Hokkien in Singapore
“Excuse me; may I know where the toilet is?” Tommy said hurriedly, dragging his luggage bag as he proceeded out of the arrival hall.
“Turn to your right, sir, and you would see a sign board showing the direction you proceed foe the toilet” said politely by a businessman wearing formally, holding a bag with him.
“Thanks a lot!” smiled Tommy, dashing towards the signboard.
This is the first time Tommy has stepped onto Island Singapura. With his first impression by that polite and courteous businessman and his prior knowledge of Singapore by his colleagues, he find that Singapore is a very well-educated country and gives respect to everyone they meet, therefore, he hope to bring this trait back to his motherland, USA. But his image changed immediately after he stepped on the taxi.
“Ai ke to lo! (Where do you want to go?)” the taxi driver yelled.
“Excuse me, may I beg your pardon?” Tommy asked in a state of confusion.
“Where…you…want…to…go” blabbered the taxi driver in Singlish.
“I would like to go to Orchard Road…”mumbled Tommy.
“Onh…… Orchard Road, ho… (Good)”replied the taxi driver.
Tommy did not understand a single thing what the taxi driver was saying, and just prayed that he brought him to the correct place. Throughout the whole journey, the taxi driver was talking on the phone to his friend and did not bother about Tommy at all! Tommy sighed silently along the way to Orchard Road as the good impression that he had on Singapore was totally smashed into pieces. He quickly paid the fares and dashed out of the taxi, and entered a shopping centre that was bustling with life. Everyone inside was very polite and respect each other a lot, no signs of jumping or quarrel at all! His impression on Singapore recovered slightly as he thought maybe only a minority of Singaporeans was like that but he was shocked after he sat down in a hawker centre, bustling with crowds. After a nice and refreshing walk in the cooling shopping centre, he decided to go for lunch as he was dying of hunger after the long morning. Once he walked out of the shopping centre, he wondered around, looking for a bite, till he saw a lot of people gathering around that significantly bigger hawker centre than the others. He thought that the food there was better; therefore, he headed towards the hawker centre.
As he was strolling there, people just pushed him through without even apologizing! Once he entered the hawker centre, more unpleasant sight came flushing in. People sitting and dressing like gangsters, shouting at each other, coarse language rang throughout the whole hawker centre, people banging tables and kicking chairs. This sight made him feel nausea and he nearly fainted! The only thing that looks appealing to him was the food; it looks very savory and made him drool! He found a quieter spot in the hawker centre and sat down quietly.
Here comes an uncle wearing a pouch on his waist, “ai lim si mi? (What do you want to drink?) asked rudely.
“What are you talking? I do not understand!” Tommy said frustratingly.
“Whan lai si ang mo kian! (Oh, is an American!) the uncle shouted. The whole hawker was filled with laughter short after the uncle spoke.
“What… do… you….you… like… to drink…?” giggled the uncle.
“Erm can I have Coke?” Tommy said embarrassedly.
Tommy quickly ordered his food and ate rapidly, he gobbled nearly every mouth! As he was eating, everyone was like staring at him, giggling and making fun of him with a language he does not even understand. It made him so embarrassed that he felt like hiding at a deserted corner and not being found. Once he left the hawker centre, he was very disappointed with Singapore. “How can Singaporeans bully a foreigner like him with a language he does not know and being that rude to a customer? He told himself this is the last time I will step onto Singapore. Although Singapore might a very prosperous country, but with such citizens, it will definitely spoils Singapore’s image totally.” Tommy thought. Tommy’s anticipation for the next day of his business trip had vanished into thin air as he strolled hopelessly back to his hotel.
His next day in Singapore was totally amazing as it was totally “out of control”. He got out his slumber land by an abrupt sound of his alarm clock. After getting washed up, he had his sumptuous breakfast at the ground floor of the hotel. All waiters and waitresses were very polite and courteous in their actions and words. But that made no difference to his image on Singapore. As he left for his appointment with a big customer in Singapore, he was a little reluctant. He entered a majestic edifice and he was shocked. He could not expect Singaporeans to be such courteous people! Even the technologies were also very “courteous”. Little amazed as he entered a lift, a sweet voice spoke sounded the enclosed lift, “Which floor are you going? Who are you meeting?” “Erm… I am meeting Mr. Steven, manager of the trade and industry…” Tommy answered nervously. “Ok, sure, Mr. Steven is on 25th floor, the receptionist there would tell you more, have a nice day.” Shortly after this sentence, the lift started moving up gradually till 25th floor. As he headed towards the reception counter, the receptionist smiled, “You must be Mr. Tommy, and Mr. Steven has been waiting for your arrival, this way please.” His negotiations with Mr. Steven had come to a perfect ending where both sides were delighted on the terms and conditions. As he left the building, he told himself, Singapore was not so bad after all.
