LWL: My father used me for Politics!

[makapaaa]

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Coffeeshop Chit Chat - LWL: My father used me for politics</TD><TD id=msgunetc noWrap align=right> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE class=msgtable cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="96%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=msg vAlign=top><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgbfr1 width="1%"> </TD><TD><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0><TBODY><TR class=msghead vAlign=top><TD class=msgF width="1%" noWrap align=right>From: </TD><TD class=msgFname width="68%" noWrap>6/8,10/9, forums.delphiforums.com/anymos (ANYMOS) <NOBR></NOBR> </TD><TD class=msgDate width="30%" noWrap align=right>6:23 am </TD></TR><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgT height=20 width="1%" noWrap align=right>To: </TD><TD class=msgTname width="68%" noWrap>kojakbt_89 <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgNum noWrap align=right> (3 of 8) </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgleft rowSpan=4 width="1%"> </TD><TD class=wintiny noWrap align=right>33264.3 in reply to 33264.1 </TD></TR><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgtxt>She is aware that she needs her mother to look after her and has told her: 'Ma, you don't die before me.' Mum's reply was: 'Don't worry, God will take you first.'

Pa, you don't die before me, ok ?​

'Don't worry, God will take you first.'​

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[makapaaa]

<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgbfr1 width="1%"></TD><TD><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0><TBODY><TR class=msghead vAlign=top><TD class=msgF width="1%" noWrap align=right>From: </TD><TD class=msgFname width="68%" noWrap>kojakbt_89 <NOBR></NOBR> </TD><TD class=msgDate width="30%" noWrap align=right>5:19 am </TD></TR><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgT height=20 width="1%" noWrap align=right>To: </TD><TD class=msgTname width="68%" noWrap>ALL <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgNum noWrap align=right> (1 of 8) </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgleft rowSpan=4 width="1%"> </TD><TD class=wintiny noWrap align=right>33264.1 </TD></TR><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgtxt>May 16, 2010

No one-size-fits-all approach to education

A revamp of mother tongue subjects should consider different linguistic abilities

