TR EMERITUS

PM Refuses to Yield on the Speak Mandarin – Forgo Dialects policy Two days after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong launched the 35th anniversary celebration of the Speak Mandarin Campaign in early July, Lianhe Zaobao published a commentary that rained on his parade. Zaobao, which is staunchly pro-Govt, had uncharacteristically criticised the Speak Mandarin campaign saying the campaign and the bilingual policy had exacted a very high price from the people as it had "turned the use of Mandarin and dialects into "a zero-sum game" with dialects being the victim. The Government's policy had also created a divide between the dialect-speaking pioneer generation and their mainly English-speaking grandchildren, leading to a loss of traditional Chinese values and sense of identity and the hastening the Westernisation of society, said the Zaobao editorial which also pointed out the falling standards of the Chinese language here. The Prime Minister's Office sent a strong letter rebutting Zaobao's editorial without conceding that its policy had hurt dialects and communication with the elderly and standards of Chinese language. PMO even audaciously claimed that without that draconian policy there would be a generation of Singaporeans who cannot understand, speak or write the language.  And it stubbornly, defiantly even, insisted that its policy remains relevant today as most people cannot master English, Mandarin and dialects at the same time!  These claims, in my opinion, as an older generation Chinese, is untrue, without basis and a gross exaggeration by the PMO to defend its Speak Mandarin - Forgo Dialects campaign at all costs. The PMO's die-die-must-defend attitude smacks of deliberate ignorance and a refusal to acknowledge reality and the citizens' needs. Firstly, the Mother Tongue for the Chinese refers historically to our dialects and not to Mandarin. Removing dialects from the Chinese is akin to removing our cultural roots and heritage. We also have scientific studies that prove that children have an innate ability to learn multi-languages when young and we have research that has shown that knowing dialects can aid in the learning of Mandarin. More importantly we have living proof. Our older generation from age 40s onwards know that the PMO's argument against dialects is fallacious and hollow as many of the older educated Chinese here grew up able to speak English, Mandarin and dialects and even some Malay unlike majority of the younger Singaporean Chinese who only know English and Mandarin. Adding to the irony, it appears that the well-educated older generation tend to speak and write better English and Chinese compared to many of the younger generation in their 20s and 30s who have problems grasping the basics of grammar, syntax, tenses and accurate pronunciation and enunciation. In its rebuttal letter, the PMO also trotted out a frayed argument when it said its "pragmatic policy" (speak mandarin - forgo dialects) has worked well compared to Hongkong's experience with three languages (English, Mandarin and Cantonese). Was it even right for the PMO to compare our country with Hongkong which is predominately Chinese and who have been speaking Cantonese as the lingua franca for centuries. It is a language which the HK people are proud of and it is what gives them a strong sense of identity. Moreover, many HK people are able to speak Mandarin and English pretty well these days. The PMO should have compared Singapore with Malaysia instead. Malaysia, like Singapore is multi-racial and multi-cultural. For the record, Malaysian Chinese are able to speak English, Mandarin, dialects and Malay without the insurmountable difficulties touted by our government. Like Malaysians, older Singaporean Chinese had comfortably used a combination of languages to communicate with our friends and family way before the bilingual policy was introduced in 1979. When growing up, as with other older gen Singaporeans, I spoke English/Mandarin/various dialects/Malay/Singlish with my friends, English and dialect with my father, Mandarin and dialect with my mum and dialects with my older relatives. Today, many of our young Singaporeans are unable to speak any dialect except perhaps for some common jargon like Shiok and cuss words like KNN. Thankfully, we still have Singlish which incorporates the use of some dialect words or else dialects may really become obsolete in Singapore's not-too-distant future. It is tragic that dialects were politicised and neutralised when the PAP came into power. It is regrettable that till today, PM Lee is stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the flaws in the Speak Mandarin - Forgo Dialects policy and the very real need to make more space for dialects to flourish.  One wonders why? Are they afraid a review will amount to an admission of error on the Government's part or that it might undermine their power base somehow? What exactly are they afraid of? We live in a different era now and have reached a point where English is the lingua franca in our country and Mandarin is also spoken by most if not all local Chinese. Allowing dialects to be aired on local media and encouraging the young to learn some dialects isn't going to threaten our society nor the learning of Mandarin. Learning to speak dialects doesn't mean we will stop speaking Mandarin just as reading a book about two male penguins hatching an egg isn't going to turn us gay. Ironically, we hear a great deal of dialects being used by the PAP candidates and their entourage when they campaign for votes during the General Elections and when they go on house to house visits to sell their party. The PAP-Government knows full well the power of dialects in communication, especially with the older generation, so why do they continue to deprive younger Singaporeans of this ability? It frustrates many of us that our dogmatic government appears frozen in an outdated paradigm and is unable to evolve to meet changing societal needs. If only it has the heart and honesty to soul-search and to review its policies for the betterment of the people. A leader who is unable to humble himself to learn from past mistakes to make changes will only hold back and even stymie the growth of the nation and the citizens. We do not want that to happen to our country. Jentrified Citizen * The author blogs at http://jentrifiedcitizen.wordpress.com      Read More →

