SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDERS (Exempted Business)

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SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDERS:

(Exempted Business): With the consent of Mr Speaker and the general assent of Members present,

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,

"That the proceedings on the item under discussion be exempted from the provisions of Standing Order No. 48(8) to remove the time limit in respect of Minister Mentor's speech." - [Mr Mah Bow Tan].

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REVISED CHINESE LANGUAGE CURRICULUM: Debate resumed.

4.38 pm

The Minister Mentor, Prime Minister's Office (Mr Lee Kuan Yew): Mr Speaker, Sir, I have not spoken in previous debates in this Chamber since this Parliament was elected because I think the future belongs to the younger Members. But this is an old and never ending subject - education, language and culture.

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I have listened to the speeches made yesterday and today on my computer URL. I think we have made progress. But unlike Ms Irene Ng's idealistic approach that we should create a national consciousness and forget our ethnic origins and be Singaporeans, I think this will take us a few more generations. If you take a vote in this Chamber, never mind about going out to the constituencies, and say, "Do you agree with what Irene Ng said?", I am pretty certain that the overwhelming majority will say, "Let's stick to where we are."

Race, language, religion, culture are deep in the human psyche. You cannot change your race. You can change your language. You can change your religion. You can, over time, change your culture. So there are countries which strive very hard to obliterate race, language and religion to treat all their subjects equally.

At present, a leading exponent of this philosophy of government, of nation building, is the United States. It has been a white man's country. They excluded, by their Immigration Acts, immigration from Asia until the 1960s. But in recent years, because they were caught up in the Korean war, Vietnam war, they removed those Immigration Acts. They now understand that they need talent, and they are not getting it from Europe any more, so too Australia and Canada with their big, wide, open spaces that have to be filled up. So they have lifted the bar against non-white races but have a high bar for education and ability.

But has the United States succeeded? If you are black? You can see them on television; they make an effort. So CNN has an anchor woman who is an Afro American. The person who presents the weather forecast on CNN is an Afro American. The British are trying the same. They have Indians now broadcasting on

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BBC. But go to Britain, is it really like that, or is this some form of affirmative action? So it is a very gradual process.

Start off from where we were, let us say after the war, 1945, or even 1965. We were in different communal groups - Malay kampongs, Chinese villages. You would see Hainanese at Lorong Tai Seng, Malays in Kampong Ubi, and so on.

Mr Rajaratnam was the exponent of "we can create a race of Singaporeans". Idealistically, I would go along with him. But, realistically, I knew it was going to be one long hard slog; maybe we'll never get there, but we should try.

Ask yourself this question. If your child brings back a boyfriend or a girlfriend of a different race, will you be delighted? I will answer you frankly. I do not think I will. I may eventually accept it. So it is deep in the psyche of a human being.

Before we entered Malaysia when we negotiated the terms of entry, education, language and culture were such important subjects. We knew the way Malaya was going with Malay as the national language. Had we not had education excluded from Federal jurisdiction, there would have been a no vote in favour of merger. Right from the start, 1961-1962, education was already a red hot issue.

What did we do as a Government? From 1959 to 1965, we had a laissez-faire policy. We inherited from the British, English schools, Malay schools, Tamil schools and other schools. We introduced mother tongue in the English schools for those who are in English schools, and we gradually introduced English into Malay schools and Tamil schools.

When we became independent in 1965, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce committee came to see me in my office then at City Hall. They urged me to have

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Chinese as our national and official language. I looked them in the eye and said, "You must be mad, and I don't want to hear any more of that from you. If you do, you are entering the political arena. I have to fight you. Because Singapore will come apart."

Supposing I had been otherwise inclined, which my colleagues would not have allowed, and had said, "Yes, OK." What would have happened to Singapore? Where would the Malays be, and the Indians, what future would they have? The English-educated Chinese would also be against us. The country would fall apart.

Let us assume that we were all Chinese, no Malays, no Indians. Could we make a living with Chinese as our language of government and our national language?

Who is going to trade with us? What do we do? How do we get access to knowledge? There was no choice. Having made English the working language of government and administration, what do we do about the mother tongues? If we had no set policy and allowed free market practices, free choice, all mother tongues would have eventually vanished. Because the first business of any parent is to make sure that his or her child can make a living. It is as simple as that. Therefore, we decided that however unpleasant, however contrary to the concept of a homogeneous society, each racial group would learn his mother tongue as a second language. Most unhappy for English-speaking Chinese homes and, I am sure, also for Indian homes. For Malays, nearly all of them spoke Malay at home; so they were happy.

Was that policy right or wrong? If you bring me back to 1965, I would say that is the policy I would still adopt. So I take primary responsibility. The whole Cabinet deliberated on this - we agreed on this - but I was the Prime Minister and I took

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primary responsibility. Did I legislate it; you go to English school, and Chinese as a second language. I think we would have lost the next election. Because after Independence, the enrolment for Chinese schools increased; 1966, over 55%. Many parents thought, "Yes. Let's do Chinese now. We are out of Malaysia." I left it alone. By the 1970s, the job market decided what parents chose, and the rush began to English schools. You can look up the statistics in the Education Ministry, and you will know what decided the parents' decision. It became so rapid that I had no choice but to urge parents to go slow, because we could not produce enough English teachers. How do you convert Chinese language teachers into English language teachers? Anyway, from a trickle, to a flow, to a flood. So I faced the problem of Nanyang University. By 1978, Nanyang University was in dire straits. I do not know when Low Thia Khiang graduated. Ji nian qian ?

