generally, isnt it a shame that a chinese cant speak
chinese or arent interested in conversing in chinese? the
same goes for a malay or indian who cant speak their own language
(never met one until today. but plenty in the case of
chinese)
i know a lot of people defended this situation by saying all
singaporeans study and speak english because of
survival.
but the unfortunate thing is a lot of local chinese arent
interested in learning chinese or are not interested in conversing
in chinese.
why? because the english language is more 'high
class'? i cant help but believe that many chinese actually
think or feel that way.
its the fault of our educational system that local chinese
can hardly speak the chinese language and
dialects.
i think it is only 'normal' for a mainland chinese to want to
converse in chinese with a fellow chinese, regardless of
nationality.
To me, it's not so much whether the chinese singaporean can
speak mandarin or not. It's these chinese nationals who
refuse to converse in English and deprive our non chinese ethnic
citizens of good service.
I recall seeing this in ST forum last year whereby a non chinese
(probably a Indian or Eurasian) walking into a shop to buy a pair
of sports shoes. A chinese staff attended to her and spoke in
mandarin even though the customer was clearly a non chinese (by
skin colour I think). So the customer asked the service staff
in very broken mandarin whether the latter could speak
English. The service staff replied "Bu ke yi". The
customer had no choice but to give up buying the pair of
shoes.
See? This is the issue. Not so much whether we
worship ang mo language or not. I was educated in chinese
schools and took CL1 which is now known as Higher Chinese. I
respect Chinese language and culture. But in this thread, the
issue is about chinese nationals working in Singapore, refusing to
take up our commercial language and yet still insists on working in
the service industry. Their language inability is
compromising our service standard.
I sympathise with them having to leave their home and family to
earn a living in a foreign place. I have no problem with prc
having a decent job here. But if the chinese person is not
able to converse in a commercial language or in more than 1
language (we are a multi racial country), then the person should
just take up a job as a factory operator job, toilet cleaner,
construction worker or any job that does not require them to speak
with customer.
They want to make our money. We give them jobs here.
They should know how to be fair to us and our fellow non chinese
citizens.
