志异 Draft by Drama box July 2014 (english) | Page 24

About ten years ago, a senior
retired academic frequently drove
his Mercedes Benz to Malaysia for
a game of golf at one of those clubs
that catered exclusively to colonial
officials in the past. This academic,
who had also studied in Taiwan,
missed the kinder and gentler
Taiwanese society that encouraged
slower and yet more energetic
living, and which had a better
intellectual atmosphere.

a cohesive society, it had to have
a common language. English,
a colonial legacy, became a
convenient choice. Such a move
could prevent interracial conflict
and hatred, as well as help the
island-state rapidly integrate itself
into the vast English-speaking
world created by British colonial
expansion, a world now virtually
synonymous with the ‘modern
world’. This was a pragmatic
choice. One could not live on poetry
It is common to hear Taiwanese
and thus had to sacrifice one’s
politicians and commentators
mother tongue, the ancient temples
enviously praising Singapore on
and tombs, the memories and
radio and television. They admire
dialects, all of which gave life its
Singapore’s housing policy, its
poetic quality, in order to survive. As
central provident fund system, the
the bastion of Chinese culture in the
high income, the competitiveness
Malay Peninsula in recent history,
and even the language policy.
Singapore had accumulated a
Recently, a former blue-eyed boy of rich cultural heritage, but the
Taiwanese politics even exclaimed: relentless pace of modernisation
‘What’s the use of clinging on to
depleted this. This is perhaps the
our mother tongue? Our medium
common fate of all developing
of instruction should have been
countries seeking ‘progress’ at
American English a long time ago,
all costs—managing, quantifying
otherwise how can we compete? An and rationalising everything while
Indian is now the CEO of Microsoft!’ quashing all useless sentiments that
could hinder progress. Singapore
Wang Anyi, whose father was
under Lee Kuan Yew was arguably
born in Singapore, showed more
the biggest political experiment in
understanding towards Singapore’s the history of the Southeast Asian
language policy. In order to have
Chinese. The merits and demerits

column one – ng kim chew

our singapore