No Mandarin Please!!!!!!!!!
OK, got a gripe here. Why is it that just because I am a Chinese person, every stranger (90% of them at least) who approaches me will inevitably speak Mandarin to me the minute they open their mouths?! Duh, is it like every Chinese person in this world speaks nothing but Mandarin?
Hello!!!!! There are so many dialects in the Chinese language that are more user friendly and sound waaaaayyyyyy better than Mandarin. Oh, I know, Mandarin is the more "common" dialect in the Chinese speaking world, but hey, there ARE people out there who don’t (or in my case simply REFUSE to) speak it.
To top it off, when I give these people a blank look which clearly indicates that I don’t know what the f*** they are talking about, they ask me, again, in Mandarin "Nee Poo Huey Chiang Hwa Yee?" (Rolls eyes)
And before you guys out there give me that crap about not knowing my mother tongue, I’ll have you know that I was raised in a Hokkien household. Therefore, Hokkien is my mother tongue.
And yes, China is emerging as a commercial force to be reckoned with, so the world is scrambling to learn to "chiang hwa yee", but hey, China should meet the world halfway and learn some English, no?
Finally, yes, I do chiang some hwa yee, but I simply choose not to because I never liked the dialect in the first place. Come "kong kong tung wah" (speak Cantonese) with me anyday.
April 27th, 2007 at 7:49 am
u know wat?? I do share the same sentiment as you,.. i was out of Penang for about 7years in total (education + working). I still remember during my schooling times… or shall i say, our schooling times, Hokkien was mostly used almost everywhere. But 7 years later when i finally decided that I’ve had enough and come back to Penang and work, I experienced “culture shock” in my own town! Can u imagine that?? Suddenly everyone starts to speak to me in Mandarin! I was like :O I mean, do i look like a tourist or something?
Then i realised the “kiasu-ism” of learning the language in the wake of the “sleeping dragon”. Another reason, could be because there are influx of outstation workers.
Now, almost everywhere i go, i see parents speaking to their children in mandarin…
sigh…i rest my case!