Say what?

Yesterday was my 2nd out of 10 mandarin lessons. Will be completing the basic course by end December. Michelle liao-shi is from Beijing. Proud of her nationality and language, she delivers her lesson with so much passion. She always has a big smile and eyes wide open whenever she introduces a new word, showing us how the word should be pronounced. Her facial expression makes me laugh. She wants us to speak like a Zhongguo ren (Beijing slang) and not Xinjiapo ren. There are only 3 non-chinese locals in class while the rest are of other nationalities. Is she trying to tell the class that Singaporeans are not speaking right? Why are we there for?

A 40yrs old indian lady, and she's local said that 90% of job ads require mandarin speaking. She is afraid that one day she will be out of job and may need to find another. But the sad thing is that most job market requires mandarin speaking. Being a minority in S'pore, I feel the same way.

The minority here may still suffer unemployment because of language medium. Thank god the job ads reads mostly as " Mandarin/Chinese speaking" and not "Chinese only" but there are, not many though, and btw, it would not be nice to publish it that way as it may sound like racism but then again it still is, but if you think that the choice of employing chinese over malays just because of their laziness good-for-nothing and the Indians stink, I think they are no more like that as time has changed.... and that's another story. Since most of the local co's here run by the Chinese, and might be dealing mostly with their chinese counterparts, they obviously needed someone who speaks mandarin. That I have to agree. But what I don't understand is why some companies require mandarin for admin or any simple office work which the only communication is probably with machines. I know that some Singaporean chinese can't speak mandarin but some mandarin knowledge which was learnt in school still help them secure a job. And who are the "others" that benefit employment in S'pore: none other than the Chinese Indonesian and Chinese Malaysian.. so what is left for the non-mandarin speaking nationalities, particularly the Singaporean Indians and Malay? Aren't we part of S'pore citizen, as one united people, regardless of race, language...... blah,blah,blah... The unemployment rate will rise if the job ads do not do away with the "mandarin speaking only". It will definitely have a great social impact on the malays and Indian society.

If Mandarin is going to be so important in our livelihood here in S'pore, why not make Mandarin as a compulsory second language for all in school. Let our Malay, Tamil and Chinese dialects / languages be part of our language culture or what ever you want to call it. Now I have to spent money to learn it.

Having married to a Chinese for 8 years, I have not mastered the language. It's quite embarrassing. I can speak but not very good. I'm learning it basically to be able to communicate with my in-laws better and secondly, help me in my future career.

One thing for sure, for me, it's not that easy and simple learning the language. Don't know how others can do it. There are so many similar sounds with different meanings to it and remembering it, is the toughest.