Singapore and China are the only two majority-Chinese countries in the world. The Chinese make up 75% of Singapore's population, and the majority of the Chinese belong to the Hokkien and Hakka ethnic groups.
According to normal logic, the level of Chinese in China and New Zealand should be very similar, probably like English in the United Kingdom and the United States?
After Singapore and China waived each other's visas, there was a surge in the number of Chinese tourists visiting the new country. In a few days in Malaysia, the Chinese I met were just like ordinary Chinese communication, there were no communication barriers.
After going through Malaysia and Singapore at the same time, I have a more intuitive understanding of the Chinese level of the Chinese in both places.
Whether I was studying in the UK or traveling to Singapore, the Chinese Singaporeans I came into contact with had very poor Chinese proficiency, and basically only had very ordinary daily conversations.
Speaking Chinese to Singaporean Chinese is like speaking Chinese to Chinese primary school students, the words need to be very simple and easy to understand, not Chinese idioms and colloquialisms, otherwise they will not understand (haha!). If you exchange some academic and political information in depth, they may have to use English vocabulary to express it.
The cityscape of Singapore
Looking back at history, Malaysia kicked Singapore away because of the large proportion of Singaporean Chinese, but the irony is that Malaysia is the only country in the world outside China that retains a complete Chinese teaching system.
Since the 1970s, Singapore has closed all traditional Chinese schools, and English has been used as the medium of instruction from primary school to university, with the intention of allowing citizens to master English first and then their native language, but in fact Chinese is learned as a foreign language, with only a few Chinese classes per week, and the rest of the subjects are taught in English
Sentosa Scenic Area, Singapore
Malaysia still allows Chinese schools to open, Chinese education covers primary school to high school, Chinese can choose to go to Chinese school, use Chinese to learn mathematics, physics and chemistry, history and geography and other subjects, and can also master the country's official language, Malay, plus English.
Street view of Singapore
What is even more admirable is that Malaysian Chinese secondary schools (Chinese independent secondary schools) are not supported by Malaysian state funds, and need to be financed and operated by local Chinese communities, including Chinese teaching materials, school facilities, Chinese teachers, etc. are all self-funded by Chinese, so even if the tuition fee is higher than that of ordinary national secondary schools (taught in Malay), it does not affect most Chinese parents to send their children to Chinese secondary schools.
A food court in Singapore
On the other hand, in Singapore, in addition to communicating in simple Chinese in daily families, the rest of the Chinese basically learn Chinese as a "foreign language" from an early age.
Although Singapore promotes the "Speak Mandarin Campaign" every year and makes it mandatory for Chinese children to learn Chinese in schools, the Chinese proficiency of young Singaporeans has declined significantly.
Lee
Most of the Chinese Singaporeans I met (excluding new immigrants) could only express themselves simply, could not write Chinese characters, could not type Chinese, and were able to Chinese the rest of their social life in English, except for verbal .
Most Malaysian Chinese who have received Chinese education have no difference in Chinese proficiency from ordinary Chinese, and Malaysian Chinese even have additional skills in Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Teochew and so on.
Of course, there are several reasons for this practice in Singapore:
1️⃣ Low-key development: the country is small, with few resources, at first it was poor and white, and it depended on the surrounding area, but the surrounding area was surrounded by foreign races and pagan religions, and it was kicked out because there were too many Chinese, and the Chinese exclusion in Malaysia and Indonesia in the 1960s and 90s affected the survival of Singapore. If the "Chineseness" is highlighted, it will be difficult to mix.
2️⃣ Ethnic identity gives way to racial harmony, and it is important to win the trust of ethnic minorities if the Chinese-majority country is to survive.
3️⃣ Pragmatism: There was an urgent need to develop the economy and get rid of dependence on neighboring countries, and the importance of English was even stronger.
Merlion
This is also why on Chinese social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, overseas Chinese are basically only Malaysian Chinese, while Singaporean Chinese have very little presence, because Singaporean Chinese thinking is basically English-based, and their way of thinking is mostly in English, and they rarely care about Chinese Internet world.
I also initiated a poll on Xiaohongshu, and most of them felt that the Chinese proficiency of Singaporean Chinese was "average" or "very poor".
After this note was published on Xiaohongshu, it attracted a large number of comments from local Chinese in Malaysia, as well as a small number of Chinese in Singapore (most of whom were new immigrants from the past in China).
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