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Bashi.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: Bashi nian. Zuihou yipi . Last batch.

It was so bad that when a Nanyang graduate applied for a job, he would produce his school certificate. Because employers knew that the Nanyang graduates of the 1950s and 60s were not the same as the Nanyang graduates of the late 70s. The quality students had moved across to English schools. Do we allow this to go on? What was the solution? We tried to convert Nantah from within, get the teachers to lecture in English because they all had American PhDs. They could not. They had lost their English fluency. So we moved the whole campus into University of Singapore. The students had a terrible time! I met them, I encouraged them. But 70% made the grade and passed their final examinations. When they passed, we asked them: do you want a Nanyang University degree or a University of Singapore degree? They

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chose a University of Singapore degree, because there was a market for that. We decided to merge the two universities and made it the National University of Singapore. You can see from the coat of arms, the Nanyang's five circles and the University of Singapore's lion.

It is now 20-plus years since the first batch of NUS students, 1981. Has it ceased to be an issue, politically? I do not think so. Endless requests to go back to old Nanyang University, to drop out the "Technical" from the university name. Why? Sentiment. Not only that, the Malaysian graduates want teaching to be restored in Mandarin. It is a very powerful, emotive issue. And it is a very powerful, emotive issue still in Malaysia where nearly 100% of Chinese students are now in Chinese private primary schools without any government support or very little of it. Why? Because it is a question of identity, of culture and of future prospects. Would you want to go to a national type school and be taught in Malay and increasingly, also caught up in teaching of the Koran and so on?

I have been berated all these years by the Chinese-educated in Malaysia for having killed Chinese education. I am a convenient excuse for letting off their frustrations. They are not really hating me. They are saying, "Look. Please don't go that way in Malaysia." If you have a unified system based on the national language, that will be a big problem for the Chinese community. It is not a problem here because I never forced anybody into the English stream. They could have chosen Chinese as their primary language and English as a secondary language. But career prospects determined what they chose. Will we ever become completely homogeneous, a melange of languages and cultures? No. Why did we take this route? Because we have no other choice. If we have only

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English and we allowed the other languages to atrophy and vanish, we face a very serious problem of identity and culture. We are learning the English Language, but we are not absorbing western culture. Western culture, just incidental, over TV, and higher culture in the higher literature. But the basic culture is still native. Therefore, an understanding of your native language, even though it is not your master language, gives an appreciation of the proverbs, of the sayings, of the aphorisms, gives you that sense of identity. How do I know this? Because I learned Chinese late in life, and I rediscovered snatches of what I heard when my parents, my grandparents said, "Ah! yes, that was what they meant." It resonates, pulled at my heartstrings. Would I want to see it lost? Absolutely not! So I sympathise with you, I empathise with you. But Rajaratnam was aiming too high - it cannot be achieved easily.

Had I known all the difficulties of bilingualism in 1965 as I know now today, would I have done it differently? Yes, in its implementation, not in its policy. I do not regret the stress and the heavy burdens I put, because the other way would have been a destruction of our whole cultural base, the chance to build up some form of culture which is worth preserving. This way, over time, we will learn, maybe in 100 years, five generations. We may be able to evolve a certain Singaporean culture, but not one which will bridge all the races. Not possible. We might bridge some of the other races, but religion is a very powerful cultural factor. I know of no non-Muslim society in this world that has been able to assimilate its Muslims into their society. Not even China. The Chinese absorbed the Jews. There is a place in Jiangsu called Yangzhou where there were Jews. But there are no more Jews. They have been absorbed into Chinese society. But you can go to Beijing, you can go to Yunnan, you can go to Xinjiang, and there

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are mosques. They are not assimilated. So there are limits. Within these limits, we find a way forward.

Many views have been expressed. I do not intend to reply to what Mr Chiam or Mr Low Thia Khiang have said. This is my view and the people of Singapore have to decide who has the experience, the knowledge and the judgment to do the right thing, whose view to take. I am satisfied, if they just read me. I say, "You decide." What I am saying to all parents is: you make up your mind, just how much English you want for your child and how much Chinese. But, remember, the more English, the less Chinese; the more Chinese, the less English. There is no such thing as 100% English, 100% Chinese. Those who achieve that level are simultaneous interpreters at the UN; they spend all their time juggling with words, grammar and idioms from one language to another. Then how do you make a living. How to learn hi-tech, the economy, and so many other subjects.

I will begin by describing the learning of languages that I went through, and I put my children through. The acid test is, what would you do to your children?

Think that over carefully. I thought it over very carefully with my wife, and I decided we would make them Chinese educated. They would learn English at home. We were confident of that.

We thought, at that time, when they went to Chinese kindergarten that they would be more fluent in Mandarin than in English. In the end, it turned out the other way, because the home influence was profound and, after university, in English, they worked in English. So their master language today is English. I tell all parents, "Look at your child carefully. Consider how much he can take - one or the other - and decide what you want." I will give you a series of options. You want Chinese as your master language, go ahead. You want English, how much.

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And how much Chinese. A series of options. But remember the choice is yours. If you make the wrong decision over your child's capability, do not blame the Government. The teachers will give you their recommendations, "Do EM3, EM2, EM1, your choice, but you take the consequences."

