we are all the same

It's strange to see how exchange students in Singapore are also bidding their goodbyes there too. I saw my friend tagged in an exchange student's album which had photos of everyday Singapore --- CBD skyscrapers, Clarke Quay at night, reverse bungee, Orchard Road (with the horrible Christmas lights this year what were they thinking?!), ERP signs (lol that was funny), sights of school (it was NTU but well they all look the same and eek it reminds me of what I don't wanna go back to), the blue, blue sky and of course, the crazy partying that exchange students always engage in. It's nice to see how these Caucasians are so zealous about Asia, talking about visiting places like Cambodia next time (or perhaps already done that), like how we are passionate about traveling around Europe.

It's strange because that is exactly what we are doing now. Taking photos of everyday life here, a moment captured into eternity, that single instant froze and etched into memory, building memories of these beautiful times that we had here.

Anyway, I've been chiong-ing readings for the exam this Friday. I've been reading so much at such a fast pace (ok fine I scan through a lot too hehe) I don't think anything goes in. But the thing is, what we have been wondering is that, the rest of the exchange students are really zai because they are studying in their second language, whereas we are studying in our first. We have always learnt in English so studying all these is easier for us than for them. It's like us studying globalization and psychological processes in Chinese (like omg). Therefore we have always wondered how they do it, you know, do all of these readings in their second language, because even we have difficulties understanding the concepts and the sentences already, because it really is quite difficult. Have to re-read some parts. But I think people like the Swedes and Germans, their English is really very good, and I think it's great that they have their own language as well. That's why I think Singaporeans can only claim to be proud of their bilingualism and nothing else (maybe trilingualism since most of us know a third language like Malay/Teochew/Hokkien/Cantonese/Japanese whatever). We have no native language; it's not quite right to say that we are not as "chinese" as the mainland Chinese, because we are in fact Chinese, although we are not that Chinese, if you get what I'm trying to say. And it's also not quite apt to say that English is our native language because you can't compare us with the Britons and Americans and Australians because it just does not fit that the native language of Singaporeans is English, get what I mean? Therefore and yet Chinese is our mother-tongue (and Malay for Malays and so on) and that is something we cannot deny, and something that we must acknowledge because if not, our heritage will be so gradually diluted that in the years to come as the youth today speak less and less Mandarin we will have no heritage to speak of. Language is of course not the only element of heritage but it does form a significant part of it. It's not about Mandarin becoming more and more obsolete because every average Singaporean can speak English. In light of globalization, if English becomes more and more widely spoken and used throughout the world, wouldn't all native languages become obsolete then? It's a lamentable trend that the youth nowadays associate speaking and learning Mandarin as uncool and useless and whatnot because just being able to speak English today is nothing already, it's just not enough. And when you can't even hold a decent conversation in Chinese when your race/ethnicity in your IC claims/states that you are Chinese, I think it's a sad fact. (No offence to friends who dislikes and cannot really speak Chinese, I still love you k hehe). Like what the Swedish language lecturer said in her first lecture, that the Swedes are proud of their language and they want to increase the number of people speaking it because right now there are only 9 million people (the population of Sweden) speaking it. And it's evident because although almost everyone can speak English here, they use Swedish everywhere and most of the time don't even bother putting English translations.

Ah, anyway, back to my readings :/





When we are through building memories, I will hold yesterday in my heart, in my heart.