Bond breakers

A couple of months ago, I was asked by a professor J in the office building to review the credentials of a graduate school applicant X from my alma mater, the National University of Singapore. X is a 4th year Electrical and Computer Engineering student and should have completed his studies by now. Prof. J handed me the dossier file containing X's application materials - his transcript, resume, statement, recommendation letters, etc. I went through all of them. His application was pretty solid. Straight A's in his engineering classes according to his transcript. Top 5 in his cohort, said one of his professors in his recommendation letters. I don't even know why Prof. J asked me to look over his application.

Then, I noticed that X was from the PRC. More specifically, X is an MOE scholarship holder (as stated in his resume), the kind that is obliged to serve out his/her bond in Singapore for 6 years after graduation in exchange for a tax-money sponsored university education in Singapore. What on earth was he doing, applying to go to graduate school in the US immediately after graduation when he has signed a 6-year contract with the MOE? As far as I know, the bond does not allow its signee to undertake any postgraduate studies overseas unless he/she obtains Singapore citizenship. If the ECE department accepts X's application, there is no way they will defer his entry for 6 years. So, the only logical conclusion is that X is going to break his bond and come to the US for graduate school. Applying to graduate school is not cheap and something you do on a whim as it involves doing the GRE, TOEFl and getting people to write recommendation letters.

The irony is, for people like X who will probably 'break' his bond and mind you, not fulfill the terms of his contract, i.e. not pay the financial penalty of not serving out his bond, the Singapore government will stay silent, very very silent. By letting someone like X go, at least 100 to 150 thousand dollars of Singaporeans' tax money spent subsidizing his eduction has gone down the drain. Where is the accountability so often trumpeted by our civil service?

On the other hand, in contrast, when one of our PSC/EDB scholars does not serve out his/her bond but pays back the money to the government, plus a little bit more, the national broadsheets scream bloody murder and an esteemed, very senior civil servant, who is more likely than not to be aware of MOE scholarships for people like X, threatens to award scholarships only to females and foreigners because they are supposedly less likely to break their bonds. (Guess what? Someone in this university, who used to be an undergraduate scholarship holder from the organization formerly chaired by the aforementioned civil servant, is a female non-Singaporean bond-breaker.) We have to bear in mind that the government is financially compensated in this case and terms of the contract are indeed fulfilled to the letter, whereas for people like X, there is a clear monetary loss.

The hypocrisy of it all...

Sunday Times: Making S'pore a 'brain gain' city

From the Sunday Times on 18 May 2008:

Making S'pore a 'brain gain' city
To stay ahead globally, Singapore - like many other countries - is trying to attract talent, but efforts will be hampered if locals don't welcome them
By Warren Fernandez, Deputy Editor

Imagine if you could read the minds of people around the world to fathom what they were thinking about most.

What do you think it would it be? Global warming and the dangers climate change poses for their children?

Rising oil prices? Rising food costs?

Democracy? Human rights? Freedom?

Family? Relationships? Sex?

Well, the international polling organisation Gallup sought to find out with its first World Poll. It bills this as a 'window into the minds of six billion people in over 140 countries', or 95 per cent of the world's adult population.

And the answer?

'What the whole world wants is a good job,' Gallup chairman and chief executive officer Jim Clifton wrote in an article titled 'Global Migration Patterns and Job Creation', published last October.

'That is one of the single biggest discoveries Gallup has ever made...

'If you and I were walking down the street in Khartoum, Teheran, Berlin, Lima, Los Angeles, Baghdad, Kolkata or Istanbul, we would discover that on most days the single most dominant thought carried around the heads of most people you and I see is, 'I want a good job'.

'It is the new current state of mind, and it establishes our relationship with our city, our country and the whole world around us.'

Now this might well seem blindingly obvious, hardly something you need to poll six billion people to discover. After all, didn't then prime minister Goh Chok Tong declare in 2001 that the election then was all about 'jobs, jobs, jobs'?

Gallup's Mr Clifton, however, believes the discovery is 'game changing', to borrow one of Mrs Hillary Clinton's pet phrases.

Writing in the Gallup Management Journal, he argues: 'Humans used to desire love, money, food, shelter, safety and/or peace of mind more than anything else. The last 25 years have changed us. Now we want to have a good job.

'This changes everything for world leaders. Everything they do - from waging war to building societies - will need to be done within the new context of the human need for 'good jobs'...

