On August 15, a Malay mat wrote in to the Forum page of Straits Times. Here's what he had to say :-

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Made to feel out of place

My wife and I headed down to Marina South to be part of the National Day Countdown, view the fireworks and soak in the atmosphere. We were there at about 11.15pm and some Chinese pop acts were performing and interacting with the crowd in Mandarin. The two MCs were also conversing almost totally in Mandarin.

Later, thankfully, some local acts performed some familiar National Day tunes in English. However, the MCs continued to interact with the crowd mostly in Mandarin.

It was frustrating to feel out of place at an event organised for all Singaporeans to celebrate our nation's birthday.

Rosli Abdullah

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On behalf of Stupidy of Humanity, here's an imagined reply from the organisers of the National Day countdown in conjunction with the Singapore Tourism Board :-

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Dear Mr Rosli,

We are sorry that you feel out of place, especially on the day where we celebrate the hard-earned success of our country on the backbone of our multi-racial forefathers. However, there is a sound rationale behind this *perceived travesty. We were concerned that there might be passing tourists from China who might not feel welcomed if they heard the MCs speaking in English.

As you know, China is one of the upcoming superpowers in the world and we must tap into the increasing awareness of its people of the new experiences that travelling brings. A concerned citizen wrote in to the Forum not too long ago, lamenting the number of puzzled Chinese tourists asking him for directions as they could not decipher our street and directional signs. He proposed putting up signs in Chinese in order not to alienate a big portion of our tourist trade.

We are also negotiating tweaking or changing completely names of popular places like Orchard Road and Little India, and landmarks like the Esplanade to avoid decreased tourist traffic to these areas in case the Chinese tourists find it difficult to pronounce these names to their taxi drivers. It would be a shame for them to miss out on any part of our beautiful country just because we were negligent in not catering to their needs.

A big pull in tourism is the warmth of the people. We are proud to say that Singaporeans in general, are friendly and hospitable. However, there is always room for improvement. One of the ideas being bandied about is the way we can form a bond with the Chinese tourists. If they can call us by our names comfortably, it will greatly diminish the barrier between strangers. We are still in the infant stages of discussing the feasibility of changing (or adding on to) the non-Chinese names of Singaporeans to be more tourist-friendly.

These same Singaporeans would also help greatly the cause of our proudly multi-racial island nation by taking up Mandarin lessons on their own. As Mr Albert Tye Choo Aik pointed out in his letter to us, this is by no means any form of discrimination although the Chinese majority in Singapore are ever so slightly advantaged given that they had picked up the Mandarin language since birth and need to spend less time, money and effort on it than their minority counterparts. Ultimately, picking up Mandarin will only enchance job prospects for the minorities, not to mention enhance racial understanding, as Mr Tye enlightened us.

We need to strongly emphasize that we are not racially-inclined to any particular people in any way. Every move we make is based on strengthening our economy and there are no other motivations. If the next batch of high-spending tourists were to come from Mars, we would advise all Singaporeans to be open to Martian curiosity and anal probings and to be prepared to paint their skins green to make the Martians feel at home here.

We believe that we have clarified our stand on the matter of your concern, Mr Rosli. We hope you come back to celebrate the National Day countdown with us next year when you have bettered upgraded yourself so that you are able to understand our MCs and will also be able to mingle more freely because of your newfound enhanced racial understanding.

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*Below is the letter with the mention of perceived discrimination from Straits Times, Aug 11:-

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Take a leaf from Mr Nathan's book

The article, "President taking Mandarin lessons" (ST, Aug 9), stated that Mr S R Nathan has been learning the language for the last five years, since becoming the second popularly elected President.

This was a pleasant surprise as he is already more than 80 years old. It serves to remind Singaporeans that learning is a life-long journey.

The feat is especially significant as it shows that he is going out of his way to reach out to the masses and strike up a rapport with them. What better way than to speak their language ?

Though President Nathan does not need to be proficient in the language to hold a job, he has demonstrated that acquiring a knowledge of Mandarin is important in the Singapore context. Whether to enhance one's job prospects or for racial understanding, a knowledge of Mandarin will definitely benefit the minorities.

I notice that many Indians, including some from India, are taking up Mandarin lessons on their own but, regrettably, the same cannot be said of Malays.

Shouldn't Malay community/political leaders take the lead and set an example for members of their community in the light of perceived discrimination, as highlighted by labour chief Lim Boon Heng ?

President Nathan's effort is well worth emulating.

Albert Tye Choo Aik

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A response came on the 13th Of August:-

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Use English when among minorities

I refer to Mr Albert Tye Choo Aik's letter, "Take a leaf from Mr Nathan's book" (ST, Aug 11). While it is true that interracial understanding may be improved if more minorities speak Mandarin, the same can be said of more Chinese speaking Bahasa Melayu or an Indian dialect.

Why does Mr Tye single out minorities and let us Chinese off the hook, just because we are the majority race ? The burden of cross-cultural communication should be shared equally in a pluralistic country like Singapore.

In fact, English was designated the official language precisely to facilitate interracial communication without requiring each person to know a mind-boggling number of languages.

While it would be very nice to see more Chinese Singaporeans learning to speak Bahasa, this may be too much to ask.

Instead, could we refrain from speaking Mandarin around those who do not understand it, and use English instead ?

Lim Xiuhui (Ms)

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I've a good mix of Chinese, Malay, Indian, Chinese/Malay, Indian/Chinese pals and we do fine in English. When nyonyas ask me for directions, we make do by pointing and gesturing. Not much of a problem, so far. Final thoughts, in Malay regrettably, as I myself have not picked up Mandarin well enough to effectively summarise my feelings as succinctly as in Bahasa.

To Ms Lim Xiuhui - wa caya sama lu :)
To Albert (kalau kau nak faham, belajar Bahasa sikit) - Pi mampos :B