according to this lady on straits time forum
'Hua Yu cool'? No, boorish Mandarin-speaking youths spoil the
image
I can attest that Mr Peter Donkin's observations of young
Singaporeans are true. I have many negative opinions of young
Singaporeans too, despite being a youth myself.
My observations of inconsiderate behaviour among young Singaporeans
almost always involve the Mandarin-speakers. While not implying
that all Mandarin-speaking youths are rotten (nor are all
English-speaking youth angels), an overwhelmingly large group of
offenders are observed to be from this group.
This seems to stem from the Chinese school of thought which
advocates 'If I don't take, I lose out' and 'If others can do it,
so can I, otherwise I lose out', among other factors.
Before anyone takes offence at my discrimination, go on a MRT ride
across the island first, and my theory will come to life.
On a train ride from Jurong East to City Hall last month, I saw
three groups of Mandarin-speaking youths huddled with their
handphones playing Chinese songs at full blast.
The three groups were in the same cabin. It was terrible. One
couple left the cabin for another because they couldn't take the
racket.
Many people glared at the youths. A girl from one of the groups
declared in Mandarin and English 'Wa, wo men hen attract attention
leh!', which translates to 'Wow, we are attracting a lot of
attention!'.
Was she thinking that people saw her group as 'cool' just because
her handphone played MP3 music and they were the latest Mandopop
hits? I was outraged at the inconsiderate behavior.
The Mandarin-speaking Singaporean youths also seem to ignore rules
that make the world an orderly place. For example, they ignore
repeated reminders to keep to the left on escalators. They also
ignore the markings that serve to allow passengers on trains to
alight first.
A Malaysian classmate who recently visited Thailand spoke of how
gracious the people there were, and their good etiquette on the
train.
Step into a shop and you will notice that the Mandarin-speakers are
rude to service staff and they never say 'please' or 'thank
you'.
Based on their interactions with my peers, they take offence
easily,
yet they have no qualms about being sarcastic and rude to foreign
teachers.
Many young litterbugs are also Mandarin-speaking youths. When I
visited Melbourne some months back, I was greatly impressed at the
clean streets. I saw everyone putting their litter into bins, and
there were no cleaners around.
While many Mandarin-speaking youths are nice on a personal level,
their mentality can manifest the antisocial behaviour that I have
mentioned.
My friends and I belong to the minority English-speaking
group and we are ashamed to speak in Mandarin in public. No, we are
not elites, just normal teenagers.
Unless the association of bad behaviour with Mandarin-speaking
youths can be negated, 'Hua Yu Cool' isn't going to work on us
anytime soon.
Ang Lixing
da bi-tch is a fu-cking potato who thinks mandarin is a language
spoken by low class people!!!