'Everything leaders do must consider this new global state of mind, lest they put their cities and countries at risk.'

This too will sound familiar in Singapore, where the economic imperative has always been primary. Only in recent years have other concerns such as the need to boost creativity and enterprise, encourage environmental sustainability and strike a work-life balance gained in importance, without quite displacing economic priorities.

But the significance of the Clifton thesis lies in his view that in the face of the new global state of mind, countries and cities will have to compete for what he calls 'brain gain' to stay ahead.

'Brain gain is the 'big-bang' theory of economic development. The challenge leaders face is how to trigger brain gain in their cities,'' he adds, referring to a society's ability to draw talented people, whose exceptional abilities and knowledge have a sort of multiplier effect on its economy.

He calls such people 'stars'. By this he does not just mean intellectually bright people, but includes innovators, entrepreneurs, superstars (like brand-name chefs, architects, musicians, actors and artists) and super-mentors (political leaders, philanthropists and others who take on the challenge of developing their communities).

The more of these stars a city or country can attract and keep, the better its prospects.

The United States, he notes, has streaked ahead of Japan and Germany - which many pundits said in the 1980s would soon rule the world - because it has been singularly successful at drawing such stars from around the world.

Similarly, those predicting that China's economic juggernaut would edge past the US before long might be 'colossally wrong' as they fail to factor in the big unknown - whether China is politically and socially prepared to be a talent magnet like the US.

Singapore, with its long history of immigration, going back right to its founding in 1819, is the quintessential 'brain gain' city. It has always drawn in people from the region with the wit and the will to create a better life for themselves and their families, and in the process, for the wider community too.

In recent years, Singapore has been experiencing another wave of 'brain gain' with many more stars heading here, giving the place an even more cosmopolitan feel.

This point was brought home to me last Sunday evening, as I watched a video of a recent trip by my wife and her father to his ancestral village in Chaozhou, in southern China.

It was his first visit since he had journeyed to Singapore in the 1930s as a seven-year-old boy. Taking in the scenes of the village, reminiscent of Singapore in the 1960s and 1970s, you could not help but be struck by how very differently life would have turned out for him and his family had he not made that fateful boat trip.

Later, he met and married a fellow Teochew here, and they had five children. My mother-in-law often recounts how she climbed over the school gates in the wee hours of the morning just to make sure that her daughters got a place in a good English-speaking mission school, which laid the foundation for their successful careers today.

Yet, their story is by no means unique. Just about every family in Singapore has a similar tale. It is the Singapore story, of migrants heading to this island with big dreams, just as they continue to do to this day.

Given this backdrop, it never ceases to amaze me how strong the antipathy towards foreigners is among some Singaporeans. The issue continues to simmer and sour the ground, and is easily whipped up.

The latest incarnation of this is the angst over sweet young China waitresses giving beer-lady aunties in heartland kopitiams a run for their money.

Then, there is also the endless carping about the latest wave of immigrants filling service sector jobs although they struggle to speak English.

Let me ask a pointed question: Just what sets the Singaporean Chinese woman today apart from the 'China girls' some speak so condescendingly about other than the fact that the forebears of one got here earlier than the other?

And are those language snobs who lament in their choice Singlish that new immigrants cannot speak 'proper English' very different from the old colonialists who turned up their noses at the 'uncultured and uncouth' early immigrants - in other words, your parents and mine - to these shores?

Given our immigrant history, Singaporeans should really be more gracious, and show more compassion and understanding towards newcomers to the island, to help them settle in.

They don't speak English? Well, they will soon learn, as their children surely will.

Being open and embracing towards newcomers is not only the decent thing to do, but it might also be in our own self-interest.

As Mr Clifton puts it: 'Today's explorers migrate to the cities that are most likely to maximise innovation and entrepreneurial talents and skills. Wherever they can freely migrate is where the next economic empires will rise. San Francisco, Mumbai and Dublin have become hotbeds of job creation. This phenomenon has occurred in other hot cities from Austin to Boston and Seoul to Singapore.'

The Government will have to do its part to woo talent here, adding that critical buzz to the city, and tackling issues such as rising housing costs, lack of office space or school places. But these efforts alone will not be enough, unless Singaporeans make those drawn here feel welcome.

