Who's Stupid? Dialect or Principal Private Secretary?

WARNING:
This post is not meant for prudes with aversion to vivid words.

If there's no humour that lighten us up, another heart attack or other diseases (including smartass words from higher mortals) may degenerate our health and well-being. Yes, if not for humour, we may die younger!

Maybe, the art of living is to die young . . . . . . . . as late as possible.

It makes my day to read,"It would be stupid for any Singapore agency or NTU to advocate the learning of dialects, which must be at the expense of English and Mandarin" from another highly paid civil servant - Chee Hong Tat, Principal Private Secretary to the Minister Mentor. [Link].

With 2 deaths within a week, I doubt NTU is into languages right now. Their current concern is death prevention of the educated young!

Call me silly but I think to kill and condemn the learning and use of dialects is simply daft. I've always thought dialect is a regional language in various parts of China of which my grandpa came from one. We call it fang yi?

Has the beauty of the Chinese languages so commonly spoken while I was growing up in the 50's and 60's gone forever? It may be too late to lament but to hear an upstart condemning and killing fang yi raises my ire and reminds me of interesting words that I have not forgotten . It's indeed a joy when I could carry a decent conversation in Teochew, Hokien, Cantonese, Hainanese and Hakka. We even spoke in Malay and a little Tamil too.

Maybe Chee Hong Tat of Ivory Tower is afraid of Singaporeans learning to speak thus:

• Kah Nia Yee Kor Ke or Pu Bor? (Teochew)
• Kan Ni Na Ma Chow Chee Bye (KNNMCCB)? or Kee Hor Lung Kan? (Hokien)
• Tiew Lei Loh Moh Ke Chow Hai? (Cantonese)
• Kan Loo Eh Kar Chui (Hainanese)
  

The above describe mother, sex and some smelly sensitive body parts. They can also serve as responses to hubristic insensitive principal private secretaries' smartass comments.

Pardon my English but our mother tongue is literally the tissue that's in our mother's mouth. When mother's tongue moves (especially due to disappointment with their children), be ready for a mouthful! Language wise, it should be the language spoken by mother passed down from her ancestors. For decades, I still cannot accept why our mother tongue has been hijacked from us. Or is it father tongue in mixed dialect marriages?

Hard as I try to teach my kids and their kids to go against the system (and the grain) to keep our real mother tongue alive (speak dialect), my mother is still angry that she's having communication breakdown with her grand and great grandchildren because of some greedy "get rich quick scheme" that promotes the use of Mandarin and suppresses Chinese dialects.

The comedy is PAP lost greatgrandma's vote since the "Chiang Chua Jee" campaign started decades ago. For the benefit of those not into Hokien, "Chiang Chua Jee"="Speak Money" which sounds like "Chiang Hua Yi"= "Speak Mandarin". Fiesty 80+ greatgrandma is hoping she'll have her chance to vote against PAP soon even she has to limp to the voting station.

I'm so grateful that local coffee shops still accept my " kopi see siew tai" = "coffee with evaporated milk & less sugar"; "kim moon tai" = "Clementi" or "lemon tea" and "teow hu" as in "fishing" or "chinese tea in a bag"

Instead of defending his bossman on languages, Chee should Buy time in helping his bossman explain the other "get rich quick" scheme - GIC - which went awry or is it "went in too early" and suffered prematured non-ejection?

For more private principal jokes to lighten your load, please visit:
Arthur's site at http://civicadvocator.net/hey-stupid-who-do-you-call-stupid/
You'll get the bonus of a handsome picture too!

And here http://singaporecitizen.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/civil-servant-called-his-parents-and-grandparents-and-his-great-grandparents-stupid/

Life is meant for living.

Perfection is only for those living in ivory towers whose perfect lives and wise comments draw much ire from the commoners!

Happy week ahead.

feedmetothefish