according to this lady on straits time forum


'Hua Yu cool'? No, boorish Mandarin-speaking youths spoil the image

I can attest that Mr Peter Donkin's observations of young Singaporeans are true. I have many negative opinions of young Singaporeans too, despite being a youth myself.

My observations of inconsiderate behaviour among young Singaporeans almost always involve the Mandarin-speakers. While not implying that all Mandarin-speaking youths are rotten (nor are all English-speaking youth angels), an overwhelmingly large group of offenders are observed to be from this group.

This seems to stem from the Chinese school of thought which advocates 'If I don't take, I lose out' and 'If others can do it, so can I, otherwise I lose out', among other factors.

Before anyone takes offence at my discrimination, go on a MRT ride across the island first, and my theory will come to life.

On a train ride from Jurong East to City Hall last month, I saw three groups of Mandarin-speaking youths huddled with their handphones playing Chinese songs at full blast.

The three groups were in the same cabin. It was terrible. One couple left the cabin for another because they couldn't take the racket.

Many people glared at the youths. A girl from one of the groups declared in Mandarin and English 'Wa, wo men hen attract attention leh!', which translates to 'Wow, we are attracting a lot of attention!'.

Was she thinking that people saw her group as 'cool' just because her handphone played MP3 music and they were the latest Mandopop hits? I was outraged at the inconsiderate behavior.

The Mandarin-speaking Singaporean youths also seem to ignore rules that make the world an orderly place. For example, they ignore repeated reminders to keep to the left on escalators. They also ignore the markings that serve to allow passengers on trains to alight first.

A Malaysian classmate who recently visited Thailand spoke of how gracious the people there were, and their good etiquette on the train.

Step into a shop and you will notice that the Mandarin-speakers are rude to service staff and they never say 'please' or 'thank you'.

Based on their interactions with my peers, they take offence easily,

yet they have no qualms about being sarcastic and rude to foreign teachers.

Many young litterbugs are also Mandarin-speaking youths. When I visited Melbourne some months back, I was greatly impressed at the clean streets. I saw everyone putting their litter into bins, and there were no cleaners around.
While many Mandarin-speaking youths are nice on a personal level, their mentality can manifest the antisocial behaviour that I have mentioned.

My friends and I belong to the minority English-speaking group and we are ashamed to speak in Mandarin in public. No, we are not elites, just normal teenagers.

Unless the association of bad behaviour with Mandarin-speaking youths can be negated, 'Hua Yu Cool' isn't going to work on us anytime soon.

Ang Lixing

da bi-tch is a fu-cking potato who thinks mandarin is a language spoken by low class people!!!

...

Haiz...

*slaps forehead*

The problem with that young lady is that she can't see that boorish behaviour has totally nothing to do with speaking Mandarin.

I would have to say that although it is not fair to lump all mandarin-speaking Chinese into a single noisy category, such situations do exist.

Let's just call it the Ah Beng and Ah Lian phenomenon.

Having said that, it's not exclusive to them either, because you will see some Malay youths blasting their music too.

I've not seen English-educated chaps doing so on the trains though.But these are my personal observations.

hmm....seems to me that there are a lot of people (esp teens) in singapore who think that mandarin is un-cool maybe im wrong...maybe its just the people that i happen to mix with...but most of the teens i know in singapore boast about their lousy mandarin
as though failing or barely passing it is something to be proud about

oh right....and usually the same group also thinks that all 'ang-mo' countries and people are better

Originally posted by fudgester:

*slaps forehead*

The problem with that young lady is that she can't see that boorish behaviour has totally nothing to do with speaking Mandarin.

Precisely.

You'd see much more boorish behavior Down Under too.

Every group has it's teenage angst.

that lady is a banana what's wrong in speaking our own mother tongue?

Originally posted by udontknowme:

oh right....and usually the same group also thinks that all 'ang-mo' countries and people are better

there is no big deal about ang mos,some come here think they are the sh-it and try to bully us,but if you show them you are not to be trifled with,they become like mice...

Originally posted by toll123:

that lady is a banana what's wrong in speaking our own mother tongue?

Ahem, no banana bashing here ah.

There's nothing wrong. It's the antisocial behavior that's the problem, just that the writer fails to see that. However, I'd put her in the JC age group, where she still lacks the ability to draw a fair, comparative estimate based on her observations.

If I were to stretch this a bit further, maybe it's plausible to link a lack of good social mannerisms and upbringing with the education level of their families, so there is a statistical chance that it would skew such behavior to more mandarin-speaking households.

Now this is just an estimate, so please do not flame me. You'd have to get a sociologis t to do a study on this.

Originally posted by Marco_Simone:

there is no big deal about ang mos,some come here think they are the sh-it and try to bully us,but if you show them you are not to be trifled with,they become like mice...

maybe its those that you have came across...all those whom ive met were nice people
aiyah...all are humans anyways...

