I heard a lot of PRC bashing in this forum nowaday and it reminds me of the plight of my parent and grand parent when they first came to Singapore.
My parent remembered very clearly about the discrimination that they used to face from the babas when they were young as this babas tend to look down on the sinkeh (new guest) then.
During that time, there were a few babas neighbour around us and they purposely used english/singlish when they spoke to my parent and grand parent knowing well that they can't communicate in english. (See the similarity with all this complain about PRC not being able to speak english)
My brothers and I saw the humiliation that they suffered at the hand of this babas and we swear that one day they will realised that it is they who are the stupid one. This babas raised up their children using only english and Malay and they scoffed at the idea of learning mandarin, this was during the late 70s.
My brothers and I however were more comfortable with Mandarin and we had a hard time when the pappy converted everyone to english-educated. However we accepted the challenge then. Today, I have one brother who is a doctor another one is doing research in university and I am roaming around the world doing international project work in a big MNC. All of us are bilingual and are able to communicate with both the angmoh and Chinese comfortably. As for the sons and daughters of our babas neighbour, most of them are working as clerk in the civil service and are only A-level holders at most, so much for their powderful "english". Nowaday, this failed people even try to speak to us in broken mandarin but we always respond to them in english since this is the language that they so look up to, while we communicate in front of them using Chinese among ourself. In our mind we never considered them as Chinese as they have turn their back on the Chinese identity last time when China has little international influence.
The recent PRC-bashing again reminds me of the babas of the past and the similarity of the plight of the PRC and our family last time.
I suspect a lot of this people who are engaging in PRC-bashing are those failed sons and daughters of the babas and the ah neh.
Let's face it, singapore was never a closed society, the last time that the government try to do so 25 years ago almost cost us our existence. They know they cannot revert back to the old path. For us, our identity can only be the "Chinese" one, whether you like it or not.
The sinkie idenity is fake, flawed and shallow and for it to last for 25 years is already quite a miracle.
My parent remembered very clearly about the discrimination that they used to face from the babas when they were young as this babas tend to look down on the sinkeh (new guest) then.
During that time, there were a few babas neighbour around us and they purposely used english/singlish when they spoke to my parent and grand parent knowing well that they can't communicate in english. (See the similarity with all this complain about PRC not being able to speak english)
My brothers and I saw the humiliation that they suffered at the hand of this babas and we swear that one day they will realised that it is they who are the stupid one. This babas raised up their children using only english and Malay and they scoffed at the idea of learning mandarin, this was during the late 70s.
My brothers and I however were more comfortable with Mandarin and we had a hard time when the pappy converted everyone to english-educated. However we accepted the challenge then. Today, I have one brother who is a doctor another one is doing research in university and I am roaming around the world doing international project work in a big MNC. All of us are bilingual and are able to communicate with both the angmoh and Chinese comfortably. As for the sons and daughters of our babas neighbour, most of them are working as clerk in the civil service and are only A-level holders at most, so much for their powderful "english". Nowaday, this failed people even try to speak to us in broken mandarin but we always respond to them in english since this is the language that they so look up to, while we communicate in front of them using Chinese among ourself. In our mind we never considered them as Chinese as they have turn their back on the Chinese identity last time when China has little international influence.
The recent PRC-bashing again reminds me of the babas of the past and the similarity of the plight of the PRC and our family last time.
I suspect a lot of this people who are engaging in PRC-bashing are those failed sons and daughters of the babas and the ah neh.
Let's face it, singapore was never a closed society, the last time that the government try to do so 25 years ago almost cost us our existence. They know they cannot revert back to the old path. For us, our identity can only be the "Chinese" one, whether you like it or not.
The sinkie idenity is fake, flawed and shallow and for it to last for 25 years is already quite a miracle.
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