, say, at dinner parties.
My usual response is subtle.
In the manner of Roger Moore, I have become adept at communicating turbulent, complex emotions with my eyebrows: a mixture of melancholy, cunning, boredom, and that sensation of wanting to abandon one's espresso and flee.
Sometimes, this is sufficiently eloquent to get the subject changed to something less controversial, such as the Question of Palestine, or the nature of God, but sometimes, as my wife is fond of reminding me, eyebrows just aren't enough.
Actual speech must begin at this point, and therein, I submit, lies the whole problem.
My pet theory on Cross-Straits Tensions, which I will now divulge without my usual recompense of a bourgeois dinner, is that while the actual issues are no doubt inherently complex, things are made additionally irksome because the leaders of Singapore and Malaysia use language in very different ways, and each party finds the other's style alien and offensive.
(Before I continue, possibly invoking the wrath of various important people who have proper jobs, I should admit that I'm merely a playwright, and therefore have as much credibility in an Asian society as, say, a scoop of washing powder, or a sleeping dog. I do, however, spend a lot of time making mental notes on how people speak so that I can reproduce it in a play and earn a living thereby, so I'm not wholly unqualified to talk about this.)
Simply put, the problem is that Malaysian political speech is hardly ever straightforward and often playful, while Singaporean political speech is always direct and hardly ever ironic.
Even when they're all speaking English, they're effectively speaking different languages.
In Kuala Lumpur, someone reading or hearing an utterance of any sort by a Malaysian politician automatically and subconsciously adjusts it for context to arrive at its real significance. Nothing is assumed to mean exactly what it says.
To wit: If something were said while addressing an annual party conference, it would sound more ethnically chauvinist than the speaker might really be; if it were said in response to a question by a foreign journalist, it would sound more belligerent than the speaker actually feels; if it were said to a local journalist, it would sound more confident than circumstances might warrant.
If something is flatly denied, it's probably at least partially true, and everyone understands both that it's true and that it's necessary to deny it.
If an accusation isn't addressed at all, it's probably false, but is occasionally true. If an accusation is met with the threat of legal action, it's probably true, but is occasionally false.
A comment about religion is almost always understood to be about secular power struggles.
A seemingly irresponsible and outrageous remark is generally accepted as the product of a sardonic sense of humour that doesn't come across in print.
Delivery and tone of voice are so important: a gentle lilt leading up to the sting; a slow, damning drawl; a razor-sharp quip.
On certain occasions, of course, an irresponsible and outrageous remark can indicate a lack of preparedness, or, if it was said between 4 and 5pm, a low blood-sugar level on the part of the speaker. These things are understood.
Language in Malaysian political culture is a joyful, vibrant, colourful thing. The most inflammatory assertions and the most flamboyant metaphors are reserved for opponents and issues of consequence; if something is dealt with simply and directly, it can't be of any importance.
In short, a Malaysian listening to a Malaysian political figure - whether from the government or the opposition - knows instinctively to compensate for the hyperbole, to pay attention to understatement, to grasp the indirect reference, to discount the obviously rhetorical, and to revel in the ironies.
Malaysians simply do not take each other literally, and do not expect to be taken literally. Indeed, taking things too literally is a social gaffe: If inadvertent, it reveals a lack of sophistication; if deliberate, a lack of manners.
In Singapore, however, ambiguity and rhetorical flights of fancy have no place. The culture of official communication values precision, directness and economical delivery. So ministerial statements are always measured, unflashy, thought through; can you think of one that hasn't been?
Bombast is absent, as are whimsy and repartee. Everyone's been briefed; off-the-cuff remarks emerge in complete paragraphs.
Even the jokes of Singapore ministers are always carefully signalled as such in press reports, lest there be misunderstanding. Clarity is key; oratorical flourishes are suspect.
Singaporeans expect to be taken at face value, and in return, they take others at face value; they cannot conceive of having to not take someone at face value in order to communicate effectively.
Looking back at the past decade or so, it seems to me that when the important people of the two countries have talked about important things, a tragic disconnect has sometimes occurred.
In the most extreme, unfortunate cases, substantive disagreements have been needlessly worsened because Singaporeans have taken Malaysian statements as evidence of aggression, irrationality, and mendacity, while Malaysians have unfairly interpreted Singaporean speech as inflexibility, belligerence, and gracelessness.
All that's past, we're told. Relations, they say, have hit a new high, and everyone's talking again. But unless we learn to celebrate our different ways of speaking, by listening carefully and trying to interpret things the way another person from the speaker's country would, talking might turn out to be less of a solution than a problem.
And for those of us who have a deep affection for both nations, we would have to remain in strained silence, refusing to comment, distress written all over our eyebrows, plain for all to see.
Copyright © Huzir Sulaiman 2008. All rights reserved.
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