… why not Chinese Singaporeans?

It’s one of those questions that riles me time and again.

A Singaporean Peranakan friend told me the other day that she didn’t understand why our Government pays so much attention to the very small minority who kicks up a huge fuss disproportionate to their number — about themselves or their children not being able to do well in Chinese language.

For herself, my friend went for a Chinese language course after retiring, even though in her youth, passing Chinese wasn’t a requisite.

Like her, I too can’t understand the fuss that some Singaporeans make, especially those parents who choose to emigrate rather than have their children struggle with Chinese.

Their disdain for the importance that the Singapore Government places on learning Chinese makes it seem as if they have been asked to do well in ancient Greek rather than modern Putonghua.

Which brings me to an encounter I had a few days ago while eating at the Ajisen outlet at the newly opened City Square.

The waitress was from Jiangsu Province, China, which isn’t unusual, given how many Chinese nationals are working in Singapore.

But the surprise came when I went to pay my bill. The supervisor was teaching the Chinese waitress who served me how to operate the till, using good accented Putonghua to explain the process and its intricacies.

Still no surprise because he could have come from China. But he didn’t!

“Not China, I’m from Singapore,” he replied to my question, looking bemused, because wasn’t it dumb to ask an Indian whether he was from China, just because he spoke Chinese?

This makes me think: if an Indian Singaporean can speak Putonghua with such native ease, why on earth are some Chinese Singaporeans in our midst so against learning their mother tongue?