So the next time you feel like letting fly against the growing number of foreigners here, remember this - you and I are the products of an earlier wave of immigration and 'brain gain'.

warren@sph.com.sg

This is such a blatant one-sided piece of propaganda from one of the Straits Times' finest. I don't know where to start but as the Fox will be out of the house for the rest of the day, he shall postpone his comments on this article to a later time. There is certainly one thing we are sure of: someone knows which side his bread is buttered...

ST Forum: Speak English the way it should be spoken

From the Straits Times Forum (10 May 2008):

Speak English the way it should be spoken
I FIND that our spoken English and Mandarin in Singapore are appalling. However, what amazes me is that our Malay and Indian friends are speaking at least their mother tongue efficiently. Some are even competent in handling both English and Malay/Indian languages.

So are the Chinese learning languages the wrong way or does it have something to do with how we handle the two languages?

While working in China, I have come across people who handle two languages competently. Most naturally speak Mandarin well as it is their first language. However, many also speak English fluently enough and sometimes they put me to shame. I find that they learn most of their near-perfect spoken English from native teachers such as the Australians or Britons. Their level of competency in handling the spoken language is thus influenced greatly by their teachers.

I find that most Singaporeans can speak English and Chinese but at a basic level. Most could not express themselves well enough in either language, causing miscommunication along the way. Our Singlish is a disgrace and should never have being promoted, nor encouraged at all. It is often peppered with grammatical mistakes and our pronunciation is horrendous, to stay he least. We also dare not express ourselves too much as we have limited capacity to do so.

My Secondary Two daughter speaks Singlish often and tends to be lazy in the use of proper sentences. Moreover, she always ends her sentences with 'lah' or 'loh', making it sound like a mixture of Chinese and English when she adds Chinese phrases in between words. There is also no effort to pronounce words correctly. I am sure a Briton or Australian will not understand her style of spoken English.

Having also travelled around widely, I find that when I speak to the Australians or Americans, I tend to make an extra effort to speak properly and my Singlish disappears almost immediately.

However, when I return home, I switch back to improper English (Singlish) automatically and all my 'lahs' and 'lohs' come back to my sentences. I try my best not to speak Singlish but fail as most of my friends speak Singlish. They would laugh at me if I try to speak correctly.

Maybe we should hire proper native English teachers for our schools here to teach us the right way to speak English. It may take a long time for us to drop the 'lahs' or 'lohs' but it is definitely worth the time and effort invested.

Gilbert Goh

Hubei, China

I find it a little ironic that a letter which puts down Singlish and extolls the virtue of proper English is so riddled with spelling and grammatical mistakes. My guess is that the sub-editors in the ST deliberately left these mistakes uncorrected. Someone in the newsroom sure has a sense of humour... But let's not go there. Instead, why don't we examine the arguments put up by this Gilbert Goh person.

1. I find that our spoken English and Mandarin in Singapore are appalling. However, what amazes me is that our Malay and Indian friends are speaking at least their mother tongue [sic] efficiently. Some are even competent in handling both English and Malay/Indian languages.

Actually, the usage of Indian languages (Tamil, Punjabi, Malayalam, etc) amongst Indian Singaporeans is declining and being eroded by English/Singlish. From the Wikipedia article on Indian languages in Singapore,

Interestingly, about half of Indians in Singapore predominantly use a non-Indian language in the home. 39% spoke mainly English, in contrast to 28.1% nationally. This made English the most spoken language in Indian homes, by a small margin.

If anything, the proficiency of Indian Singaporeans in Indian languages is probably similar to that of Chinese Singaporeans in Chinese. In other words, most young Indian Singaporeans are more comfortable in Singlish/English than in their respective Indian mother tongues. Why should that be surprising? Both ethnic groups share the same linguistic environment; Singlish is much more prevalent than Tamil and Mandarin and English has far greater functionality in Singapore. I don't speak Tamil (because I'm of Chinese descent) and I get along fine in Singapore. Similarly, an Indian Singaporean can work and live in Singapore without knowing a word of Mandarin.

2. While working in China, I have come across people who handle two languages competently. Most naturally speak Mandarin well as it is their first language. However, many also speak English fluently enough and sometimes they put me to shame. I find that they learn most of their near-perfect spoken English from native teachers such as the Australians or Britons. Their level of competency in handling the spoken language is thus influenced greatly by their teachers.