Why do we do that? Because this is a highly emotive issue. I started off in a Chinese school, Choon Guan School in Joo Chiat. My grandmother wanted me to be educated in Chinese. I hated it. At home my mother spoke to me in English and some Peranakan Malay. I spoke to the village kids in Hokkien and Malay. Here was this teacher mumbling away in some dialect-accented Mandarin, I did not understand a word of it. So after two months I persuaded my mother to send me to Telok Kurau English School. She did. Sometimes, I regretted having done that because I paid for it later on - in 1955, when I went to Tanjong Pagar to contest my first election - and I have been paying for it ever since. My grandmother said, "Go to the village school." There was a small fishmen's village behind my house in Siglap. It was a one-man teacher in an attap house, and all the fishermen's children were learning brush work. I sat there for two, three months, learned nothing. I gave it up. I scored well in English, did not need Malay, learned Latin in school because I wanted to be a lawyer. I did it for my Junior Cambridge and Senior Cambridge, without that, you could not become a lawyer in those days.

My first crisis was when the Japanese captured Singapore. I did not know Japanese and I got smacked and hit. But I hated them so much that I did not want to learn Japanese. I saw that they had these notices with Kanji on it. So I said, "Okay, I'll learn Chinese to understand what they are saying in the written form." I bought up the books - there was a school in Prinsep Street teaching Chinese

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through English - four books. There was Chiang Ker Chiu "Mandarin Made Easy", and "advanced Mandarin", and so on. I studied it with a dictionary - Chinese/English, English/Chinese - self-taught, learned how to write the characters. I must have learned about 2,000 words in about six to eight months. I had a neighbour who spoke Teochew, got him to teach me. But he was teaching me Teochew. So I refused to take it in because I would learn the wrong pronunciation.

But my next crisis was in 1955, because my opponent, Lam Thian, a Hakka, like me, challenged me to a debate in Mandarin in Tanjong Pagar. What could I do? Should I speak Cantonese? Because I could speak some Cantonese with my maid servants at home. I debated this furiously with my wife. She said, "Don't. This is kitchen Cantonese. Don't try this." So I got hold of a Chinese left wing reporter from Sin Pao , a pro-communist newspaper. I said, "Can you do a speech for me in Chinese, one page in Mandarin." He did. I said, "Make it simple, so I can read the characters." The problem was the pronunciation. I furiously learned the pronunciation. And I remember one phrase that he put down, one little proverb gua yang tou mai gou rou to criticise my opponent, Lam Thian, who was a capitalist pretending to be a socialist.

I sweated blood - 20,000 people in Kreta Ayer - and my first speech in Mandarin. They saw me struggle, they cheered me. I knew, I would win. And I did. I slogged like mad every day - because I was the Secretary-General of the PAP, I was a Member of the Legislative Assembly, I had to meet people; every day one to two hours, I learned Mandarin. Who was my teacher? A PAP branch member who was a communist. He was told to convert me.

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So we had a simple textbook - Ren Sheng Guan, very interesting little book - Marxism made easy. So, I learned all the left wing phrases which were most useful, because I knew what they were saying, and I could also produce them.

At that time, I had to decide what to do with my children. I said, "Don't send them to English school. They will suffer like me." Starting with my eldest boy, lessons began at home at the age of 3, then kindergarten, two, three years, Nanyang Xiao Xue, then Catholic High, 12 years. For the other children, kindergarten, Nanyang Xiao Xue; the girl, Nanyang Nu Zhong; the boy, Catholic High and National Junior College. For their "A" levels, the two decided to switch to English. My daughter did not want to learn biology in Chinese and then learn to be a doctor using English textbooks. So there are limits. I realised that quickly. I encouraged them but never pressed them to breaking point. They learned Chinese in school, learned English at home, and they also learned Malay. It was not just the teacher teaching them Malay, the cikgu who was teaching in Kampong Jagoh got my son, Hsien Loong, to join a Malay group. I said, "Get him into a Malay group." So, he joined the Kampong Jagoh Wolf Cub Troop. It was a living language, talking to people in Malay, to young boys like him. So it was not just lessons in Malay. He was young, he picked up the rhythm and the accent. He took his "O" levels, never used it. He went into politics, and it came back. But my Chinese, if I lose it, it goes rusty, it is very difficult to get it back.

By the 1959 general elections, I could make speeches in Mandarin. Unfortunately, at that time, the majority of the audience understood Hokkien. You reached the largest number of people in Hokkien. So our Hokkien speakers, the first was Lim Chin Siong. He was arrested and detained. Then we had Ong Eng Guan, a good Hokkien speaker. He

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became the first Mayor of Singapore. By 1961, he wanted to be the leader, found some excuse, quarrelled with the party and resigned. A by-election in Hong Lim. By that time, we could not trust Lim Chin Siong because we knew he was on the other side. So Goh Keng Swee saw me and said, "No choice. You better learn Hokkien. You will be our Hokkien speaker. Otherwise, we will have no end to this problem." I can tell you - this was in March 1961 - if I did not learn Hokkien, the rest of history would have been different.

Every day, in spite of my work, I learned Hokkien. My basis was my Mandarin. And my teacher was a real Hokkien scholar, Seah Cheng Tit, producer of Radio Singapore Hokkien programmes. And he could teach me the pronunciation and the tone, seven different tones in Hokkien, romanised by missionaries. I learned like mad.

