The government of Singapore, a relatively young city-state that has placed great emphasis on having its citizens be competitive in the global economic arena, has long urged us all to focus on being fluent in proper English and not speak Singlish. Despite its color, verve and efficiency, Singlish is a patois that has been under fire for years in my native country. His desires and ambitions for me-and his wariness of Singlish-run parallel to the Singapore government’s. My father-who so wanted me to grow up to be a barrister that he gave me a dictionary of legal terms when I was 6-knew that if I were to ever don those silks, I needed to speak perfectly. His was a generation encouraged to shed not just Singlish in favor of standard or Queen’s English, but also native Chinese dialects such as Cantonese, Teochew and Hakka in favor of Mandarin.Īt home, we spoke mostly English-the sad reason that my Mandarin is so-so, and I can barely speak Teochew and Hokkien, the Chinese dialects of my grandmothers. He was 20 when Singapore gained independence in 1965 he was among the euphoric and newly galvanized Singaporeans at the time who believed in the collective goal of fashioning our tiny, still relatively sleepy Southeast Asian island into a dynamic world-class economy. My father’s dismay at my novel was understandable.

Duly noted slang