speak mandarin ads criticised
I quote from today's Life!: "They [Chinese kids] weren't as good on camera or couldn't speak as fluently, so they were cut out."
No, really, serious?
Even though you took footage of kids (read: China natives) from Beijing and Shanghai? Their Chinese wasn't as good as angmoh kids? REALLY?
My god, what were the odds? All those who were brought up on Chinese can't speak as fluently (bs) or weren't as good on camera (all of them? bs) AS COMPARED TO angmoh kids?
Such pure luck and coincidence, really.
So now the aim of the Speak Mandarin Campaign has turned from making people appreciate the Chinese culture (which experts who write our compre passages often claim is the only way to make people learn Chinese) to following the in crowd, whether the in crowd happens to be Hossan Leong or random angmoh children.
People in charge of the Speak Mandarin Campaign, get this: FADS DON'T LAST. OKAY? THINGS GO IN AND OUT ALL THE TIME. Turning Chinese into a fad is just laughable, considering how much it has been emphasized that Chinese is a singularly traditional thing with, I dunno, 5000 years of history? So everyone ought to learn to go back to their roots by following a fad.
And come on, all that ad proves is that these 6 children are fluent in Chinese. Surely we can find 6 people in Singapore who are Singaporeans who are fluent in Chinese. Surely we can find people in Singapore who are more fluent in English than, say, Americans. But do you see Singaporeans on American ads?
Of course their accents would be all nice and Beijingish if they had a Beijing teacher. So unless Singapore intends to hire singularly Beijing people to be Chinese teachers in Singapore, don't expect us to have that accent.
Plus what is up with this statement: "But another viewer might be encouraged to practise more because he sees these fluent Chinese-speaking foreigners as role models."
YEAH, because everyone wants to be able to recite "xiao bai tu, bai you bai, ai chi luo buo he qing cai" fluently. And if I were to choose someone as a role model for speaking Chinese, my first choice'd be someone from China; a native speaker of Chinese, and not some random foreigner.
No one's stopping foreigners from learning Chinese, but I find it exceptionally irksome when we are expected to follow them simply and learn Chinese just because they're foreigners.
In my opinion, this ad was done in the poorest taste possible, and I simply cannot emphasize that enough. Know your audience and cater for them; if this had been done using Singaporean children I would most probably have embraced it. After all, it would have been more logical and much more effective in inspiring Singaporeans to pick up Chinese.
Screw the speak mandarin campaign. If I feel inspired to learn Chinese, it's not going to be because of a bunch of foreigners and much less because it's a fad.
No, really, serious?
Even though you took footage of kids (read: China natives) from Beijing and Shanghai? Their Chinese wasn't as good as angmoh kids? REALLY?
My god, what were the odds? All those who were brought up on Chinese can't speak as fluently (bs) or weren't as good on camera (all of them? bs) AS COMPARED TO angmoh kids?
Such pure luck and coincidence, really.
So now the aim of the Speak Mandarin Campaign has turned from making people appreciate the Chinese culture (which experts who write our compre passages often claim is the only way to make people learn Chinese) to following the in crowd, whether the in crowd happens to be Hossan Leong or random angmoh children.
People in charge of the Speak Mandarin Campaign, get this: FADS DON'T LAST. OKAY? THINGS GO IN AND OUT ALL THE TIME. Turning Chinese into a fad is just laughable, considering how much it has been emphasized that Chinese is a singularly traditional thing with, I dunno, 5000 years of history? So everyone ought to learn to go back to their roots by following a fad.
And come on, all that ad proves is that these 6 children are fluent in Chinese. Surely we can find 6 people in Singapore who are Singaporeans who are fluent in Chinese. Surely we can find people in Singapore who are more fluent in English than, say, Americans. But do you see Singaporeans on American ads?
Of course their accents would be all nice and Beijingish if they had a Beijing teacher. So unless Singapore intends to hire singularly Beijing people to be Chinese teachers in Singapore, don't expect us to have that accent.
Plus what is up with this statement: "But another viewer might be encouraged to practise more because he sees these fluent Chinese-speaking foreigners as role models."
YEAH, because everyone wants to be able to recite "xiao bai tu, bai you bai, ai chi luo buo he qing cai" fluently. And if I were to choose someone as a role model for speaking Chinese, my first choice'd be someone from China; a native speaker of Chinese, and not some random foreigner.
No one's stopping foreigners from learning Chinese, but I find it exceptionally irksome when we are expected to follow them simply and learn Chinese just because they're foreigners.
In my opinion, this ad was done in the poorest taste possible, and I simply cannot emphasize that enough. Know your audience and cater for them; if this had been done using Singaporean children I would most probably have embraced it. After all, it would have been more logical and much more effective in inspiring Singaporeans to pick up Chinese.
Screw the speak mandarin campaign. If I feel inspired to learn Chinese, it's not going to be because of a bunch of foreigners and much less because it's a fad.
posted by /luminescence at
6:36 AM
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