讲话

Recently, I've had the privilege of meeting some really rude people. Lol that's not because I enjoy being spoken rudely to, but because these ultimately harmless encounters were actually great lessons on how not to behave.

The thing is (I assume), it's not like these people lack education. Well, this one speaker for a Friday lesson was clearly of high caliber, judging from job title as well as past achievements. But why on earth, in all of his fluency and competence, did he speak as though addressing a room full of... I don't even know what kind of people deserve to be spoken to in such a condescending manner. He's gonna get the lowest marks possible if there's feedback. In another situation, a stranger made her grievances known to me (it wasn't about me, but something in front of us) in the form of vulgarity-laden sentences. Firstly, every word has its rightful place and usage, including expletives, but it simply displays a lacking vocabulary when these appear multiple times in a single sentence. Also, I don't feel like it's nice to vent on strangers just because they're sitting and staring at the same thing.

Bad taste, good learning opportunities, as with every other nasty encounter in life. Not everybody is blessed with great language skills, in English or whatever other language. But sometimes I wonder how some people can speak so well, and yet speak so much worse than a void deck hokkien beng.

Not that being a hokkien beng is bad actually. Education does have an impact on the way we speak or express ourselves, but it matters more what is being said. People can be torn down in great fluency, just as much as positive messages can be delivered in the "粗话" of the neighbourhood. I happen to be a bit more proficient in written English, but I don't really speak in the same way haha. It's very tiring to have to keep up measured tones and proper diction, so outside of necessary situations, it's always a great relief to go back to normal singlish. Also, I speak differently to different groups of friends, and there are a few which I speak predominantly mandarin to.

I actually really enjoy conversing in neighbourhood mandarin. I dunno why, but it's more fun? My Chinese is not good lol really I got a C for A levels, and sometimes my 音 a bit off, but who cares hahaha. Some things somehow just flow better on channel 8 (but for anything too cheem to handle I just switch back to english). [It's a bit funny though when ppl cannot speak chinese despite having taken higher chinese?? Haha I cannot understand.]

It is also uncommon to find people who speak this way naturally in REP. So I'm glad that a random event like IVEC actually managed to bring closer a bunch of neighbourhood kids - it's almost like secondary school once again. There's a sort of connection between people of similar backgrounds (relative to whatever situation so it's kinda like finding a Singaporean while overseas), and communication is one of the ways in which this is most obvious. It's great fun to lim <insert favourite kopitiam beverage> and talk about all sorts of random nonsense in a language where we're all extremely comfortable. On exams: "this sem you got 几张纸?". On the thin walls of North Hill: "这里的 walls 不 soundproof..." *cow's epic mishearing* "谁不穿裤??". And that's just the gist of it.

Seems like a pretty weird post I've just written haha. I guess with graduation looming and all, these are just some of the simple, happy times that I want to remember. Also, it's a reminder to myself to use language positively, in whatever manner of speech I choose.