What’s going on?

It’s like we’ve been in hiding with all this moving shit. We’ve hardly read the news, and although we know about the major calamities that have struck, it still feels a bit strange that when we’ve started venturing outside of our apartment (both old and new), the country seems to have changed a fair bit.

First, every second 7-Eleven and petrol station cashier / pump attendant seems to sport a PRC (Mainland or whatever you call them) accent, and every second waiter / supermarket cashier sports a Flipino accent.

Multiply that by the number of petrol stations, supermarkets and cafes in Singapore and you’ll have come up with a very rough but very large number of PRC (Mainland Chinese) and Filipinos working in Singapore.

I don’t know about you, but I feel it wasn’t like that, say, six months ago?

Maybe that’s why there was an apparent recent push to un-Pinyinise Chinese names in schools. We don’t want our kids to be mistaken for Mainland Chinese working at petrol stations and Chinese restaurants, do we?

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5 responses to “What’s going on?”

  1. yanyanyanyanyan Avatar
    yanyanyanyanyan

    Campaign Un-Pinyinisation wasn't so recent…it was, like, 14 years ago? must be the amazing foresight of the government.

  2. LcT Avatar
    LcT

    that 'recent' push happened in 1991 or 1992, i think. i know our government prides itself for having foresight, but i never thought they'll have THAT much of it! =O

  3. auntieblog Avatar

    Each time I get on a bus in my area, 80% of the passengers are foreigners – Indian and PRC Chinese 'talents', Japanese and Caucasian students and other foreign students living in the U hostels across the roads. I've got calls from banks and other customer service people with Filipino and Indian accents. I guess we've been surrounded!

  4. Panzer Avatar

    Singapore is a global city. We need these foreign talent to keeping Singapore Inc. purring along. More good years, Swiss Standard of living and other similar slogans come to mind.

    Of course, they “don't” have to serve NS.

    Majullah Singapura.

  5. Panzer Avatar

    Singapore is a global city. We need these foreign talent to keeping Singapore Inc. purring along. More good years, Swiss Standard of living and other similar slogans come to mind.

    Of course, they “don't” have to serve NS.

    Majullah Singapura.

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