To whom it may concern, This is with regards to my return flight from Bangkok to Singapore (3K514) last night, 20/7/14. Flying with Jetstar never fails to disgust me when it comes to how the staff treat their customers. Last night was one of the worst flight experiences I have had. Torn and damaged luggage bag(with deep scratch marks, and torn cover), damaged goods and faulty electrical items and utterly disgusting customer service standards. From the moment we reached the check-in counter, the staff was rude and ignored our questions about our luggage weight and etc. She then quickly brushed us off, and when we returned the next minute to inquire how come the gate was not provided on our boarding pass, she even had the cheek to shout to us, "Can't you see I'm serving another passenger?!" During boarding and just before entering the plane, our hand-carry luggage was "confiscated" from us without any prior notice and the stewardess insisted that the luggage be handed over to her and the only question she asked was if we had any valuables in the baggage. We even tried to explain that we did not know of any regulations about how many baggage a person can carry. The only regulation we know was that the baggage could not exceed 10kg in weight. Since that is the case, then HOW COME THE STAFF AT THE COUNTER PUT ON BAGGAGE TAG ON ALL 3 of our hand-carried luggage that had "Carry-on baggage" ON IT?! If she knew that the limitation was 1 bag per person, how come she still allowed this to happen? My expectant fiancée had experienced an asthma attack during the flight and TO OUR HORROR, her inhaler was in the bag that was taken from us during boarding!! I went down the isle and tried to get the attention of the stewardess, but she told me to give her a moment as she was serving one of the passengers his drink! Upon arriving home, we noticed that our checked-in luggage had deep cuts/scratches on the METAL handles and the cover. It was as if our luggage had been through a war and survived but handicapped! We opened our luggage and we discovered that some of our purchased items in Bangkok had been SEVERELY damaged due to bad handling of our luggage. Damaged items include: 1)  LED Torchlight HuoYi-E6 - 1200baht (Completely broken, cannot be turned on.) 2)  Divoom Bluetooth speaker - $79.90 (Internal parts severely damaged and loosened) 3)  Laser Pointer - 800baht (Cannot turn on and internal parts severely damaged and loosened) 4)  Luggage bag (Deep cuts and scratch marks clearly visible, handle broken) 5)  Hair clips for children (Broken) 6)  Aluminium water bottle. (VERY deep dent) Attached images are the damage incurred during a SINGLE FLIGHT. What disgusts me the most is most of these items are bought as GIFTS and BIRTHDAY PRESENT, and its strange how NONE of such cases happens in other flights, ONLY JETSTAR? I have tried calling the airport, and they have provided us with Jetstar's contact number 65974500, yet it is for SATS instead! The contact number provided on Jetstar Singapore is 6499 9702. I gave it a call, and it only provided me an email for baggage claims ([email protected]). Next, I called in to baggage claims (800 852 3632), a PINOY picked up the call. Notorious for lousy customer service, silly and misleading pronunciations and speaking their heart out without listening to what we have to say at all. Her name is Minerva, (staff id XBMI02). She was unwilling to provide any case/call ID. She claimed that there is no such email and we MUST use the inquiry ticket via the main Jetstar website. She also insisted that there is no complaint email and the only way is to use the inquiry ticket. She ALSO included that another way to make a complaint is by SNAIL-MAIL?! Completely absurd! Personally, I am from the service industry myself, but I am completely disgusted at the level of service rendered by Jetstar. Hidden costs, lack of responsiblity, no sense of urgency and rock bottom service standards. Also in an additional note, Jetstar has so much hidden costs and yet still claims that it is the lowest in air-fare? My fiancée had booked our flight from eDreams and they had overcharged us as the Credit Card deduction and the Total Amount Payable did not tally. An email inquiry was set up, yet till now, EVEN WHEN OUR BANGKOK TRIP IS OVER, there is still no news with regards to refund. Regards,   Ian *  Submitted by TRE reader.    Read More →

(5 July 2014)    She allegedly cheated youth from different parts of Tamil Nadu to the tune of several lakh rupees. The Police have arrested a woman who had her office in Amutham Nagar, Edayarpalayam, on Friday for allegedly cheating youth from different parts of Tamil Nadu to the tune of several lakh rupees — by assuring to get them well paid jobs in Singapore. The Police are on the lookout for her accomplices. The arrest was made based on petitions submitted by the youth to the Superintendent of Police (SP), Coimbatore Rural, M. Sudhakar, earlier in the day. In their petition, the youth claimed that a few months ago they saw advertisements with the contact details of M. Vijayalakshmi (39) — the accused who was arrested — to get them jobs in Singapore.   Read more:     http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Coimbatore/woman-held-search-on-for-accomplices-in-singapore-job-scam/article6180256.ece?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=RSS_Syndication    Read More →