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Half Boiled Egg at 1:20am
Tuesday, July 21
No solar eclipse here.
华语 Cool
Monday, July 20
 I like speaking Mandarin. In fact, I prefer speaking Mandarin. I am unfortunately, unable to read, write or converse very fluently in it, but I can still get by colloquially.
I grew up in suburban Bukit Gombak. I tagged along with my mum to the wet market on Saturday mornings, where my brother and I lugged bags of meat and fish saddled upon us by our mum. There is no butcher or greengrocer there, only the 猪肉 and 卖菜 uncles. Well my mum calls them that.
Obviously there is nothing wrong with English. It is the international language, lingua franca. My mum brought me to the library weekly and introduced me to Peter Rabbit, Noddy, the BFG, all of which helped develop my command of the language. All in the hope I would grow up well educated and well-off.
In my predominantly Chinese suburb, if you conversed in English you were perceived as a well educated, well-off person.
I suppose it harks back to old colonial days of British rule when the English speakers, the British, were the ones in power. English speakers were from a higher social class. They were seen as stuck up however. Snobbish. They couldn't hold a conversation or empathize with the man in the street.
No one spoke in English. My neighbor was a university professor and he, too, always spoke in Mandarin first.
Mandarin creates a bond. It sends an intangible message of humility, the message that we are Chinese, we are the same people, and we are one. And you, the English speaker, are not one of us.
I did a little experiment when I was in Melbourne.
Whenever I was served by an Oriental face, I spoke in Mandarin. Didn't work all the time though, there were Koreans who gave me puzzled looks and some who stoutly replied in English. But on the occasions it did work, it was a real treat watching their expressions. They'd do a double take, not quite sure why I was speaking in Mandarin, but gradually I'd see a smile and glow creep into their faces. I was 'family'. I was from home, China, Malaysia, wherever they'd left behind.
Mandarin was for us, a secret code only we knew. Mandarin, or 华语, was cool.
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