I've live in the great US and A for the past three years and honestly speaking, most of the PRC nationals that I've encountered have a rather imperfect command of the language. Generally, their command of the language improves with time and many can attain a near-native or even native fluency in the language. However, I doubt that one can have 'near-perfect spoken English' without any kind of immersion in an English-speaking environment.

Also, I've spent some time in Shanghai before although that was almost 6 years ago. Don't bullshit me about PRC nationals with near-perfect spoken English.

3. I find that most Singaporeans can speak English and Chinese but at a basic level. Most could not express themselves well enough in either language, causing miscommunication along the way.

That's actually true. Most Singaporeans don't speak English and Chinese well. For example, many Indian and Malay Singaporeans have a rather poor command of Chinese. In fact, most of them don't speak it at all!

Seriously, Mr Gilbert Goh, Singaporeans =/= Chinese Singaporeans. Non-Chinese Singaporeans may find it offensive. Very offensive.

Are Chinese Singaporeans able to speak English and Chinese properly? Well, it's probably true that most of them can only speak the languages at a very basic level. What do you expect? Singlish is the lingua franca amongst a great number of Singaporeans, especially the young, and despite what you think, Singlish is a distinct language from English proper although it is largely derived from British English.

4. Our Singlish is a disgrace and should never have being promoted, nor encouraged at all. It is often peppered with grammatical mistakes and our pronunciation is horrendous, to stay he [sic] least. We also dare not express ourselves too much as we have limited capacity to do so.

Why should Singlish be a disgrace? I think Singaporeans generally speak perfect Singlish and can be very expressive in that language. Okay, so most Singaporeans can't speak English like Cheryl Fox or Arnold Gay. Why would you expect them to do so? Not everyone's a newscaster, you know.

Of course, having said that, this doesn't mean that Singaporeans cannot improve their English skills. Pronunciation is something that bugs me a lot and I believe that elocution is something that schools in Singapore should teach. It's just that you have to make the distinction between Singlish and English. They are two distinct languages. Singlish is not English with bad grammar. Mangle the grammar of English proper as you wish but you won't be able to reproduce Singlish. Singlish has its own grammatical rules which are, of course, different from those of English proper. There is no given reason why Singlish and English proper cannot co-exist in Singapore.

5. My Secondary Two daughter speaks Singlish often and tends to be lazy in the use of proper sentences. Moreover, she always ends her sentences with 'lah' or 'loh', making it sound like a mixture of Chinese and English when she adds Chinese phrases in between words. There is also no effort to pronounce words correctly. I am sure a Briton or Australian will not understand her style of spoken English.

Of course, a Briton or an Australian won't understand your daughter's Singlish. She's speaking Singlish, not English proper. Duh! Most non-Australians wouldn't be able to understand Broad Australian either. I've lived in Australia and trust me, Broad Australian is not easy to understand.

6. Having also travelled around widely, I find that when I speak to the Australians or Americans, I tend to make an extra effort to speak properly and my Singlish disappears almost immediately.

That's because you code-switch to English proper from Singlish. Code-switching is a perfectly good skill to have and I agree with you that people who need to use English proper should acquire that skill. I code-switch all the time (from Matlab to C and Singlish to English proper).

The point is that, proper English elocution can be learned regardless of one's existing background in Singlish.

7. However, when I return home, I switch back to improper English (Singlish) automatically and all my 'lahs' and 'lohs' come back to my sentences. I try my best not to speak Singlish but fail as most of my friends speak Singlish. They would laugh at me if I try to speak correctly.

Singlish without lahs and lors is just plain ungrammatical. For your information Mr Gilbert Goh, the lahs and lors, which are mood particles, are necessary because the intonation and the grammatical rules in Singlish are just different. Your friends laugh at you because you use a language inappropriate for the context. What is wrong with using Singlish in a social circle of Singlish speakers?

8. Maybe we should hire proper native English teachers for our schools here to teach us the right way to speak English. It may take a long time for us to drop the 'lahs' or 'lohs' but it is definitely worth the time and effort invested.

It depends. You don't need native English teachers to teach people to drop their lahs and lors in the appropriate context. Anyone who can code-switch between English proper and Singlish is perfectly capable of doing that. If anything, the ability to speak Singlish is a plus. How else can you teach people to code-switch unless you know something about the two languages in the first place?

Also, there is no more evidence that English skills can be improved by eradicating Singlish than evidence that one can do so by eradicating Mandarin or Malay.