My first speech was in China Street, a street rally. Lots of kids around - first meeting was in March/April - because they all lived in one-room cubicles, there was nothing to do at night, they would go and watch an election rally, crowd around a lorry. I spoke in Hokkien. They laughed hilariously. I said, Gin nai mia chio, wah bai oh, chia wu bian kai lo kong , in wee gua wu chit kwa chu tiong yar ei tai zi beh hor lo chai yan . I practised this with Seng Han Thong to bring it back.

Because I used Hokkien frequently, Hokkien become my second language. From 1961 to 1963, touring all the constituencies, and at every National Day Rally I spoke in Hokkien. I reached out to the largest crowd. But we were teaching Mandarin in schools and I was setting a bad example speaking in Hokkien. Many parents believed their children could learn Mandarin, speak dialect at home and learn English. It did not work out. So, I decided to stop Hokkien. I wrote off my investment of 20 years of effort. I switched off all dialect programmes from

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television and radio. It was very harsh. I started a "Speak Mandarin" campaign. I heard Goh Choon Kang recently explaining why the "Speak Mandarin" campaign was a failure. He is wrong. It is a success. The first "Speak Mandarin" campaign was to get people to switch from dialect to Mandarin. It succeeded. Nevertheless, till today, come election time Low Thia Khiang is able to carry Hougang because kong Teochew wa . But that is a vanishing generation. Twenty years from now, few will understand it. You will have to speak English or Mandarin, and you will have more listeners in English than Mandarin, because we are multiracial. So it is a changing language environment.

Let me add that you can learn all these languages but, to be able to use them, you have to have them at your fingertips. In other words, you have to use them frequently. I refused to learn Japanese. In the end, I was forced to, because I could not get a job. So, I became a copy typist in a Japanese firm. The owner was a friend of my grandfather. It was a textile firm called Shimoda & Co. Fortunately for me, as a copy typist, I learned how to write Chinese characters, and I learned touch-typing. So, when I went to the computer, it was a great help. I revived my typing skills. But can I speak Japanese now? At the end, in 1945, I could translate Japanese into English, and not so well from English into Japanese. After I became Senior Minister, no longer Prime Minister, when in Tokyo, I toyed with the idea of reviving my Japanese. So I told our Ambassador to get me Japanese books to revive my Japanese. He bought me the books. I started re-learning. Hiragana katakanan and so on. After a while, I said to myself, "What am I trying to do?" I am talking to the Japanese in English, and his English, not as good as mine, or he gets an interpreter. Why I am learning Japanese and pushing out my English, Chinese and my Malay, that I need. So I closed the books.

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Anybody who wants to learn Japanese, I will let him have the books. I learned Latin. I was the only boy in class to pass with a credit. Self-taught. Forgot all of it. That was in 1939. In 1946, I started law studies and had to revive my Latin. Can you do this? English, Malay, Mandarin, Hokkien, Japanese, Latin - six languages? The language environment has changed.

In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, I had ample opportunities to speak in Mandarin - at my CC, MCs, the people I meet - in Hokkien and Mandarin. Now, 95% of my time is English. If I am not careful, my investment in Mandarin will rust away. So, every week, I meet my teacher - he has been teaching me for 30 years - not teaching, just chatting, making sure that it is kept alive. I watch television and read the papers. Do I read the Chinese paper Zaobao thoroughly? No. The speed at which I read English is three times the speed at which I read Chinese. It is as simple as that. So what do I do when I read Zaobao ? I see how they have displayed the news, because I have read the news already in English - Wall Street Journal, Herald Tribune, Straits Times and others online. I want to see how they have presented the news, which headline, what picture. Then, the pin lun , the commentary page, who is commenting on what. That I will read, because that is special - commentaries about Taiwan, China and Hong Kong which are not carried in the English press.

So, bilingualism is not easy. I recount this to show you how I shared this ambition of a bilingual population with the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. I was in Canada on my way to Harvard in November 1968. He sent an aircraft from British Columbia to take me to Ottawa to chat with me for a few days. He had just come into office. He was a French Canadian, with a French

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father and an Irish mother. He spoke both languages brilliantly. He was educated in Quebec, LSE in London, and a Paris university. When he gave a press conference in Ottawa and was questioned in English, he spoke like an Englishman - understated, stiff upper lip, restrained. When questioned in French, he gesticulated with expressive fingers like Jacques Chirac. I watched him in amazement. He wanted to solve the Quebec separatist problem by making all Canadians bilingual in French and English. And they are closely related languages.

I shared his view and ambition. Yes, English and Chinese, more difficult. But I now know it is not possible. Because 40 years on, Canada has not succeeded. It is taught in schools. You can in any Canadian court speak in French and they will have to produce you a French-speaking judge. You can give your evidence in French. In parliament, you can speak French. All documents are in English and French. English-speaking Canadians are fed up with it. It is over-loading them. I once asked him, "What is your master language?", because he is so good at both. He said, "When I am campaigning in Quebec and speaking French, French is my master language. When I am campaigning in the west, speaking English [which is Columbia, Alberta] English is my master language." I did not understand him at that time. I said, "I thought you are both. They are there." No, it is there and it is not there, because you are not using it every day.

I was happy Members were honest and said, "Look, I lost it." As John Chen said, now he goes to China, he can do it in Chinese. He has improved. He went to Chinese schools for 12 years. Using English, his Chinese declined. But he did it young, so easy retrieval. Revival is easier. The roots have gone deep. My roots are those of a transplanted tree, not deep. The tap root is not deep enough.