<!-- by line -->By Lee Wei Ling
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I have been a doctor for 32 years. Patients who have been under my care for decades often develop a close relationship with me.
The other day, an Indian patient who has been with me for 13 years came with a bouquet of flowers and a card that said 'To Prof Lee WL, nice to see you back', for I had been away on medical leave. I was very touched.
After I thanked her, I turned to her mother and told her: 'You are not well off; you should not waste money (buying me flowers).'
She replied: 'We are contented with what we have and we are grateful to you and your family.'
Since there were no other patients waiting to see me, I sat back and chatted with her. Apparently, her husband had died some years ago. He had been working as a mechanic for a Chinese-owned engineering company when he was sacked, with one month's severance pay, after working for 29 years.
The mum had then gone with her husband to see the boss. The boss told her in Cantonese: 'Don't bother. Your loukong ('husband' in Cantonese) can neither speak nor write English.' Mum replied to him in fluent Cantonese. The boss was stunned.
Mum had subsequently written to the boss in English, and copied the letter to my father Lee Kuan Yew. She then received a reply from the Government, saying that it would look into the matter. A few months later, the company paid her husband an additional 28 months' salary as severance pay.
I was curious to find out how mum could speak Cantonese. She studied in an English medium school up to Secondary 3. Tamil was her mother tongue, but she also picked up Cantonese, Hokkien and Malay by chatting with her neighbours.
After her husband passed away, mum and her daughter stayed with the patient's brother. He is a technician, married with two children. He supports the family of six on his technician's salary. He can speak Hokkien, Teochew and Hakka.
Mum and daughter are very close. My patient could not attend school as she was mentally slow. But she speaks English. She is aware that she needs her mother to look after her and has told her: 'Ma, you don't die before me.' Mum's reply was: 'Don't worry, God will take you first.'
I recounted this story to my father, telling him how surprised I was that the mother had mastered so many different languages, languages that bore little resemblance to each other.
Someone who understood Hokkien would not understand Cantonese automatically unless she had studied Cantonese too. There are words peculiar to each dialect; moreover, the same words can have very different pronunciations.
My father's response to my story was simple. 'She is an Indian woman,' he said.
He, like me, has a theory that Indians have a special talent for languages. In addition, it is believed that women are better at languages than men; this is probably true, although there are different aspects to language and the sexes probably differ only in certain aspects.
I am writing this story not just to amuse my readers but also to provoke them into thinking about the recent controversy over the weighting of the mother tongue languages in the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE).
We must remember that language ability varies from individual to individual. There is certainly a genetic component in linguistic ability. The genes for superior linguistic ability bypassed me but were transmitted to both my brothers.
Of all the subjects in school, Chinese language was the one I swotted over the most. But I was willing to work hard on Chinese, even in kindergarten, because I knew my parents were using my brothers and me as proof that my father - a Cambridge-educated lawyer who, when he first entered politics, was barely able to speak Chinese - was not anti-Chinese.
While we were never explicitly told so, it was obvious to us that he was using his own children to signal to the electorate the importance of the Chinese language in particular and of bilingualism in general. For example, even though my father was often too busy to join us for our birthdays, he would come to all our graduation ceremonies - including mine from Nanyang Kindergarten and subsequently from Nanyang Primary School - and these events were reported in the newspapers.
But my own experience is that the environment also plays a role in language learning. My innate linguistic ability is inferior to that of my brothers but determination and hard work allowed me to score as well as they did for Chinese, English and Malay in the Secondary 4 school leaving examination for Chinese schools.
How much weight is given to the mother tongue languages in PSLE will determine whether or not a child can make it to a secondary school of his or her choice. My attitude towards elite schools has always been that although students may receive a better education in such schools, a bright and determined student will make it regardless of the school he or she attends. So regarding people who feel a great deal of angst over the weighting of the mother tongue languages in PSLE, I think their anxiety is unwarranted.
My own concern is that intelligent and hardworking students who are relatively untalented linguistically, as I am, should not be impeded as a result. They must still be able to thrive in school and university, and also enjoy their childhoods.
For now and probably the next 50 years, English will be the main global language. Scientific knowledge will continue to be expressed in English.
As a paediatric neurologist with a special interest in learning disabilities, I have seen too many patients spend an inordinate amount of their time swotting for examinations in their mother tongue at the expense of other subjects. I know of families who have emigrated because their children could not cope with the mother tongue. These families often consist of professionals or successful entrepreneurs - precisely the sort of talent we are trying to attract from other countries. Those affected are mainly Chinese, but Indian Singaporean students also face similar problems, for the Tamil that is taught in our schools, I am told, is too difficult and even arcane.
Our citizens should be encouraged to be as bilingual as they can be, but not at the expense of acquiring relevant knowledge in other fields. There cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach to education.
What is certain is that the curriculum for the mother tongue languages as it stands now, especially for Chinese and Tamil, puts an unnecessary burden on our children. A carefully planned revamp of the curriculum and examination system for the mother tongue languages - a revamp that takes into account different linguistic abilities - is needed urgently.
The writer is director of the National Neuroscience Institute.

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[Brightkid]

[/COLOR][/B]
While we were never explicitly told so, it was obvious to us that he was using his own children to signal to the electorate the importance of the Chinese language in particular and of bilingualism in general. For example, even though my father was often too busy to join us for our birthdays, he would come to all our graduation ceremonies - including mine from Nanyang Kindergarten and subsequently from Nanyang Primary School - and these events were reported in the newspapers.

Huh ? Why is she telling us all these ? This is her own family problem right ? Noticed she recently been writing about her and her family's life on how tough lives were ?

As if I cared. Please spare a thought for the worst off and the poor. Opps ...htere is no poor people in Sinkapore, per her father's understanding. Theirs is the the poorest with only Japanese cuisine for meal in their bungalows.

