Let's not start thinking that one party has the one-up on the
other and get all snobbish and arrogant about it, alright?
Sometimes, we are an inevitable product of our society. For
instance, my parents were schooled in English, with Malay as the
2nd language, because back then, we were a part of Peninsular
Malaya. Their parents could speak their own dialects, having come
from China, but they don't know much pu tong hua.
So, my parents end up being able to speak Mandarin, but of course,
their English and Malay ended up being much better.
Not by choice, but by nurturing through the education system here
at that time.
I struggled with Mandarin, growing up. I had she-devils for
Mandarin teachers and they instilled so much fear in me, I was
largely paralysed and crying each time I had to do Chinese homework
- I didn't know what to do, couldn't catch up with the lessons,
parents couldn't help, and worse, at that time, there wasn't such a
thing as 'tuition' or at least, it wasn't a popular concept
then.
I had a morbid fear of Mandarin, up till Sec 3, when I finally had
a sweet Chinese teacher, who actually made me pretty fascinated
with the language, which made me watch more Mandarin TV shows,
which in turn inspired me to read Qiong Yao (with a dictionary
close by, of course!
).
So, my English is way better than my Mandarin, not by choice, but
by nurturing.
Does that make me any superior than you, my Mandarin-speaking
counterpart? Nope.
Does that make you any superior than me, a jiak gan-dang person?
Nope.
It just means that we're both Chinese, but brought up under
different circumstances, and with different backgrounds and
exposure.
Live and let live! 