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Now I know that to make a whole society bilingual is not possible. I am very interested in this, because I was experimenting with Singaporeans. I went to Luxembourg in 1975 or 1976. The Luxembourgese are very proud. They speak Luxembourgese, their native dialect; they also speak German, on the east, and French, on the west. And because of their banking and financial centre, they were learning English. They go to universities either in Germany or France. They do not have any of their own. I thought a wonderful place. I looked at their newspapers, each is an apology of a newspaper. I do not know French or German, but I know English and when I looked at the English, I said, "Oh, this is not a newspaper." It is rudimentary. Only the top few speak two languages well, not three, and they know a little bit of the others.
I went to Mauritius in 1979. Mauritius was French. After the Napoleonic wars in 1824, the French surrendered it to the British. The British undertook to allow the French to continue teaching the French language. So the French kept sending teachers. The Prime Minister was a good friend of mine, a nice Indian gentleman called Dr Ramgoolam, educated in Britain, spoke English with a French accent. He was an ambitious man. Once they got independence, he said, "We will have a third language" - Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati, Chinese and Creole. Creole is their pidgin, descendants of the slaves and the mixed blood speaking a French pidgin with native languages. You would have thought it is wonderful. I looked at the newspapers. No, it was only a few at the top who were bilingual. Some of their ministers, because the British charged full fees, went to France for their university education. Half their ministers were French educated. But what about the general populace? Campaigning, was in Creole and English. We can go on ad infinitum .

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Many Members have been to Hong Kong and Taiwan. They speak Chinese - Cantonese in Hong Kong; Mandarin in Taiwan, but now going back to Hollow Whey - Hokkien , creating a new language. How many are bilingual? In Hong Kong, because it was a British colony, about 5-10%. Really bilingual and competent in both languages? Less than 5%. In Taiwan, many have gone to American universities, PhDs - some 3%

of population. Can they speak fluent English? Recently, I met Ma Yinjiu, Harvard-educated. He is now the Mayor of Taipei. He was Jiang Jingguo's English secretary. He used to tell me, "I read all your letters to Jiang Jingguo", because I wrote to Jiang Jingguo in English, Jiang Jingguo replied in Chinese. He translated my Chinese. Because I was not confident of our translation, I sent mine in English for them to translate. When he came recently, he was more comfortable speaking to me in Mandarin, because Mandarin now is his master language. When campaigning, he has learned Hollow Whey , the native dialect to win votes. In Hong Kong, they want to learn Mandarin, Cantonese and English. They teach Cantonese in schools, and want to learn English and Mandarin. It is quite an ambitious project for the general population.

What will happen in Singapore? My guesstimate: If we do this right, we will have about 10% of the population reasonably good in English and Mandarin, another 40% reasonably competent in English and Mandarin, the lower 50%, so-so in English, and so-so in Mandarin. But the lowest, maybe 10-20%, their Mandarin better than their English, because that is the language that they use at home and they will read the Chinese papers. Am I confident we can do that? Only if we make the effort and have that desire to keep the language alive.

Let me explain the depth of the problem. I used to believe that you can

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learn two languages at the same time, whatever your IQ. I was wrong. You have to master one language enough to read and to absorb knowledge, lessons in all the other subjects. If you have no master language, and you cannot absorb your mathematics, history, science, geography, either in English or Chinese. You are done for. I did not know that. I said, spread the time. If you spread the time, the child has not got the mastery of any one language, so he is lost. How does he learn his geography, history, mathematics, science, biology, etc? Once we make English a working language, he has to master English. And not all, as I have said, will master it properly, because at the lower end, 10-15% will still have Mandarin as their master language.

Another fact which I learned was that you can have the same IQ, score the same marks in science, mathematics and other subjects, but your linguistic skills are different. Girls are better at languages than boys. That is statistically proven. And even between boys, some are more able linguistically. Now, with MRI scanners, they have found that those who are good at the second language have got an extra bit of the brain which is active when they use the second language.

Did I know all this? I did not. My ambition was high. I shared with Pierre Trudeau, to make all bilingual. He wanted French and English and I wanted English and Chinese, or Malay or Tamil. It is difficult. Let me explain how difficult it is.

I learnt Mandarin and I spoke to my children in Mandarin. They spoke to their mother in English. I was practising my Mandarin, she was making sure that they understood English. But when they were age 15-16, my Mandarin was not enough to get my intellectual concepts across. So I had to switch to English. My Chinese teacher said, yes, his children,

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when they have a real argument with him - his son who was completely Chinese-educated, speaking Chinese at home, went to NTU, went abroad for his education, he would break into English because English is his master language.

What has happened to our society? Every parent wants the best for their children. So they are switching to English at home to give their children that added advantage. If you start learning English at home, then your Chinese will go down, unless they are very sure that they are able to pick up English on their own, which is not very easy.

