Neil in the House
Neil Humphreys came to my school today to give his last speech cum autograph session before leaving Singapore for Australia, having lived on our island for the last ten years. Had always wanted to pick up his books after reading a chapter of his first book in Borders by standing in a corner and pretending to flip through it. Cheapskate, I know, but I never pretended I was rich. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised that they were selling his books with a 20% discount and coupled with the fact that I could get them autographed by the man himself, it was a done deal for me. You can see me looking very pleased with my purchases after Neil had signed them. Neil was looking very pleased himself, maybe due to the long snaking line queuing up for his autograph.
In his little talk that lasted for about an hour, he covered various topics like journalism (funny how his little sharing session has restored a little faith in me about working in the Singapore media industry), his experiences in our tropical island (the man is hilarious, and the situations unbelievable), and of course he touched on issues like how his permanent residence application got rejected after the authorities took offence with a certain article that he wrote for the Today newspaper. I guess it really takes an outsider, or Ang Moh in this case, to see things in a different light and from fresh perspectives, especially when it comes to topics that have been ingrained into our stream of consciousness so much that we are unable to see anything else.
His Singlish is wicked, by the way, for an Ang Moh. I was quite impressed by his pronunciation and syntax, not to mention timing of certain Singlish phrases. He must have said, “Steady, lah!” at least two times at just the right moments.
When he took a question from the floor about whether he had received any preferential treatment as a foreigner in Singapore, he gave us the straight answer: Yes. He went on to describe how the country seems to have this post-colonial hangover which basically meant that the white man must be right, no matter how dubious his background is. He also mentioned how despite his success in writing in Singapore, there was always the doubt that he made it due to his skin colour, which was one of the reasons why he was shipping of to Australia so as to, in a manner of speaking, “make it on his own”. Ironic that a white man had to tell us in our faces that this was what he noticed about us. Maybe he was really being very clever by appearing to be sincere so we would buy more of his books, but upon reflection there is no escaping the truth in his words. Those words seem to ring ever more ominously what with the recent announcement that we are opening up our doors to welcome more foreign talent than ever.
The recent MOE initiative to attract “native speakers” of English to come to our shores to teach comes to mind. After all, being a native speaker of English is not enough, it seems like it is equally important to pick the right country. It seems to me that with the declining population being a major problem hanging over our heads, we are adopting a stance that anyone foreign will inevitably do the job better than us. I’m guessing it manifests from the fact we feel that none of what is in Singapore is original, and whatever that comes from the supposed place of origin will be better than what we can find here. So Ang Mohs will inevitably speak better English than us because they spoke it first. Apple Ipods will always be better than Creative Zen players because Creative is just trying to ride on the success of Apple. Local movies will always suck, because we’ll never be able to reach the pinnacle of excellence that is Hollywood, never mind the fact that local movies are usually about telling stories about Singapore. The list just goes on.
Anyway, back to the topic of native speakers, I guess this video says it better than I do. If you have no idea what the hell Eagle Eye just said in the above paragraph, have no fear! Just watch this extremely funny video.
Indignation 2006 - TCP - Ruby Pan
In his little talk that lasted for about an hour, he covered various topics like journalism (funny how his little sharing session has restored a little faith in me about working in the Singapore media industry), his experiences in our tropical island (the man is hilarious, and the situations unbelievable), and of course he touched on issues like how his permanent residence application got rejected after the authorities took offence with a certain article that he wrote for the Today newspaper. I guess it really takes an outsider, or Ang Moh in this case, to see things in a different light and from fresh perspectives, especially when it comes to topics that have been ingrained into our stream of consciousness so much that we are unable to see anything else.
His Singlish is wicked, by the way, for an Ang Moh. I was quite impressed by his pronunciation and syntax, not to mention timing of certain Singlish phrases. He must have said, “Steady, lah!” at least two times at just the right moments.
When he took a question from the floor about whether he had received any preferential treatment as a foreigner in Singapore, he gave us the straight answer: Yes. He went on to describe how the country seems to have this post-colonial hangover which basically meant that the white man must be right, no matter how dubious his background is. He also mentioned how despite his success in writing in Singapore, there was always the doubt that he made it due to his skin colour, which was one of the reasons why he was shipping of to Australia so as to, in a manner of speaking, “make it on his own”. Ironic that a white man had to tell us in our faces that this was what he noticed about us. Maybe he was really being very clever by appearing to be sincere so we would buy more of his books, but upon reflection there is no escaping the truth in his words. Those words seem to ring ever more ominously what with the recent announcement that we are opening up our doors to welcome more foreign talent than ever.
The recent MOE initiative to attract “native speakers” of English to come to our shores to teach comes to mind. After all, being a native speaker of English is not enough, it seems like it is equally important to pick the right country. It seems to me that with the declining population being a major problem hanging over our heads, we are adopting a stance that anyone foreign will inevitably do the job better than us. I’m guessing it manifests from the fact we feel that none of what is in Singapore is original, and whatever that comes from the supposed place of origin will be better than what we can find here. So Ang Mohs will inevitably speak better English than us because they spoke it first. Apple Ipods will always be better than Creative Zen players because Creative is just trying to ride on the success of Apple. Local movies will always suck, because we’ll never be able to reach the pinnacle of excellence that is Hollywood, never mind the fact that local movies are usually about telling stories about Singapore. The list just goes on.
Anyway, back to the topic of native speakers, I guess this video says it better than I do. If you have no idea what the hell Eagle Eye just said in the above paragraph, have no fear! Just watch this extremely funny video.
Indignation 2006 - TCP - Ruby Pan
posted by Eagle Eye at 9:40 AM
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