Can Singaporeans Speak Chinese?

[beijingwalker]

Can Singaporeans Speak Chinese?

 

[beijingwalker]

Testing young Singaporeans Chinese language ability in the country's best university, breaking the myth that young Singaporeans only speak crappy Chinese.

 

[t1000]

Well duh!!
More than 70% of singapore's population is ethnic han/descendants of han migrants.
So yeah they will know "chinese"; that's why mandarin is one of the four official languages of singapore, others being English, Tamizh and Malay languages.

 

[beijingwalker]

Well duh!!
More than 70% of singapore's population is ethnic han/descendants of han migrants.
So yeah they will know "chinese"; that's why mandarin is one of the four official languages of singapore, others being English, Tamizh and Malay languages.

What you don't know is that almost all of them were from very southern Chinese provinces like Guangdong and Fujian, whose native languages are unintelligible to people outside their home provinces in China.

 

[Mista]

 

[Type59]

I spoke to chinese Malaysian she could not speak chinese.

 

[Song Hong]

The upper class of Singapore do not speak Chinese at mother tongue. They acquired the language later in schools but hate and despise it.

They fervently denied they are Chinese.

The lower class can speak Chinese as well as one more Sinitic lect. But Singapore is fast moving into a English speaking at mother tongue, at the moment.

It should be reverse in next 10 years when China gain supremacy over the west.

 

[beijingwalker]

They fervently denied they are Chinese.

You mean statehood or ethnicity? of cause they are not Chinese by statehood, they are Singaporeans.

 

[Song Hong]

You mean statehood or ethnicity? of cause they are not Chinese by statehood, they are Singaporeans.

I mean ethnicity.

The upper class has lots of Malay blood, the so call peranakan, including Lee Kuan Yew. They were brainwash by British. From young they sent their kids to British run elite schools.

They despise Chinese culture not unlike Honky you see today.

This is still going on now.

Lee Kuan Yew has a bad command of Chinese. He can speak it but it cost him lots of energy.

He is not at ease with Chinese idioms.

Classical Chinese is never accessible to him.

 

[8888888888888]

Could explain why their government isn't as good as the old days when many old leaders speak Chinese.

 

[beijingwalker]

I mean ethnicity.

The upper class has lots of Malay blood, the so call peranakan, including Lee Kuan Yew. They were brainwash by British. From young they sent their kids to British run elite schools.

They despise Chinese culture not unlike Honky you see today.

This is still going on now.

Lee Kuan Yew has a bad command of Chinese. He can speak it but it cost him lots of energy.

He is not at ease with Chinese idioms or canon.

Classical Chinese is never accessible to him.

Singaporeans fervently deny their Chinese ethnic origin? I never met one like you claimed, my roommate in college is an Singaporean and he has no problem telling me his family were originally from Fujiang and even tried to teach me to count numbers in Fujian dialect.

 

[Song Hong]

Could explain why their government isn't as good as the old days when many old leaders speak Chinese.

All old PAP, all first generation leaders were English speaking Peranakan.

British will only hand over power to these folks.

 

[Song Hong]

Singaporeans fervently deny their Chinese ethnic origin? I never met one like you claimed, my roommate in college is an Singaporean and he has no problem telling me his family were originally from Fujiang and even tried to teach me to count numbers in Fujian dialect.

He is not upper class for sure.

Next, as China is gaining ascendancy, the Peranakan start to fall in line. They no longer publicly denied their Chinese identity.

Also modern Peranakan has mate so much with Chinese that they loss most of their bastardness now.

Right now they even open a Peranakan museum for nostalgy. Shows that they are having a requiem on their culture.

*******************

Below is an article appeared in Straits Times 3 March 1971, Kuan Yew's mother, Mrs Lee Chin Koon, nee Chua Jim Neo announced to the whole world that Straits-born Chinese (Peranakan) as a "race apart from Chinese". They have their own special kind of food, their own customs, and they spoke Malay or English -- and not Chinese.

 

[beijingwalker]

He is not upper class for one.

Next, as China is gaining ascendancy, the Peranakan start to fall in line. They no longer publicly denied their Chinese identity.

Also modern Peranakan has mate so much with Chinese that they loss most of their bastardness now.

Right now they even open a Peranakan museum for nostalgy. Shows that they are having a requiem on their culture.

*******************

Below is an article appeared in Straits Times 3 March 1971, Kuan Yew's mother, Mrs Lee Chin Koon, nee Chua Jim Neo announced to the whole world that Straits-born Chinese (Peranakan) as a "race apart from Chinese". They have their own special kind of food, their own customs, and they spoke Malay or English -- and not Chinese.

We have many Singaporean PDFers here, we better listen to what they have to say.

Lee Kuan Yew never denied his Chinese origin. Was he part of your so called "upper class"? In modern Chinese culture we don't have that social classes ideas, you sound like you are talking about India.

 

[Song Hong]

We have many Singaporean PDFers here, we better listen to what they have to say.

Lee Kuan Yew never denied his Chinese origin. Was he part of your so called "upper class"?

He is definitely from privilege background. His mother Chua Jim Neo was daughter of Tycoon Chua Kim Teng, who owns lots of land.

The family spoke little or no Chinese at home.

The family spoke Malay or English.

But if you walk into any Chinese on streets that time, Hokkien and Cantonese is the lingua franca.

Peranakan used to campaign hard to kill compulsory Chinese language education, but Lee Kuan Yew did not support it.

*********

You mentioned you have not met Singaporean Chinese who denied Chinese identity.

As I have said, even Peranakan and upper class nowadays identified with Chinese. But this is a recent phenomenal.

You need to travel back on time and listen to Peranakan said then.