Namewee’s recent production of “Teacher Hew’s ABC Lesson” and the song “你的英文太爛” - Your English Sucks, portrays the real situation of Chinese education here in Malaysia.
Chinese high schools in Malaysia aren’t really supported by the government, apart from MCA (Malaysian Chinese Association). Many were shut down due to poor response. Independent high schools promoting Chinese education during the intake season, carrying the slogan of “Keeping the 5000-year-old Chinese culture alive”, but I think that’s merely to attract students to keep their book balanced. They get lucky if they recruit children from super rich families, where the parents will inject thick donations every year.
Namewee claimed that the Chinese education system in Malaysia doesn’t have a unified system, where we started in primary school using Chinese as the medium, Bahasa Melayu in secondary school, and then English in the college or university. Meaning that we’ve to start all over again in each level of education trying to understand what’s being taught. Instead of absorbing the lesson, students are busy flipping dictionaries, or searching for definitions in their digital dictionary, (e.g. Besta) for the meaning of each and every English words. I’ve seen many examples myself during my college years. Why are they so desperate? They’ve no choice really. Companies only accept employees who knows English. So die die must get in local college to learn English.
Even if you started in a Chinese primary school, went to an independent Chinese high school, but at the end of the day, when you graduate from the high school, where can you go? There’s no such thing as a Chinese college or University in the country. End up, you either have to go abroad to Taiwan or China, or get into a local college and try to stay alive using Besta, or you give up and be a China-man.
Alright, cut the crap and get to the videos. Parents watching these videos are advised to be accompanied by children. Strictly Not for Adults over 18. VSFW material ahead.
Teacher Hew’s ABC Lesson - Part 1
Teacher Hew’s ABC Lesson - Part 2
你的英文太爛 - Your English Sucks
“This song is dedicated to the incompetent Malaysian Education Minister.” - Namewee.
Sekian, terima kasih. 谢谢观光。
WTF is this……..
The problem is not Chinese education. The problem has to do with the parents. Let me give you a simple example. Ten years ago I used to live in a Taman which was predominantly Chinese. Now I speak to my kids in English and Hokkien, my wife speaks to them in Mandarin and Hokkien. We encourage them to speak to our maid in Malay as much as possible and to watch Malay cartoons. For doing this, I was bombarded by my Chinese neighbours for NEGLECTING to give paramount importance to Chinese in educating my kids and my kids will eventually be unable to speak or write in Chinese or at lousy at Chinese. Well, my kids are trilingual today and they attend the paramount Chinese Primary school in Muar. My son won the Chinese essay writing competition in his class this year and the year before. My other son is consistently in the top five positions of his class.
So whose fault is it when kids fail to go anywhere in the Chinese education system? The parents are at fault. They think their kids are just as pig headed as them when it comes to learning languages. They do not understand kids ave an incredible capacity to absorb languages. How dare we compare our kepala batu to that of kids who are still pliable. Today my kids surf the internet in English, uses prmarily Chinese in school and are fully functional in Malay.
Please tell all Chinese school parents who refuses to understand the wonders of being trilingual that we are not in FUCKING CHINA. Chinese education in Malaysia is not education in the People’s Republic of China. In a multi-racial setting like Malaysia the Chinese must understand that the Chinese language is just a small part of a very big picture. Then there will be no need for Chinese kids to be tortured as they go up the education ladder.
Private Chinese schools do follow a unified syllabus…and they pick the better students to attend lessons in the afternoon to prepare them for public exams like the SPM. Among the TOP schools in KK, Sabah today are the Chinese private schools (One of them TOP SPM straight A student in the country a couple of years ago!)…and they are able to function very well with the support from the general public, instead of waiting for freebies from the government. That’s the right spirit! Too many people just hope for things to drop down from the sky, and they can jolly well wait forever!
As Vinnan says, a lot depends on the home background and the attitude in the families towards languages. When it is solely MANDARIN in the home, no need to say other languages, even our CHINESE dialects will die out one by one…and people do not realise that the CHINESE dialects form our Chinese culture - be it Foochow, Hokkien, Cantonese etc. and when they die out, our Chinese culture dies out as well. Mandarin is just a language!
In my point of view, namewee is nothing wrong with this video clip. He is voicing out his dissatisfaction of the current or previous eduction system in Malaysia. At least he has the gut to produce some constructive criticisms, not like most of the people(i might be one of them) are just complaining in their minds.
I believe in “Freedom of Speech”. Everyone should be allowed to speak out their thoughts no matter it is against yours or not. And Malaysia is nowhere near to that stage yet. Well, hopefully one day.
Suituapui: I second the dialect part! Parents of younger generations speaks only Mandarin and English, so the dialects were left to die out gradually.
eN: Are we really under democratic rules? Take ISA for example.
alexallied: Haha. We still have long way to go.