When returning to hotel, he changed his views on Singapore once again. This time was final. Although Singapore had some people that are not courteous and polite mainly due to the people they mixed around with but majority of the Singaporeans were polite and courteous as the technologies were already that courteous! Singaporeans even programmed the lift to be courteous, how can people be not courteous when their facilities are? Tommy decided to take back his words and come over to Singapore more frequently to learn and adapt to Singapore’s culture. He flew back U.S.A with a wonderful impression of Singapore.
Done By: Shie Yu Hao
Hi, I have read your composition and I would like to give you some comments on your 2nd draft. First of all, I would like to compliment you on your effort in the emphasis of your narrative writing, with interesting dialogues and narrative plot. However, I would like to point out that you have to write the compo according to either the theme "Becoming" or "Identity". The story you have written perhaps had adhere to one of the themes, but from what I saw, you have not really relate your story to the theme much.
ReplyDeleteI would also like to point out a typo error on line 5, paragraph 2. It should be "for" and not "foe".
After reading your story, I realised that you could have stick to one opinion as much as possible and elaborate on it. You could either let the tourist have a good opinion or bad opinion throughout the whole passage. This way, your theme and the message you want to bring out will be clearer and the reader would not have to guess what is your utmost intention- to compliment or to criticise Singapore.
However, you have still done quite well in this 2nd draft as your language is well-used and logical. You have also listed a variety of experiences instead of just one. The development of the story is also very clear-cut and sometimes humorous. You had also pay attention to small details such as the lift and the pleasant service.
Overall, you probably need to improve and put more focus on the theme in your last draft. You would probably like to consider the choice and amount of opinions Tommy have in the draft as well. Last but not least, the word amount has exceeded by 61 words, so I would like to caution you here too. Other than that, it’s a well-written piece of short story.
To me, I feel that your composition is a little bit awkward. First up, your second paragraph has a lot of errors. “Turn to your right, sir, and you would see a sign board showing the direction you proceed foe the toilet” said politely by a businessman wearing formally, holding a bag with him. This is your second paragraph, and the highlighted areas are the errors.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, your taxi driver asked Tommy where he wanted to go in dialect. Now, the location is outside Changi airport, so I expect that the taxi driver knows how to speak Chinese or English, since most of his passengers will be foreigners. The taxi driver should have been able to recognise Tommy’s nationality just by looking at him, and would have known to speak English to Tommy. However, with the way you portray the taxi driver, it seems that he has difficulty even with basic English. I do feel that it is quite wrong to portray taxi drivers in this manner.
Next up, your composition seems to portray all hawker centres as places where they do not treat customers with respect, where and they all use dialects to speak to all customers and uncouth language is everywhere. Sure, they might repeat orders to the cook in dialects, but in my memory, I do not think that I have ever been to such a hawker centre where they only use dialects to ask for orders. Nearly all hawker centre workers know basic English, so they do not take orders from 'ang mohs' in dialects or Chinese. They take your orders without mocking your nationality. Also, it seems that in your composition, hawker centres are full of coarse language, and they laugh out loud at their customers. Once again, I have never seen that. It seems to me that hawker centres are a disgrace to Singapore.
In the paragraph where you talk about Tommy in the hotel, he is suddenly an adult who needs to meet a customer. However, in the previous paragraphs, it has led to me view Tommy as a boy who has flown from the US to visit somebody. I feel that you could work on this part of characterisation. Aside from that, inside the lift, Tommy was greeted by a voice activated message, or that was what it seemed to me. However, the recorded voice could answer. I feel that if it was meant to be a real person standing inside the lift, you could have mentioned that.
However, contrary to what Sheng Xiang has said, I feel that this has brought out the ‘identity’ of Singaporeans, with it being the Singlish and also the courteous part. Singlish is ‘Singapore English’, and you have used a fair number of examples, even though most of it were dialects. For the courteous part, your compo showed the ‘uncourteous’ part of Singapore too, but that is rather ok, because we can’t be all good.
Yu Hao, please, for the love of aesthetics and for the sake of my eyesight, change the color scheme of your blog. Green text on a blue background makes my eyes scream in pain.
ReplyDeleteOkay, to your story: Right now, this experience does not ring true. Most Singaporeans seem to be quite enamored of Americans, and know right away not to use dialect or any non-English languages around them. Every taxi driver I've encountered knew at least a little English (and most were fluent); every drinks stall owner has been able to communicate with me.
So rather than outright rudeness, you may want to instead focus on the brusqueness/directness of people here, which can seem rude to a foreigner, but isn't purposefully so. You can keep the bit about getting bumped into, as Singaporeans have a different social norm about personal space from Americans, which can seem rude as well.
Please also carefully proofread your work. On a sentence level, this was at times difficult to read and understand. I suggest asking one of your classmates who is good in writing to go over your final draft for careless errors before you turn it in to me.
A technical detail: if your narrator is arriving from the USA, his flight would get in at 1 a.m. and he would go straight to a hotel. Also, after a 25-hour flight, he would likely be exhausted and not want to do much at all during his first day here. (I'm speaking from experience.)