31
Oct
Singlish, and Singapore Culture
Well, I woke up at 10pm in the evening to find a delightful piece of argument on Bing De’s blog.
It hasn’t blown up in anybody’s face (and I seriously don’t think it ever will), but talking about whether Singlish is relevant in Singapore is definitely some real fodder for the sniping.
I remember that back then, when local sitcom Phua Chu Kang hit the heartlands, it tugged at everyone’s heart with its blatant use of broken Engrish, got a lot of chinese, malay, and indian influence inside the words. 
Then, for some obscure reason, the elite powers that would be, having rocketed themselves past the levels of the commoner, suddenly decided that Singrish was uncouth.
They decided to stigmatise, and eventually murder the sappling, just like how they killed political opinion in Singaporeans.
Where that is concerned, if they decide on something, debate becomes a rather moot point, and you are put behind bars as fast as you can even get a decent demonstration to save Singlish. Hell, you even get arrested if you do a silent demonstration of 4 people!
Anyway, given the official stand of killing Singaporean culture, it would just have to take refuge along with the rest of Singaporean Political opinions, gays, and common sense on the Internet.
That the government compliant media takes frequent blanket bombardments of the Internet in general further isolates the last bastion of freedom and local culture from the clinical world that we live in real life. Kind of like the Matrix.
10 years, or 20 years down the road, they are going to wonder why there is no vibrant local culture, and chastise Singaporean’s lack of something Uniquely Singapore.
Tourists are not going to come back to Singapore for repeated visits. They visit buildings, party at pubs, go through the state-sanitised history tours, go to the zoo, pay through their noses to go to Sentosa, spend their money for the cheaper international branded things in Singapore, and fly back. Possibly all in one day.
I don’t think anyone would remember Singapore if we were suddenly blasted off the face of the earth. We may hit the news for some weeks, but all that we would ever be remembered for, is that we have no life. That, and the chewing gum ban.
[tags]singlish, current affairs, singapore, singapore culture[/tags]
on May 13th, 2007 at 10:02 am
[...] Anyway, given the official stand of killing Singaporean culture, it would just have to take refuge along with the rest of Singaporean Political opinions, gays, and common sense on the Internet. That the government compliant media takes … …READ MORE [...]