Being Chinese, Knowing Chinese, Loving Chinese

Like most English-speaking parents, I worry about how the kids will be cope with Mandarin.

When Noey was born, we were advised by friends that in order to expose him to the Chinese language as much as possible, one parent should speak to him exclusively in English, while the other speaks to him exclusively in Mandarin. This was very sound advice of course, except for the fact that neither of us felt comfortable enough to speak Mandarin exclusively. Certainly not me. If you had heard me when I used to have to speak to my part-time cleaner in Mandarin, you'd understand my hesitance. DD was always sniggering behind my back while I referred to everything as “这个” and “那个” and liberally interspersed my sentences with English.

The ironic thing is that my Mandarin was actually not bad when I was in school. In fact, my Chinese teacher made me re-take the Chinese 'O" Level Paper when I got a B3 on my first sitting because he thought I should be scoring an A1. (I scored still scored a B3 the second time round.) Which also only goes to show how grades really mean nothing!

DD's spoken Mandarin is actually pretty decent, but he too didn't feel comfortable speaking Mandarin exclusively at home. So rather than subject our son to our lousy Mandarin, we stuck with speaking to him in English while urging his Nai-nai and Yi-po to speak to him in Mandarin.

Because we were only speaking to him in English, I decided that I would make sure that his English was really good. That proper sentence construction with the correct use tenses would come to him naturally, and that he would have an extensive vocabulary. I've slackened since we initially started, but today I still try to speak proper English to the children and chide DD for colloquial speech. We read a lot to the children, and we both also correct Noey's speech all the time, to the extent that it has become a bit of an embarrassing habit. 

Truth be told, I still think it is more important to get your English perfect from the get-go rather than Chinese. English still remains the language of commerce and continues to be widely used internationally. School in Singapore is also taught in English and I don't think that would be changing any time soon. Just looking at the complicated Primary school Maths questions, I know that having a good command of the language is an asset. And I figured, with their English sorted, the kids can then spend more time working on their Chinese in school. 

Which is not to say that I felt we could completely ignore teaching the children any Chinese. I still do believe that early exposure lessens the pain of learning a different language, and did what I could, including bringing him to Mandarin Playclub at Julia Gabriel, which we continued till I was in the last trimester of my pregnancy with Naomi and it was getting a bit too difficult to bring him twice a week on my own. But I must admit that I viewed learning Chinese as a necessity because of school requirements, and not because I felt any love or need to learn the language.

Then recently, I picked up a copy of Mr Lee KY's book "My Lifelong Challenge" - his book on Singapore's Bilingual Journey. Kino was having a 20% storewide sale and I thought it might be in interesting read.

It was. Of course, I didn't agree entirely with all his views as expressed in the book, but it certainly made me think about what it meant to be Chinese and my relationship with the language. This, in particular, struck me:

"Why did I insist on Singaporeans all needing to learn their mother tongue? For the Chinese, why did I insist that they learn Chinese? … Today, when English is spoken around the world, when even China is teaching students English, who do I still insist that our students learn Chinese as a second language?

Because I believe language transmits values. Learning the Chinese language means imbibing the core items of Chinese history, tradition and culture. The Confucianist values of loyalty, honour, discipline, filial piety, emphasis on family, respect for authority -- all vital for nation building and for cultivated citizens with honourable personal attributes. These values will provide cultural ballast to our people as we adjust to a fast-changing world. Mastering both English and Chinese requires tremendous effort. But the effort has to be made, if we are to survive as a distinctive society worth preserving. If we do not, we will become de-culturalised and pseudo-Western people. We should not speak pidgin English, mindlessly aping the Americans or British, with no basic values or culture of our own. I told English-medium school students: study English well, but never forget that you are not an Englishman and will never be."

It felt relevant to me, especially because I have a little boy at home complaining about me speaking to him in Chinese and insisting that he wants to be English, not Chinese! Knowledge of the Chinese language does provide us with the link to our roots, and being ethnically Chinese is something that is a part of who I am. That's something I understand more now as an adult than I did as a child.

Noey isn't fond of Chinese. I'm not surprised, considering how fluent and comfortable he is in English. He has no difficulty expressing himself or making himself understood in the language, so there's no reason for him to want to speak Chinese instead. "Let's speak English now. We can speak Chinese later/tomorrow," he'd say when I try to engage him in Mandarin. That said, I'm grateful that his school has also helped increase his exposure to Chinese. They brought the students to two Chinese plays this year, and half his curriculum time is conducted in Chinese. That of course means that there are some days when he comes home from school and when I ask him what he did in school, he tells me that "it was Chinese and the teacher taught something which I didn't understand." Sigh! But this boy is a fast learner, so I'm not too worried. If he is exposed to the language, he will pick it up.  

Noey amazingly won third prize for his level at a Tang Poetry recitation in school during their Chinese Cultural Festival in Term 1. The teachers did all the work. All of us - parents, grandparents, et.al. - couldn't believe it! 

I think we have put in a bit more effort into exposing the children to Chinese and being Chinese these days. I try to explain Chinese festivals and the legends and folklore behind them to Noey -- there's the inescapable Chinese New Year, and then there's 端午节 or the Dragon Boat Festival with its rice dumplings, 中秋节 or the Mid-Autumn Festival with its mooncakes, and 冬至 with its 汤圆. I've been learning things myself along the way too.

I did start Noey at Berries on the recommendation of some friends. He's ok with it, though he does ask to be let off from Chinese classes once in a while. I think it has helped him with his word recognition. The course is called "Read and Recognise" after all. He can definitely read more Chinese than he can understand! I guess I would prefer if he was encouraged to speak more Chinese. Maybe I should let him do Chinese Speech and Drama instead? I suppose the good news is that they are including that in his pre-school curriculum next year so I'm going to see if it helps.

The most effective method to encourage more Chinese at home has been to read more Chinese books to the children. This, I find, is a soft and non-threatening introduction to Chinese which has been good in making Noey more receptive to the language. Coming up shortly will be a review on an online bookstore, Flip for Joy, and the Chinese books they carry, so watch out for that!

Reading after Berries. He heads straight for the books, sometimes not even looking to see if I'm there to pick him!

A love for the Chinese language is definitely work-in-progress in this household. If you have any tips for cultivating a love for Chinese in your home, please do share!