Decades after the government almost fully eradicated the use of Chinese ‘dialects’, they are now bemoaning the fact that most Chinese Singaporeans simply don’t have much competence in or passion for Mandarin.
For me, Mandarin is as far away a language as say, Korean. I speak Mandarin and read Chinese because I was made to do it, but it might as well be Korean.
Malay has much more cultural relevance to me than Mandarin. My ‘mother tongue’ is not Mandarin even though I’ve been told that it is (it’s Teochew).
Also we don’t have great Chinese teachers.
