Term 3 Week 4 Assignment

The main point Mr. Jim Roger is trying to make is that with rapid globalization, the future generation must develop a global perspective and stay connected to the rest of the world. And with the rise of China as a global superpower, it is now important for the next generation to learn Mandarin in order to reap the benefits of Asia’s economic growth. If not, they will not be comfortable with foreign people, foreign languages and foreign lands. Jim Rogers sees that America’s global competitiveness will continue to decline, and his solution is to immerse himself in the countries and cultures that are ascendant. In order to make sure that his daughters get the most conducive environment to study Mandarin, he moves from America to Singapore and the measures he taken will let Singaporeans ourselves feel ashamed. In the Rogers family’s household, there is no television. Instead, there are more than a dozen globes and maps, a nanny and a maid who speak only Mandarin to his daughters, and a new karaoke machine so that they can learn Chinese songs. Both of them now speak Mandarin as fluently as us. Mr. Jim Rogers thinks that this is the best skill he can give his children.

I agree with his argument. As Mr. Jim Rogers once said, “If you were smart in 1807 you moved to London, if you were smart in 1907 you moved to New York, and if you are smart in 2007 you move to Asia,” the fact that China is steadily replacing America as the world’s superpower is undeniable. Although Singapore has a natural advantage over the rest of the world due to our bilingual education system, many people feel that they should not spend so much effort on learning Mandarin. One may not necessarily need Mandarin to survive in the Chinese economy, but to really thrive and succeed, one has to speak the language fluently. This loss in interest in learning our mother tongue may strangely be attributed partly to the bilingual system itself.

This system, first adopted in 1966, aims to promote English as the link language among the ethnic groups and to facilitate Singapore’s integration into the world economy, at the same time to encourage the use of Mother Tongue to prevent us from losing our historical and cultural roots. However, English has been the primary mode of instruction, leading to greater proficiency in English at the expense of Mother Tongue. What we must know is that language is part of culture. By learning Mandarin, we are learning more about ourselves, but more importantly we are learning the traditions and values of our five-thousand-year-old Chinese culture. Mandarin can be translated into English, but our Chinese culture cannot be explained fully in English. Learning Mandarin has more than economical value, it has much cultural value too.

In conclusion, with the whole world actively learning Mandarin, we must go with the flow, especially so when Singapore has a geographical advantage as the converging point of Western and Chinese culture in the 21st century. To ride the waves of China’s economic success, it is inevitable that everyone at one point or another have to learn and master the Chinese language.