Following from yesterday's reflection on the annual spelling contest conducted here on Saturday for upper Primary school students, something not unrelated. At the funeral yesterday of the founding father of modern-day Singapore atop the Parliament building an aspect of the program raised some consternation. There might have been a flag flying, perhaps lowered, portraits possibly and other familiar symbols. What was unexpected was a group of presumably kilted Gurkha bagpipers squeezing out Old Lange Syne.
Should olde acquaintance be forgot....
A well-established, internationally recognised tune more or less. In Asia however, even the Singaporean sliver of that continent, the matter did raise some eyebrows. Some local critics saw a fundamental incongruity, an absurdity even importing such a completely foreign element into the proceedings. Evidently surprised like some others, the BBC commentator had remarked at the unusual practice.
In Singapore as elsewhere the upper middle-class send their children to elite Western schools off-shore or on. (Mr. Lee had of course been the beneficiary of a Cambridge education.) The remainder of the populace needed to attain a proficiency in the imposed language in less than ideal circumstances, let us say. In a more natural or normal language environment, high-order attainment might still be possible outside the institutions and the non-English speaking domestic setting. Here how? (To employ the common local vernacular.)
Even the most proficient English speakers and spellers here might have been severely tested making head or tail of the pipes and Old Lange Syne one feels sure.
Would there be ten people on the island capable of rendering the title of the old Scots standard in either contemporary English, or else one of the other languages used in Singapore?
Politics, class, culture, meritocracy rather a minefield when closely examined.
No comments:
Post a Comment