What has happened to my grandchildren? They went to the same kindergarten and primary school, Nanyang Kindergarten ( you zhi yuan ) and Nanyang Primary School ( xiao xue ). But when I speak to them in Mandarin, they give short replies and they switch to English. They are more comfortable in English. I met Wee Cho Yaw. He said, "Terrible. I speak to my grandchildren, they reply to me in English." And his sons are Chinese-educated at Hwa Chong. What has changed? Because the children in Nanyang you zhi yuan and Nanyang xiao xue now speak to each other in English. Where is the language environment? Is it the children's fault? No. So I think Koo Tsai Kee is quite intelligent. He sent his children to a heartland kindergarten, HDB housing estate kindergarten. I do not know whether he will also send them to a neighbourhood primary school. You need that language environment, but that is vanishing.

As more and more of those parents become English-competent, they will switch. Why should my child lose the chance of that scholarship or that job because he is speaking Chinese all the time and his English is not as good and he cannot score as much? That is the problem. That is why we have offered this series of options. You decide. What

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is best for a good future for your children? We have to abandon this one-size-fits-all.

Motivation is the crucial factor. I learnt it because I was powerfully motivated. It was a matter of life and death. If I did not learn Mandarin, how could I hold Tanjong Pagar? How could I be an Assemblyman? How could I be Secretary-General of the PAP? I simply had to learn it. If I did not learn Hokkien, how could I have fought in Hong Lim in 1961, the Referendum in 1962, tour all the constituencies and carried the ground because I got my ideas across? It is motivation. What is the motivation now?

As Mr Low Thia Khiang rightly pointed out, China now makes it a language with economic advantages. So we do not have to tell parents, you better do that. When we talked about culture, roots, they were thinking of jobs, security, future. They will not tell you this in public, because it is loss of face diu lian , but that is their calculation. My advice to them is: you decide, but do not aim too low. If you aim too low for your child, you may regret it.

Nobody can predict which language will be of the greatest value. I thought I knew, so I advised my elder son to do Russian. Having mastered Chinese, English and Malay, I said, "Do Russian." So he did Russian for his 'O' levels. I said, "You are going to do mathematics. Russians are good mathematicians and chess masters. Learn it." He passed his 'O' levels. Took dictation in Russian, got a distinction. Today, it is lost. I asked him, "When you were sitting next to Putin, did you understand him?" He said, "No." Because since 1971, when he went to Moscow, on his way to Cambridge, he stopped using the language. That was 30-plus years and it was only at 'O' levels. It was a bet on the future.

The changes in this White Paper will remove the drudgery of learning Mandarin

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- the rote learning, memorising words, phrases, mo xie, ting xie . I do not write my speeches. I make my drafts in English. They translate and type it. I can read it. And I would say, "No. That is too literary ( tai wen ), change it, make it colloquial." I cannot write it, but I know that is not the way I want to say it. That is good enough.

My advice to Mrs Gan is, do not negotiate with the Chinese in Chinese. My Chinese is very elementary. But I know enough to know that the other person's absolutely scintillates; his phrases are so precise, succinct; they sparkle. If you negotiate with them in their language, you will lose - always have an interpreter. When we have dinner, to chit-chat, that is fine. When we are talking terms and conditions, English is my language, please translate. My translator is not good enough, not as good as yours, you translate. But, of course, you have the empathy, the bonhomie over dinner and drinks; that is useful.

Dr Winsemius, the Dutchman who helped us with our economic development, advised me before I went to China. He said, "Never negotiate in any language other than the one you are most capable in." He said he spoke French, German, Dutch, English. But he negotiates in Dutch.

Our two ambassadors in Beijing, No. 1, Cheng Tong Fatt and No. 2, Chin Siat Yoon, both Chinese school educated - xiao xue, dao gao zhong san . Their Chinese is OK. But can they compare, are they equal to the Chinese officials they deal with? Not a chance. How can you? They spend all their time, from the day they are born with that one language and in a very rarefied literary atmosphere. Jiang Zeming quotes Tang poems, can you do that? He can just rattle them off. So every time we deal with them, once

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we come to serious business, I speak in English. A very wise acknowledgement of my limitations. You cannot compare yourself with them.

Let me give a simple illustration. My English, because I have spent all my life with the English Language, I would say, it is about 85-90% of my equivalent counterpart in England.

Supposing I had been an Englishman, lived in England, worked the language, it would be 100%. I do not have that, because I am using other languages. How do I know? Because the class that graduated with me went on to become QCs. When I talk to them, I know they have beautiful phrases at their finger tips, when in court. Because they are working in their language.

It is like playing tennis. They are playing tennis at Wimbledon and we are playing tennis at the South East Asian Games - a different level. When they smash the ball at 150 miles per hour, can you take it? It is very quick repartee, smooth, crisp.

But I am happy. If you ask me to start all over again, I say that without Chinese and Malay, we are done for. Why do I say that? Without my Chinese, we would have lost the election in 1963 and the whole history of Singapore would have been different. I needed the Hokkien and Mandarin.

Without my Malay, how could I speak to Suharto alone - no interpreter? How could I make a speech in the Malaysian Parliament in Malay? At the last meeting in the Malaysian Parliament, I said, "You are going to make Malay the national language." I spoke in Malay half way through. "You tell me how, my speaking to you now in Malay, increases the price of padi or the rubber tapper's salary?" If I had not been able to speak in Malay, they

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would not have considered the PAP a significant problem. But because we could get our ideas across, it made the difference.

It is a difficult language but now we have the electronic tools which I am using. I've got Power Word. I can go to Lianhe Zaobao on line. Any word or phrase that I do not understand, I just point the cursor and the English translation comes out. If I do not know the pronunciation, I press the loudspeaker, an electronic voice reads it out for me. If I am not sure what tone it is, I click a little symbol and the character comes out with the pinyin and the tone.