Saw today's article by her. As usual I do not read the mubol jumbo, but the bold sentence that say her father make a 'tiring' trip to China becos he value hs friendships there. Any can post that article here ?

I did not know that MM travel in cattle class like all of us and we have to bash our way around in other countries. Thought he travel First class and have red carpet laid out from his plane seat to wherever he goes. All on taxpayers' money ? Tiring ? I love to change situation with him !

Value friendship ? He now has a old friend lying in his coffin waiting for him while he travel around glorifying himself with some awards ?

Tsk tsk.

 

[Queen Seok Duk]

I recounted this story to my father, telling him how surprised I was that the mother had mastered so many different languages, languages that bore little resemblance to each other.
Someone who understood Hokkien would not understand Cantonese automatically unless she had studied Cantonese too. There are words peculiar to each dialect; moreover, the same words can have very different pronunciations.

I believe most Singaporeans can speak Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese. You don't need to be gifted or make special effort to study them. I'm not a Cantonese but my Cantonese is as fluent as a Hongkie. I learn my stuff from watching TVB dramas.

 

[kingrant]

I am a Cantonese, but I picked up Hokkien, Teochew, Malay from the street urchins in Tiong Bahru estate and the gangsters from See Kah Ting.

The first words one normally learns very quickly are those used to scold other people with, swear words, parts of the anatomy, things to do to other people's mother etc.

Guess LWL should have gotten out of her house more...

I believe most Singaporeans can speak Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese. You don't need to be gifted or make special effort to study them. I'm not a Cantonese but my Cantonese is as fluent as a Hongkie. I learn my stuff from watching TVB dramas.

 

[NoNewsGood]

I believe most Singaporeans can speak Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese. You don't need to be gifted or make special effort to study them. I'm not a Cantonese but my Cantonese is as fluent as a Hongkie. I learn my stuff from watching TVB dramas.

Years ago, Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese could converse and could understand one another even though one could not speak the other's dialect fluently. Nobody complained that it was confusing or tough interacting with one another. Life just went on.

Then the Speak Mandarin Campaign came. Suddenly speaking dialect is "confusing" and "will cause misunderstandings and quarrels". Plenty of TV shows and school sketches were put up to support this point. Dialect songs, radio and TV programmes were banned. School kids were punished if they were caught speaking dialects, as if it was a crime. Can you imagine some kids were caned by speaking their (real) mother tongue?

Then another scare campaign to emphasise English started. Schools started to stress to their student how critcal English was. The message was - if you fail English, you fail everything. Some schools even had this big banner in the school hall "Speak more English, less Mandarin and no dialect!". Civil service began to adopt the "if you don't speak English, you don't get service" attitude.

People who grew up in that era (especially those who got shunned because they could not speak English well) would naturally condition their children to worship the English language. Many parents spoke nothing else but English to their children since birth, but the English such parents spoke were usually poor, broken or grammatically off.

So now we have a generation of kids struggling with Chinese. No thanks to those campaign starters and policies meddlers.

 

[Queen Seok Duk]

People who grew up in that era (especially those who got shunned because they could not speak English well) would naturally condition their children to worship the English language. Many parents spoke nothing else but English to their children since birth, but the English such parents spoke were usually poor, broken or grammatically off.

That was how Singlish was born.:p

 

[Ramseth]

LHL Chinese sucked even though he was purposefully sent to a Chinese school for a political purpose, i.e. his political future. LKY wouldn't need to worry too much about LHL English or Malay, since they speak these at home.

It was reverse psychology of purpose for future when common Chinese Singaporeans sent their children to English schoold by the hoardes in the 60s and 70s. They felt the need for their children to know English, and not worried about Chinese since they spoke that at home as true mother tongue. However, that true mother tongue were the various dialects. In the 80s, they were forced to adopt Mandarin in Hanyu Pinyu standard as mother tongue. It was adopted tongue, not mother tongue at all.

