For me, the saddest part of LKY's language cleansing policy is his failure to resist the temptation to run down the other Chinese languages (Cantonese, Hokkien, etc.) This has left a generation thinking that these languages (not to my mind 'dialects') are only good enough for low level market talk. My wife exemplified this ignorance.
Two occasions woke her up. My bosses had asked me to go to HK with them to explore business opportunities with an entrepreneur (real one not govt appointed) who spoke neither Mandarin nor English. He had escaped China during the Cultural Revolution and had had very little formal education. I was asked along because I spoke Cantonese quite well and was expected to interpret.
Business discussions spilled over into dinner and my wife (also Cantonese) joined us. Though lighter, the talks were still serious and I was still their interpreter. Later in the hotel room, my wife was close to tears. She said although she knew Cantonese was as important a language as any, that was the first time she heard it used to signify such deep business discussions.
Another time, my uncle (a Malaysian) had stayed over at my place and he and I chatted after dinner. Though not highly educated, he was quite politicised and had definite views about Malaysian politics. We also chatted about his experiences during the war and then the emergency and race riots. Again my wife was jolted by hearing Cantonese used to discuss politics, history and society.
Incidentally, my uncle's one wish was to see BN get kicked out of Penang before he died. He got his wish but died a few months later, aged 93.
What LKY has done was to strip away our respect for our roots and to accept his version of reality. This must have been his intent because he could just as easily have pushed for Mandarin without denigrating the other languages. But there are more things in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in his tiny bigoted mind.
eh... not a low class movie hor. the movie had won quite a number of awards. but then hor, those PAP, gahmen people, they cannot tahan dialect movie. a little bit of knnccb uttered, or dialect dialogues straightaway they slap a Restricted label onto the movie.