I've got another tool given by another teacher. I can write my speeches without anybody helping me in Chinese. If I do not know one word, I type it in English and it offers me a series of different words and phrases in Chinese, to choose from. I do not have to write the character. I just type in pinyin , it will come out.

So, why do we want to get our children to sweat their guts out learning to write 2,000 or 2,500 characters? When I ask my teacher, "Write that word for me." From time to time - and he spent all his life teaching Chinese - he hesitates and says, ah wang le . He takes the dictionary to look it up because he is not writing any more. He is typing in pinyin with Microsoft software.

So give them all these tools. They can listen, speak, read. Write, later on, in pinyin . Make it as hassle free as possible. Let them develop a facility in the language. Get them to like the language. Later on in life, they can pick it up and build on it.

If I had all these aids when I started learning in 1942, how much easier it would have been! I would not have got

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my neighbour to teach me Mandarin that he pronounced in Teochew.

But has our second language policy been a failure? No. When I go to China I meet our people doing business there. I ask them, "Where did you learn your Chinese?" They said, "CL2". I asked, "Do you need a translator?" They said, "No." I asked, "Can you read the documents?" They said, "Yes." Not when they first started, but now they could.

A woman lawyer, aged 40, was sent by her firm to Shanghai, a NUS graduate, with CL2. She decided to polish up her Mandarin, went to Fudan University. Today, she can do contracts in Chinese, because she had that second language base. They are testimony that the second language was a valuable foundation for them.

Those who say that our second language policy has failed, I say you look at the TV and radio listeners and viewership. Every locally produced Chinese TV programme has more viewers than any locally produced English programme. Chinese TV news have more viewers than English. But in reading, Zaobao is losing out, because English is easier to read, faster, and they are reading English every day at work. They read the English newspapers. They buy the Chinese newspapers for their children to read, hoping that they will pick up their Chinese. They themselves find it a burden.

I have read the comments in the pin lun (Commentary) page of Zaobao . I empathise with their sense of sadness, of resignation, that we are losing that core of people who will keep up high standards in written Chinese. Zaobao has to keep on lowering its level of literary excellence. It cannot be helped. You cannot maintain it. Ask the older editors and reporters, "Can your children do what you did?"

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They cannot. They are bilingual and their master language is English. So the sadness is that of a group that understands because our working language is English, that elite Chinese educated layer they had when half the population studied Chinese is gone. In 1955, half the school-going population was doing Mandarin. They went on to university and they were the Chinese educated elite. They could produce these crisp pun wen yen - literary stuff. This has gone. They are a shrinking community. It cannot be helped.

We will replenish them with people from China who become our citizens, PRs, work permit holders. But what we must do is to keep up Mandarin as a living language, spoken and read. Type pinyin , yes. But write beautiful essays in Chinese, very few. There are some who have done Chinese in NUS are now reporters in Zaobao or MediaCorp, some in Beijing where they brush up their Chinese. But are they equal to the Chinese in Beijing? No. I know the difference. They are passable. But English is 90%, Chinese is about 50% of my counterpart in China. Their Chinese is about 80% of their counterparts. But they have English which their Chinese counterparts do not have.

You have to decide what is it that you want, what balance between the two. If you want your master language as Chinese, that it is more advantageous than English, the SAP schools will give more Chinese, and you go for the bilingual/bicultural programme. But if your English is not up to mark and you miss your job chances, that is your choice.

Our system will evolve and adjust with changing circumstances. It is the best way to do it.

Let me add this word of caution, a caveat. Let us assume that you spend all your time mastering Chinese to be as

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good as the Chinese in China - language, culture, poetry, history, whatever. What is your value add to China? They have 1,300 million. Do they need an extra Singaporean as a professor, journalist or businessman?

Why are we useful? Ask the people who have been there. Because we are English speaking, because we have connections with the English speaking world - US, Japan, Europe, India, Australia, New Zealand, large parts of the English-speaking world. That is our value add. We know the outside world better than they do. So we are a valuable partner. We bring something to the table. We can speak their language. We understand them, but speak not as good as they do, but that is OK.

What is my value to them? Why do they talk to me? Because my Mandarin is good? No. Once we talk business, I talk in English. But I know a lot about management, the political stance of the US, Europe, Japan, etc.

Will they learn all this, yes, because they are now going all over the world - in America, Europe, Japan, Latin America. They are building harbours and ports for the Brazilians, buying up factories, mines, from Brazil, Argentina and so on. They are everywhere.

Will we be as useful in future? It is difficult to say. I think at the top they will learn much that we know. But in South East Asia, we are still the specialists. We live here. That is why I say, do not lose our regional connections and bahasa, Malay. They will never understand this region like we do, because we are part of this region. That is our value add. They cannot take that away from us. So, 50 years from now, they may know about America better than we do because they have got more people there than our few

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in the Embassy and our businessmen. They are outnumbering the Taiwanese in America and in Europe. But in South East Asia, they will send many but they come as adults. We grew up with people in the region. So, as Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong

said, let us have exchange programmes with Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and so on. Let us maintain that link, which will be a value add. These are the realities of life.

I read recently in Zaobao about the 130th anniversary of Tan Kah Kee's death. His grandchildren cannot speak Hokkien or Mandarin. It would have saddened him, but they have to live, they have to work, they have to adjust to the world.