Even in PRC, nobody up to Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping claimed Mandarin to be mother tongue for all Chinese. They only imposed it as unifying national tongue. PRC Chinese mother tongues are always their dialects. Even same for ROC on Taiwan. Singapore's unifying national tongue is of course English.

 

[halsey02]

Another of My Father's Tales....like Li Da sor..will say " siong chi gong dough"...continue from the last time...

I use to have friends & classmates then living in NAVAL BASE...it was not uncommon for the Indians living there to be able to converse very well in Cantonese, Hainanese, Hokkien...mostly Cantonese. There were some Chinese who could speak fluent Tamil, my classmate was one of them, he recounted an incident of how two tamils made degrading remarks about Chinese people in the bus, and he farked them in fluent Tamil. he said, "you should have seen their face, it went blacker than black".

Maybe LWL should build herself a time tunnel and revisit SiNgapore in the 1950's to 1960's and to the 1970's without her dad or mum...and see a world, she had missed along the way...

More tales, of my Father on the way..for we will have to get use to it..for 'my father' eulogy is going to last, 365 days!!!

 

[tanwahtiu]

All I know is LKY betrayed the Chinese people by closing down Chinese schools and purposedly give bad Chinese lessons. I will throw a big heavy Chinese dictionary at his coffin if he died.

This LKY and GKS (then MOEd) destroyed a generation or two of Chinese race that can't read and write Chinese properly attending his public schools.

I used to have to stand up on chair when it comes to my turn I can't read the Chinese text. Chinese lessons in high school was all about reading from the book and each student takes turn to read a paragrah or two and if don't know you stand on chair and next turn come you cannot read again you can choose to stand on table or outside classroom. LKY and GKS made you stand outside the classroom to be laughed at by students passing by ....

This was LKY style of teaching his Voters Chinese lessons in his public school (gov) in the 60s and 70s, how wicked!

Says who Chinese language is difficult to read and write. If it is so the China Chinese will not be speaking and writing Chinese. All LKY and his cronies did was to brain wash the Sinkie Chinese that Chinese a a difficult language to learn!

In Australia, the Aus gov funded the migrant Chinese to study English. The mainland Chinese can tell you that English is difficult to learn too! Why?

Any language is mother tongue to a race as long as you don't brain wash them or intentional make your mother hard to write and speak.

So LKY stop brain wash the Sinkie.

 

[SIFU]

LWL : my father say i can win halloween best dress competition without any makeup

 

[jw5]

I am a Cantonese, but I picked up Hokkien, Teochew, Malay from the street urchins in Tiong Bahru estate and the gangsters from See Kah Ting.

The first words one normally learns very quickly are those used to scold other people with, swear words, parts of the anatomy, things to do to other people's mother etc.

Guess LWL should have gotten out of her house more...

Please don't encourage her to make more public appearances.
Thank you.

 

[jw5]

Huh ? Why is she telling us all these ? This is her own family problem right ? Noticed she recently been writing about her and her family's life on how tough lives were ?

As if I cared. Please spare a thought for the worst off and the poor. Opps ...htere is no poor people in Sinkapore, per her father's understanding. Theirs is the the poorest with only Japanese cuisine for meal in their bungalows.

Saw today's article by her. As usual I do not read the mubol jumbo, but the bold sentence that say her father make a 'tiring' trip to China becos he value hs friendships there. Any can post that article here ?

I did not know that MM travel in cattle class like all of us and we have to bash our way around in other countries. Thought he travel First class and have red carpet laid out from his plane seat to wherever he goes. All on taxpayers' money ? Tiring ? I love to change situation with him !

Value friendship ? He now has a old friend lying in his coffin waiting for him while he travel around glorifying himself with some awards ?

Tsk tsk.

Perhaps they think that they can get better karma or show their softer side by telling these "touching personal stories".

 

[halsey02]

LWL : my father say i can win halloween best dress competition without any makeup

Luckily she never resided in the states for a long time..or they will even ban Halloween in the stae she lives in, for she spoils the fun...

 

[moolightaffairs]

sigh! she should step out of the ivory tower more!