Celebrate dialects!

Lately, there has been a squabble of sorts concerning the death of dialects in Singapore.  It also drew a letter from someone in the Minister Mentor’s office.  This letter included the very strong word, stupid.  Now, this is a word that I have barred Little Guy from using (at least, for now, at this young age).  But I thought that the letter to The Straits Times Forum page need not have to be so emotional and rude.  Here is the stupid (I meant it literally too!)quote:

It would be stupid for any Singapore agency or NTU to advocate the learning of dialects, which must be at the expense of English and Mandarin.

Now, I think this is an over-reaction.  We don’t need people to be learning dialects in schools or other institutions.  What is the harm of screening some movies, drama serials or advertisements in dialect?  It adds to the diversity of our culture.  And dialects have a place here and have to be kept alive.  What better ways than through the media?

I’ve come across kids (and I’m sure you have too) – who ask what that auntie or uncle is saying, why do they sound so strange, etc, etc, and these kids actually laugh at what they hear (but do not understand).  This is a shame, because dialects are not funny and they have to do with these kids’ ancestries.

We need to create awareness and not lose sight of our ancestry, and our dialects are a big part of this.

Would the Minister Mentor and his people be happy if we become effectively bilingual in languages that do not belong to us, and in the process, lose our own languages?

So I say, let’s go out there now, order our food in Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese and whatever dialects we have.  Banter with your kids and friends in dialect – learn different dialects from each other too!

Celebrate our dialects, before we lose them!

 

Use your brains, Mum…

Young kids like Little Guy are very ‘literal’ – they interpret words as they are, don’t understand sarcasms or insinuations, and much less, rhetorical questions.

Take for instance this episode that occurred last Sunday evening.  Big Guy was munching on some fish crackers.

Little Guy:  Mummy, can I have some fish crackers?

Me:       No, you just finished eating a piece of Twiggies.

If you eat fish crackers now, how are you going to

eat your dinner later, huh?

 

Little Guy:  With my mouth.

If only ‘duh!’ was in his vocabulary and if only he knew how to roll his eyes!  He must think that Mum must be very dim to ask such a ‘duh!’ question.

Another incident happened last year, a month before he turned three years old.  Little Guy sometimes wakes up crying in the night because of bad dreams.  He still does that occasionally.  When that happens, he will always ask to sleep with Big Guy and me for the rest of the night.

Well, on this occasion, I comforted him by carrying him in my arms.  When he had quietened down and before he could point in the direction of my bedroom, I asked him,

Do you want Mummy to sleep with you?

To my surprise, with his eyes closed and head on my chest, he shook his head.  I thought that was strange, and so decided to ask again, this time, slightly differently,

Do you want to sleep with Mummy?

This time, he nodded.  So I consolidated the two questions,

You don’t want Mummy to sleep with you but you want to sleep with Mummy?

He nodded again. 

So it was clear now – to him, the first question referred to me sleeping with him in his room, while the second meant that he sleeps with me in my room.

It was a lesson on the importance of communicating correctly (at least to ‘literal-minded’ people).  We have to be mindful of the words we use and how we use them (word order, emphasis, etc).

I’m always reminded about this incident when I pass by this restaurant whose signboard reads:

San Katong Laksa Steamboat Seafood Restaurant 

How did the owner decide on the order of the three words Laksa, Steamboat and Seafood?  If you switch them around, will the meaning be different?  Will it affect your decision in dining there?

Bringing up Little Guy has sure opened my eyes and mind to many things that I’ve taken for granted.  Sometimes, it’s a humbling experience.

I don’t look forward to the day when he’ll learn to say ‘duh!’ and roll his eyes at the same time!

 

What am I?

Seven-and-a-half months after I quit my job to stay at home (‘to get happy again’ as I wrote in my farewell e-mail), I still have great difficulty putting down housewife as my occupation.

It’s not that I despise housewives or anything, but I find the term just too archaic.  It doesn’t really describe what I do.  Yes, I do the chores (wash, cook, clean and iron) and make sure Big Guy and Little Guy get what they need, physically and emotionally.  But these do not take up all of my time.

Hey, I’m now blogging from L7 at the National Library!  (Oh, yes, gotta be home in time to cook dinner!)

Another term I could use to describe my occupation is homemaker - but the definition of it is exactly the same as that of housewife.  So no, I’m no homemaker.