Let me wind up by giving you my perspective of where we are. We are not the custodians of either the English language, the Malay language or the Tamil language, or Gujarati, Hindi, whatever. We are just the users. We adopt their standards and try to approximate them. Irene Ng must understand this. For English, our gold standard was Britain. But you look ahead, another 50 years, and you see the volume of books, magazines, literature, TV; businessmen, tourists, interchange with Americans, our English will gradually be Americanised. When I listen to our radio, they are picking up American pronunciations. "Inquiry" - it jars with me. I am British educated - "in quiry", "inventory"; not "in ven tory" (that is American). It jars with me, because it sounds uncouth. But can you defeat American speech? It is everywhere. Newsreaders do not know. They do not look up the English pronunciation dictionary. They do not click on the little microphone and press it for the electronic voice. We use wrong words, have wrong pronunciation; or mangle up names! The American spoken language will dominate.

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It's happening to the British. They are picking up "inventory" as the Americans pronounce it, and on BBC. Canadian English is close to American, a variant of American. The Australians are a variant of the British. Our English is influenced by our dialects, Malay, Tamil. I tried hard to get BBC English put across on our news. But BBC has abandoned BBC English. You hear strange accents on BBC. It is sad, but BBC has decided to go with the tide. Theirs was a class society. The BBC accent was the accent of the educated elite, the establishment. The Oxbridge public school types - spoke English that was crisp and clear, well-enunciated, not cockney English, not barrow boy English. Even the Australians are veering away from British English. I think eventually American English will infect the world.

Today, I keep my spelling on Microsoft, "English (UK)". In another 20 or 30 years, "English (US)" maybe the norm. So, double "ll" or single "l"? Languages live and change. Languages impinge on you by its frequency.

We are not the custodians of the Chinese language. We follow whatever standards China sets. When China went to the simplified character, jian ti zi, we said, "Let's go!". Taiwan, Hongkong stayed put. I think Hongkong will give way. Every day, I read more and more Chinese PRC notices. Taiwan is trying to create a new language. Their Romanised Mandarin is spelt their way, not pinyin - I do not know what they call it, it is a special version - and they added Hokkien words. If you watch their channels (TVBS, Zhong Tian), you will degrade your Chinese. How can 27 million people be the gold standard for Chinese? Why should Microsoft put in the effort to create these programs for 27 million people when you've got 1,300 million on the other side? So, Tamil, Urdu, Hindi, whatever it is, we will follow the custodians. For Malay, we follow

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Malaysia. Over time, maybe not 10 years, 20 years, but 50 years, the number of publications in Bahasa Indonesia, which is a different language with a different diction, different rhythm. We may follow them. They will influence us. So we will move from Melayu Baku to whatever they set. We are users. We are price takers, we are not price givers.

We often confuse ourselves. This is relevant to what Irene Ng said. We are not trying to be Chinese-educated. A Beijing professor recently in an article made this point. When you say zhongwen jiaoyu (Chinese education), you mean not only learning the language but learning the culture of China, the history of China and a love for China, and all this is in one package. Their textbooks inculcate their whole value system. What we are learning is the language, not necessarily the culture. Our culture will evolve over time as we become Singaporean Chinese, as Ong Ah Heng has said. I do not believe watching Phoenix or CCTV, we will absorb their culture. We will watch it just as we watch American sitcoms. That is their culture, you are not identifying with them. You begin to understand them better. But when we have our own sitcoms on Channel 8 or Channel U, that is us. Gradually over generations, we will become more what we should be.

I sum up saying we cannot settle this forever. The value of the language will change, the emphasis that each parent wants for his child will change. So we will adjust our policies accordingly. I do not see Singapore giving up English as a working language because then we will perish. Nor do I see Singapore losing its mother tongues because, I think, we will all be the losers. Not just for reasons of culture, roots but for that sense of self and confidence in self. I am not an Englishman. I am not an American. I do not pretend to be one. I am Chinese but Singaporean. I do not share the values

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totally with the Chinese. Many of their basic values - courtesy, the various things you do, food, etc, - that is part of me, it is my heritage, nothing to do with the politics of China. At the end of the day, that will be the same for the Malays, for the Indians and for all the others. S Rajaratnam was aiming for the stars. I went along with him with the pledge, and we must try to live up to the pledge. But to say, let us forget race, language, religion, culture, that is not doable. We have to accept the realities that this is what we are, and we should be grateful that we have got here in one piece.

You look at our neighbours; I believe their societies are less integrated. You can see problems in Indonesia. You can see problems in Malaysia. So when they have national service, they have problems between their races, because they go to different schools, and they have different friends. We all go to the same schools. We are learning the same working language. That we are able to talk about these things now without arousing deep emotional reactions is great advance. This is where we are. How do you take it forward? I say, take note of how we have evolved, gradually, and let's evolve further. Do not go for one-stroke solutions; we may regret it.

Ms Irene Ng Phek Hoong: Mr Speaker, Sir, if I may clarify my speech.

Mr Speaker: Make it a brief one.

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Ms Irene Ng Phek Hoong: Sir, I just want to clarify so that I do not be misunderstood. I am not saying that we forget our ethnic cultures or obliterate our ethnic heritage. I am saying, yes, value and preserve our ethnic cultures and heritage but also promote a national consciousness, and do that also through our mother tongue curriculum.