Originally posted by LazerLordz:

Precisely.

You'd see much more boorish behavior Down Under too.

Every group has it's teenage angst.

Yeah...

Using that kid's twisted logic, we can attribute the boorish behaviour of those Aussie punks you saw to their use of Australian English.

Personally I'm also against the antics of Mats and Minahs who make a fool of themselves in public, screw up their own lives and smear the name of the Malay race while they're at it.

However, to attribute their antics to the usage of the Malay language is one huge fallacy which I'm not going to do.

This kid needs a lot of growing up to do.

Originally posted by udontknowme:

maybe its those that you have came across...all those whom ive met were nice people
aiyah...all are humans anyways...

Ya I know,actually most ang mos are quite friendly 1 especially those I encountered in their home countries.

In 2003 in the aftermath of England Rugby World Cup win,I almost picked up a fight with an unruly ang mo at boat quay,fu-cker backed down...

what has mandarin-speaking got to do with one's behaviour? i am sure there are non-chinese-speaking people who exhibit inconsiderate behaviour too.

knn, i will really be ashamed if i were in any way related to her.

Originally posted by LazerLordz:

Ahem, no banana bashing here ah.

There's nothing wrong. It's the antisocial behavior that's the problem, just that the writer fails to see that. However, I'd put her in the JC age group, where she still lacks the ability to draw a fair, comparative estimate based on her observations.

If I were to stretch this a bit further, maybe it's plausible to link a lack of good social mannerisms and upbringing with the education level of their families, so there is a statistical chance that it would skew such behavior to more mandarin-speaking households.

Now this is just an estimate, so please do not flame me. You'd have to get a sociologis t to do a study on this.

probably from an elite jc and an elite family to boot.Sometimes I really think these people are mountain tortoises or frog in the well...

WTF! Mandarin speaking ppl sucks!?!

son of a b|itch insulting my parents! N NOT TO MENTION ME!

mandarin isn’t low class, singlish is.

Originally posted by Marco_Simone:

probably from an elite jc and an elite family to boot.Sometimes I really think these people are mountain tortoises or frog in the well...

they need to go out and see the world...

then perhaps they will realize how impt it is to know their own mother tongue well...

and by going out to see the world, i dont mean going on tours and staying in 5 star hotels and such
stay and live as the common locals do...

Originally posted by dragg:

what has mandarin-speaking got to do with one's behaviour? i am sure there are non-chinese-speaking people who exhibit inconsiderate behaviour too.

knn, i will really be ashamed if i were in any way related to her.

She will say the same thing about mats and Indian ah bengs if she come across them.

In her world view,she will think:"ENGLAND is the most powerful,other languages are spoken by lowly life forms..."

Originally posted by Marco_Simone:

probably from an elite jc and an elite family to boot.Sometimes I really think these people are mountain tortoises or frog in the well...

Nope, but if you hang out with your own kentang crowd most of your life, and you don't really mix around with the mando-crowd, you'd definitely mistake those noisy ones as a representation of the whole group.

I never did mix around with mandarin speaking people till I was in NS. And it took me a while to get around, but I managed to see that we are no different from each other, and that language is just a means of communication, and does not usually impact on behavior most of the time..

Originally posted by Cenarious:

mandarin isn't low class, singlish is.

Singlish isn't low class at all. It is our identity, a product of post-colonial resistance. Mai sng sng ah...

Many young litterbugs are also Mandarin-speaking youths. When I visited Melbourne some months back, I was greatly impressed at the clean streets. I saw everyone putting their litter into bins, and there were no cleaners around.

read this again.

what has littering got to do with the language spoken? obviously she thinks that ang-mos dont litter.

so its about the skin colour and not the language.

LOL That post is beyond dumb

there is something i feel our education sys or modern days screw up the use of language. whoever coming wif wif the rojak shogun 'Hua Yu Cool!' (noticed the mixture of chinese n english) need to be shot!

nowaday mandarin songs is like 60% in chinese words whereas 40% mixture of hip-hop english lyrics.

for ABC singers like wang lihong n jay chou wrote songs wif mixture of lyrics will send wrong messages to fools dat make them believe dat is cool. ?

it's no wonder why the writer has dat kinda impression of these kids today. but i feel she is wrong making dat assume dat all chinese speaking pple are ah bengs/lians.

Originally posted by dragg:
[b]Many young litterbugs are also Mandarin-speaking youths. When I visited Melbourne some months back, I was greatly impressed at the clean streets. I saw everyone putting their litter into bins, and there were no cleaners around.

read this again.

what has littering got to do with the language spoken? obviously she thinks that ang-mos dont litter.

so its about the skin colour and not the language.

[/b]

Little kids are ignorant. And they think they know it all.

This is what I call a lack of intellect.