I’ve pondered over this and thought maybe I could use these:

• part-time writer – after all, I did submit a couple of articles to an online writers’ website… hmm… maybe not, as a couple of articles don’t a writer make.
• blogger – just started blogging last month, but although it’s become a very interesting aspect of my life, it’s more of a pre-occupation than an occupation.  I’m certainly no xiaxue or mr brown!
• freelance transcriber – I did quite many transcriptions for a couple of academic researchers (sourced thru’ Facebook).  But I’ve since taken a break from it, as it’s time-consuming and the pay was pathetic (I only like the fact that I could actually ‘eavesdrop’ without getting into trouble).
• unemployed – this sounds depressing.  But I have used it with glee several times.  When irritating credit card/line telemarketers call, I just need to say that I’m unemployed and they thank me apologetically and hang up!  Hehehe!
• internet researcher – I like this one as I really do a lot of ‘research’ on the net.  I watch YouTube videos, read news on foreign news websites, check out other people’s blogs, do online shopping and selling, give or ask for advice on forums, monitor and trade stocks, etc, etc.  This keeps me busy for half the day, at least.

Hmm… so what am I?  Ok, maybe I’ll check up on the definition of occupation first.  The Merriam-Webster online dictionary describes it as the principal business of one’s life – doesn’t really help me at all.  Given that I spend half of each day on myself – usually in front of my computer, and the other half on ‘maidly’, motherly and ‘wifely’ duties, what’s my principal business then?

Maybe I can give myself one of those cum-cum title.  So it could be internet researcher-cum-blogger-cum-maid-cum-wife-cum-mother-cum-etc?  Quite a mouthful, isn’t it? 

Perhaps I can just put undefinable under under Occupation?

I think somebody should come up with a new term, pronto!

 

 

I feel privileged…

I went to the Tangs card members preview sale at Tangs’ VivoCity branch yesterday.  I did not really read the flyer that they sent me.  When I got there, I realized it was a closed door sale.  Now, how cool is that?

They literally closed all the entrances except for the main one.  I had to show my Tangs Citibank credit card to get in.  Yes, I realize this may be a first for me but not for other people - ‘cos I used to be a working girl and did not have the time to make use of such privileges.  So this suaku auntie lapped it all up.

I felt really privileged to have the first pick at the items on sale.  The store was quite empty except for others like me.  It was a great shopping experience.

This ‘privileged’ feeling got me thinking about how privileged I really was – not only at Tangs, but in other aspects of my life.

I feel privileged:

• to be able to choose not to work (for half a year now), without having to worry financially (and to be able to leave my crappy boss who was ruining my mental health)
• to have a cheeky little son who sometimes leave me speechless and breathless
• to have Big Guy and his support (we celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary this month!)
• to be able to sit here and blog about sometimes frivolous stuff (people say, so free is it?  eat full too free?!  Take photos of rubbish bins?!  Hey, it’s my privilege!  You can or not, har?)
• to be able to do anything I want, think about anything I want or not do anything at all!
• to be able to cook decent meals for my family (ok, ok, it’s hot and sweaty in the kitchen and housework sucks!)
• to be so comfy here at home wearing whatever I want
• simply to be here in Singapore right now (given all the terrible news about earthquakes and cyclones)

I feel privileged about many other little things.  Thank God for them!

 

Half-full or Half-empty?

I guess I’m a ‘half-empty’ type of person.  The many years in the corporate world had turned me (and some of my ex-colleagues) into cynical and sceptical people.  So we functioned in negative mode.  It all got too much for me and so I freed myself from the chains last year.  I have never felt better since. 

I think I’ve yet to correct myself – back to ‘positivity’, as the following experience with Little Guy shows.

Little Guy at 3 years of age told me that he doesn’t want me to grow old.  The first time he said it, I went, ‘Awwww… how sweet’.  But then he had gone on to say this many times since then.  I was getting worried, ‘cos he had said that he didn’t want to grow old too.

I thought the cause of his phobia was my mum, his grandma, who has grown very frail of late.  She had also been in and out of hospital and is not very mobile.  I had explained to Little Guy that grandma is old.  This could be why he doesn’t want me to grow old.

At first I explained to him that everyone grows old, even him.   He would ask ‘why?’, and I would explain that it is the cycle of life.  Of course he can’t grasp the concept yet.  In order not to alarm him any further, each time he said ‘I don’t want you to grow old’, I would say ‘I will try’.

But then again, he gets very excited when I talk about his birthday.  I did tell him that he will grow older by 1 year each time he celebrates his birthday.  When he heard the word ‘older’, he would say, ‘I don’t want to grow old’!   Sheesh!  I thought there must be a better way to get through to him!

Then I remembered that he has been looking forward to growing up so that he can get on those rides in theme parks.

So I tried this on him:

Me:   Do you want to grow up?

Little Guy:  Yes!

Me:  So you don’t want to grow old but you want to grow up?

Little Guy:  Yes mummy.

That was sort like a ‘eureka!’ moment for me.  Why didn’t I think of that before?!  I really have to adjust back to being more positive – now that there are no more bad bosses for me to gripe about and no more shitty work.

Only this sunshiny Little Guy.

I have much to learn… let in the sunshine!