Open-mindedness or to drop out!

“一间房，两张床，两种语言，两个思想，两个不同的世界。
一个根，两个文化，多重冲击。”
“One Room, Two Beds, Two Languages, Two Thinking, Two Diverse Worlds;
One Root, Two Cultures with Multiple Crisscrosses”

IN summing up the three current blogs relating to Chinese language, I hold no hesitation to say that being a Malaysian Chinese I’m proud for being able to master my mother tongue since young.

In the first blog, it was mentioned that I preferred English and Bahasa than Mandarin in my secondary school, mostly because my command of Mandarin was rather poor as compared to other peers at the time and hence I never knew how to appreciate the latter. The scenario however was totally changed when I first stepped out from my hometown to further my study in PJ. My love and appreciation towards Mandarin were escalating when I was first assigned to tutor some students, including non-Chinese to learn elementary Mandarin and, worth to mention, I was really touched by their enthusiasm to stay back after school solely to brush up Mandarin; therefore, in comparison, I am really grateful as I was bestowed the opportunity to learn my mother tongue since young. In fact this wasn’t their fault either (for not learning Mandarin) because the final say was with their parents. From my observation, they really hoped to master the language, not of the rising powers and mounting influences of China in today’s world, but it is because Mandarin has become a common language among local Chinese community.

Be that as it may, as mentioned in the subsequent blogs entitled “Too Chinese!” and “Crashes between Cultures”, it’s to be reminded that we shouldn’t feel over-complacent by the fact that we know Mandarin. Because the reality is, at least in Malaysia, no matter how good your Mandarin and Bahasa is, English is still the most important and useful tool in our daily life. Be clear, I refer, not only to the language itself but also the 'cultures’ related to and derived from English, including the musics, movies, books and thinking. There are plenty of differences between Chinese-educated and English-educated people, albeit we all are Chinese, particularly in the ways how we perceive things, as we’ve been exposed to two different languages and cultures altogether, e.g. via newspapers and TV programmes, when we were still young.

In my opinion it’s really hard, or it might be a miracle, to require the English-educated’s to change; and hence WHY NOT we Chinese-educated people learn to get used to them, for engaging into their ways of life, learning English language and also other related cultures thereof, then only we’re able to be in the same wavelength with them and understand them better.

This HOWEVER doesn’t mean (emphasis added) we surrender to their superiority; instead we’re flexible and elastic that we can master, accept and embrace both the Chinese and English cultures with open arms. We cannot cope with these disparities arising from the crashes between two different influences UNLESS AND UNTIL we open up our mind to adopt new things, new cultures, new languages and new mindsets while at the same time we uphold our root, viz to learn Mandarin and preserve our culture. It’s accentuated that learning English and other cultures is not a zero-game that by learning and accepting them would dilute our Chineseness!!!

Open-mindedness is the key to success, so let’s us open up our mind, for not only reading Chinese books, watching Chinese movies, listening Chinese music, but also those of the ENGLISH and MALAY at the same time. Friends, we should not live under the cocoon of Chinese world only, too, we should widen our horizon to see and meet the world outside.

I’m now ‘struggling’ for that; or should I call it ‘striving’ instead? The process is never easy but we have to JiaYou (加油) & JiaBaJingr (加把劲儿).

Last word to mention, for my English-educated friends, you guys need to buck up as well because English is no longer the only passport or panacea in today’s flat world and in fact it’s never rugi to learn one more language and comprehend one more culture, particularly if it’s your root and origin.

And it’s inappropriate to name English-educated Chinese ‘Banana’ because some of them are not much less 'Chinese’ than us though they never learn Mandarin before; conversely some might be much ‘Chinese’ (than us) in term of preserving the traditions and cultures. Yet, I don’t deny there exist some who are much like an Englishman, apathy to their own root and origin. Nevertheless the fact is we all come from the same family though differ in some aspects of life, for which the derogatory metaphor ‘Banana’ should then be discarded.