With no blush of shame, many will reveal – even revel about — how bad they were, and still arem in Chinese. Indeed, having done badly in Chinese but still making it in their careers is something of a badge of honour that this coterie of Chinese Singaporeans wear with pride.

In recent days, due to comments by Mr Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founding Prime Minister*, about his bi-lingual policy, a new torrent of boasts about their Chinese language inadequacies from Chinese Singaporeans is again drenching the media.   

Thankfully, such confessions are no longer the only noise on the topic. Other Chinese Singaporeans who went thru the same bi-lingual wringer, unscathed and all the better for it, have come forth to have their alternate say.

Once again, Singapore ministers like Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and Education Minister Ng Eng Hen addressed the difficulties many Singapore students have in mastering Mandarin.

As China’s economic power continues to grow, more foreigners are learning Mandarin to do business with China. A growing number of Americans, Europeans and Africans master Mandarin after spending just 1 or 2 years in China, sometimes helped by Chinese girlfriends.

In contrast, many Singapore students spent many more years studying Mandarin, yet struggle with a mediocre command of the language. We have to ask, why has the return on Singapore schools’ investment in Mandarin been much poorer than Americans, Europeans and Africans who master the language in a much shorter time?

As more non-Chinese foreigners master Mandarin, Singapore will lose its competitive edge in Mandarin. As more mainland Chinese learn English, Singapore will also lose its competitive advantage in English.

I suggest encouraging an interest among adult Singaporeans in China, whether for business or cultural reasons, whatever the ethnicity of Singaporeans. These adult Singaporeans, whether Chinese, Malay, Indian or other races, should be encouraged to learn Mandarin through means such as immersing themselves in China for a few months or a few years, which is what many foreigners are doing now.

I believe this method will work, as I am an example of a Singaporean who struggled with Mandarin in my Singapore schooldays, but now have a fluent command of the language, because I spent two years in Shanghai and Beijing, and I regularly read Chinese newspapers and watch Chinese TV.

Singapore can create a “Chinese elite” of Singaporeans fluent in Mandarin, that can include Indians, Malays and Eurasians. This will be no different from America, where most Americans are ignorant of Chinese, but a tiny minority of “Chinese elite” are brilliant professors of Chinese at Ivy League universities.  

 I realise this might possibly kill a sacred cow, i.e. ensuring Singaporean Chinese learn their mother tongue. But this need not be so.

 Singapore Chinese students can still learn their mother tongue in school, but as an added extra, adult Singaporeans of any race should be encouraged to learn Mandarin and spend time in China. The two are not mutually exclusive.

*Speaking first in Mandarin and then in English at the official opening of the Singapore Centre for Chinese Language on Nov 17, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew (above)  gave a blunt assessment of Singapore’s bilingual policy.

He said: “We started the wrong way. We insisted on ting xie (listening), mo xie (dictation) – madness! We had teachers who were teaching in completely-Chinese schools. And they did not want to use any English to teach English-speaking children Chinese and that turned them off completely.”