Bracing for change

I just read an interesting article in the New York Times about the increasing influence of Mandarin on the Chinese population in New York.

According to NYT, the first Chinese, who migrated to North America in the first half of the 1900s, can be traced to a region in the Pearl River Delta. Over there, the key languages are Cantonese and Taishanese. (To those who might know the history and geography better, do you think the author is referring to Tangshan?)

Over the turn of this century, Cantonese is increasingly being replaced by Mandarin as NY Chinatown's de-facto Chinese language, said the NYT story. With China rising as an economic power, more Chinese thought that their children would benefit more from learning the "official" language, which is Mandarin. In recent years, more Mandarin-speaking immigrants are arriving in NY and they would, most certainly, want their children to learn Mandarin rather than, say, Cantonese.

In fact, a new "Chinatown" is rising in another part of NY in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and Flushing, Queens. I'm not familiar with NY at all, so I can't tell where the two areas are relative to each other.

As I read this story, I find cold comfort in the similarities faced by Singapore and NY.

G, who used to be a Chinese teacher in Singapore, was lamenting that the teachers Singapore's education ministry imported from the mainland tried to correct the terms used by Singaporean Chinese. They were apparently brought in to "raise the Chinese standard". Singapore, as a society has developed together with our Malay and Indian compatriots, an amalgamation of Chinese dialects as well as the strong influence of English. It shouldn't be surprising that we use Mandarin differently.

I've also read that Geylang is the new Chinatown in Singapore. If one is looking for "authentic" Chinese cuisine - food prepared like it would be done on the mainland - then Geylang is the place to go. Internet cafes, which had mostly died out in the late 1980s except for some gaming centres, are thriving in Geylang. Known affectionately as wangba 网吧 , they are a common sight in many Chinese cities.

For at least a generation now, many Singaporean Chinese are using less and less of their families' dialects. The likelihood that the children of my generation will learn to speak our dialects fluently is, sadly and realistically, not very high. From the academic point of view, we will be overjoyed if they can score As in English and Chinese taught in Mandarin.

The fault is not China's. It's not the immigrants' either.

China is the world's most populous nation. She is gaining strength and her people are easing away from its bursting seams to seek their fortunes elsewhere. For the same reason, we are seeing more and more Indians living overseas.

As we prepare ourselves for the move back to Singapore, I wonder what changes to expect in our home country. Now it seems that my concerns aren't so different from New Yorkers'. Looking at the comments left on this story, Chinese in Seattle, LA and other parts of the world are thinking the same thoughts.

PS I think it was last week when I read a story on NYT about Chinese in NY debating whether traditional or simplified Chinese should be taught in schools.

PPS This summer, a South American classmate D asked if Singapore is a part of China. I explained that Singapore is mid-way between China and Australia. That's how far away the two places are from each other.