hmmm i thought you started your paragraph with chicken and end
the paragraph with eggs... : )
Thought this question of language and culture heritage
is a round about circular events i don't think there is a
answer to intergration...if you can't communicate with one
another you can't intergrate but if you get the entire population
to learn 1 language than you loose heritage.....remember SG govt
was trying to get SG to learn Mandarin and English in the
70s.....thereafter in the 90s thru feedback they realized
that we look chinese but with Western thinking.
Dont' think Singapore ever promote speaking 1 language! there
are 4 official languages here. and if there is any prejudice, or
preference over any particular language, it is English.
but don't blame the school or the government for many in
Singapore who lost their heritage and culture. HK chinese came
under the brits for 150 years but they are still very much
Chinese.
On the other hand, in this era of globalization, people
are influenced by other culture through the net and tv, without
knowing the language. disneyland came right into france, but they
are not many micky mouse in france, but many singaporean grow up
donald duck. many accept imported culture when they hardly speak
the language.
Many Singaporean lost their culture to not because of they had
to speak mandarin, they became banana because they are not strong
in their own culture and they dont value their heritage.
Obviously the government fails in getting singaporean to
speak their mother tongue, especially the chinese. we
don't have malay family who speak only english
and nothing else.
it is about time Chinese singaporean realize that it is
not the choice between english and mandarin or any dialects. We can
have english, mandarin, malay and chinese dialects... In europe,
people speak french, german, spanish, italy....and they are united
as one EU., not at the expense of their culture.
nobody need to lose their culture, if you are only capable
of speaking one language, what do you choose?
