Yours Toothfully by Dr Chan Joon Yee

What’s the message here? That someone who has done some good in the past is licenced to be difficult and unreasonable? What’s wrong with our MCYS these days? Instead of portraying our elders in a positive light, deserving our care and respect, they choose to tell us that no matter how difficult and unreasonable they are, we must still care for them because we would not be here without them.

A friend once commended me for being a caring father. I casually said: “Which parent wouldn’t be.”

Then, I remembered something about this friend. Her parents were separated when she was born. She had no idea who her biological father was. When she was in primary school, her mother decided to give her away. She lived with her adoptive parents, “married” to their son.

She hated her mother from that moment. Her adoptive parents treated her well, but the pain of abandonment by one’s own mother must have been devastating. Her bitterness is not difficult to understand. But what if her mother had once rushed her to the hospital when it was pouring? Would this pain and hatred have been unjustifiable? Would the mother then have the licence to be demanding, unreasonable and willfully destructive?

Times have changed. The cane wielding teachers of yester-years are now extinct. The barking drill sergeants of yester-years who made recruits do push ups on the hot parade square are now smiling security guards at your neighbourhood mall. Shouldn’t authoritarian parents take a cue from these folks? Shouldn’t they also bear some consequences if they refuse to change?

Once again, what is MCYS’ message? That our government will not be responsible for any selfish, misbehaving, irresponsible elderly citizen who has earned his/her children’s disrespect? Good or bad, contributing or destructive, they are still the children’s responsibility? Whatever costs and emotional burden there is

I don’t believe it! Don’t tell me how much they paid the songwriter and director for this piece of crap. I could have written better lyrics in 5 minutes when I was in P6.

Here’s the faster, cheaper, better version.

Recently, there was a new stall at the food court at Lucky Plaza Level 6. They sold 擂茶, a “dish” which consists of rice with an assortment of crush nuts and vegetables accompanied by a bowl of “soup” made from tea.

擂茶is clearly a Hakka dish. As for its origins, I may need to make a trip to my ancestral home to interview the Hakka people there. But as for the name, 擂茶 I know for a fact that it certainly does not mean “thunder tea”.

The Chinese word 擂 means to strike or pound. And there are many levels of 擂. When you punch someone flat in the face, you can call that 擂. When you pound on a drum with your fists, that is also called 擂. When someone massages you with his elbow or fist, that can also be called 擂. Hence, 擂茶 is called 擂茶 because it involves a lot of pounding and grinding. The ground ingredients, including tea leaves, are made into a soup. This is eaten with rice sprinkled with more ground ingredients.

擂茶is often a more or less vegetarian dish. The example you see in the picture is vegetarian except for the ikan bilis. It’s filling but not fattening - excellent for weight watchers. Just don’t call it “thunder tea”.

The recent “protests” against MOE’s proposal to “lower the weightage” of “Mother Tongue” in PSLE results was a knock on the head for adminstrators who think that every Chinese/Malay family sees the learning of Chinese/Malay as an unnecessary burden for their children. Many children actually do well for MT in their PSLE. There are some who don’t do too well overall because they are pulled down by low MT scores. Changing the rules may lead to a very different group of top students - perhaps those who speak Mandarin with a Sentosa accent.

During a parents’ briefing by my son’s school principal, the highly charismatic gentleman advised Malay parents not to let their children take Chinese as “Mother Tongue”. He argued that they could not provide the “environment” at home for their kids to learn the language properly.

But what about Chinese familes? Not even pure Chinese families can always provide the right environment for learning Chinese. Even if we argue that they have no excuse for that (since they are Chinese), what about the non-Chinese and not so Chinese Asian familes where the members have to communicate in English out of necessity?

It’s an obvious phenomenon that we are seeing more and more mixed and foreign families in Singapore. We have many mothers of Singaporean children who are Thais, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Burmese and we only have 4 official languages to choose from. What does Mr Principal want them to do if they can’t provide a conducive “environment” for Chinese, Malay or Tamil? Shouldn’t concessions be targeted at these children rather than those who have no excuse not to do well in MT because they live in Sentosa?

But some caution is in order. While supporting MT will ensure a healthy and representative number of heartlanders amongst the top students in Singapore, it will open doors for recent immigrants whose “Mother Tongues” are more motherly than ours. Other immigrant societies lay the ground rules in no uncertain terms.

John Howard:

‘We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society . Learn the language!’

We are certainly not so strict about such things over here. In fact, we are often told the benefits of “speaking the language”, the necessity of welcoming immigrants. And we even changed our Nee Soon to Yishun.

Well, I do know how to pronounce Yishun and Hougang the “correct” way, but I insist on saying “yee shoon” and “hao gang”. I speak the language better than most Chinese Singaporeans, but in my line of work, this often means more arguments, more complaints, more sarcasm and even thuggish behaviour.

What’s wrong with shops and restaurants like these? Well, in case our decision makers fail to realise, there is a certain unwritten exclusitivity in these establishments. They do a great job of making you feel alien if you’re not mainland Chinese. And that’s in our own home country, Singapore. It’s an irony that you’ll receive a much warmer reception in China. Our decision makers may dream of Li Jiawei or Feng Tianwei playing host to a group of Singaporean Indian friends inside one of these restaurants, but not in my wildest dreams do I see them giving their Chinese Singaporean friends a treat here.

And out on the streets, we see more litter, more shouting, more crowding, pushing, haggling, excuses for not paying and other inconsiderate behaviour. How I wish I operate a service that automatically deducts fees from bank accounts and answers the phone with “We’re sorry, our Chinese-speaking customer service officers are all engaged. Please call back in 10 years.”

I have nothing against the language, the people and the culture. In fact, I use Mandarin and write in Chinese all the time. I just feel that too many of them are seeing our open doors as an invitation to colonise the place. Of course those running our public transport and other utilities (and automated answering machines) will gain tremendously from an influx of immigrants. What about dentists? What do we stand to gain, just staring at the impressive numbers in the news while we squeeze on the MRT with loud messages being passed down like announcements for the arrival of the Empress Dowager in the Forbidden City.

Yeah, they made this their home all right. Is there anything wrong? Well, it gets a bit irritating to some when they expect to find someone who speaks their Mother Tongue everywhere they go, they refuse to speak English and kick up a fuss when someone who looks Chinese can’t understand them.

我是会说华语。可是来自菲律宾,印度,和本地非华族公民的员工都听不懂。我还得帮你翻译。你会说英
语干吗要大家迁就你?

(This refers to China workers who insist on speaking Mandarin even when working in a multi-cultural workplace. Some even show annoyance when Indonesian Chinese customers they encounter don’t speak their language)

We have often been reminded of the need to embrace immigrants. It’s only very recently that we hear voices from the top asking us to “keep a balance between strengthening, maintaining the core and keeping Singapore recognisable, and bringing in new people and transforming Singapore to prepare for tomorrow”.

For a start, let’s change our Yishun back to Nee Soon. Let’s also make sure all the China-Chinese restuarants in Geylang and Chinatown have menus in the 4 official languages of Singapore.