华语 Cool

I've told some friends this, but for some reason, I've grown to appreciate Chinese, whether as a language or as a culture, so much more since I've been overseas for school. I mean, I was never one of the those 'too cool for Mandarin' type of 'banana' Chinese Singaporeans who sneered at those who were not fluent in English and spoke the 'Cheena' language (I saw so many in my course in poly). I speak Mandarin at home, come from a Chinese secondary school, listen to Mandopop, and twice participated in Chinese freakin' poetry recital competitions! But I was still very much Anglo-leaning, in that I craved and consumed mostly Western pop culture, spoke mostly English outside of home, and of course, wanted to head to a Western country for uni. I prided myself in being reasonably bilingual, but the relationship I had with Chinese was one more of utility.

My opinion changed when i headed to the U.S. Somehow, being submerged totally in English became really limiting, even slightly oppressive. And I found myself listening so much more to Chinese music. Stefanie Sun I already loved, but I think the musical love of my college life has to be Tanya Chua (More on her music in an upcoming post, soon, hopefully). I paid closer attention to the lyrics and really grew to appreciate the poetry of it. I youtubed Taiwanese variety shows to watch occasionally. I reveled in heading to Chinatown and getting to speak or try to speak Cantonese everywhere I went. I felt humbled whenever I'd attempt to speak Mandarin to Chinese internationals, but I was always keen to try (The best is this year, where I got to know this American student who's incredibly fluent in Mandarin, and participated in those international Mandarin debates for non-native speakers representing Yale. Wow, I was so humbled by his knowledge of Chinese idioms!)

Also, coming from a young country, I was amazed at the history of New York, just in its architecture for example. The gorgeous brownstones certainly have so much more character than our HDBs! Of course, America was the minor league when I got to Oxford. How utterly mind-blowing it was to see these grand colleges, all built when Singapore was, as we know so well from history textbooks, a mere fishing village! But my point is that seeing all this history in the U.S and especially here in the U.K., I found myself thinking about how as amazing as all of it was, China's got 5000 years worth of history! Beat that, suckers! hah. I don't know, I guess it just brought to me clarity on how deep Chinese history and culture is, and I find myself now wanting to visit China really badly.

This year, I've been reading so much about the Enlightenment in relation to my politics tutorials, and to read of all these thinkers and their universalised theories of good/right and sit in class hearing my tutor talk about them like they're the be all and end all of political theory... I don't know, it irked me slightly because I just felt all of it were developments in reaction to very culturally specific historical occurrences and thus cannot or should not claim to speak for all of men... (ugh, I swear, this made more sense going through my head during tutorial!) I guess my point is that it made me want to find out if Chinese philosophy provided any counter-points, especially since it developed in such different conditions compared to the Western Judeo-Christian world (I'm sure other non-Occidental cultures, like the Islamic world, have really different ideas too)!

Perhaps this new-found appreciation of all things Chinese occurred because something that becomes rare always becomes more valuable. Perhaps it was because once away from Singapore, one can break free from the negative socioeconomic connotations of the language (Ang mo pai4 vs'cheena piang' is essentially cosmopolitan vs heartlander recast in linguistic terms, no?). Perhaps it's because going to places where a lot of people are monolingual, one develops pride in being able to speak two languages. Perhaps it's because, in line with the previous statement, it feels shiok to be able to have fun with friends and shout vulgarities in Chinese in foreign countries without anyone else knowing what we're saying. Whatever it is, I'm glad because it has allowed me to appreciate the language and to want to explore the culture so much more.

I've tried taken concrete steps to do so. For the last summer vacation, I had quite a reading spree, if anyone who follows me on Twitter would notice (how I flatter myself!). I think I read something like 15 books in those four months. And I wanted to read some Chinese books actually. I remember Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma was constantly out on loan in the library, but the Chinese one was available, so I thought: Hey, why not! But I soon gave up =( It seems like 99% of the books in Chinese are printed the up-down, right-left way, which I found so difficult to get through! So, fail for me on that attempt. For now though, I'll just continue to listen to my Mandopop and marvel at the lyrical wonders of Xiao Han, and continue to hone my Cantonese skills at Chinese provision shops/restaurants. I promise though that this summer, I [i]will[/i] get through at least one book in Chinese! I just need to search harder for one that reads from left to right! The pilgrimage to ancestral lands will have to wait a bit though, as I'm not sure when I'll have the money to do so! Ah, I so regret not doing the Beijing Olympics...

Addendum: As much as I've waxed lyrical about the beauty of Chinese and all here, I'm not of Camp 'All Chinese S'poreans should be able to speak Mandarin, if not shame on you". It's cool if you don't, you just don't need to look down on people who do. I do recognise the fact that Mandarin is in no way inherent to Chinese S'poreans. Like all things on our island, the assertion of Mandarin as our 'native' mother tongue was very much engineered by our leaders to achieve their desired social/political goals.