Comments on: 学语以外 : Beyond Language Learning

By: huay leng

huay leng — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:43:21 +0000

good to hear that you’ve got them. i can’t remember which shop did i get it from. in fact, i thought it’s most common in the dvd shops. i got the cartoons while my father got his teow chew opera and cross-talks one evening when we strolled along the streets near the hotel.

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:12:53 +0000

Hi. A friend of a friend found it, and I now have it. It’s too bad they didn’t dub the music though.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:59:20 +0000

I feel that learning one’s own language for the sake of maintaining a cultural identity is important. Parents can only do so much to make sure their kids have even a tenuous grasp of their dialect. Once the kids go to school, they’ll always naturally favor what everyone else is speaking, whether it’s English in Singapore, French in France, or Cantonese in Hong Kong. However, this does not mean that parents should give up on the task before even starting.

Using Teochew in the States as an example: I think parents should be resolute. If they do want to preserve their culture, then speak Teochew to their kids from the beginning, and never stop, it will be impossible for them to lose the ability to comprehend basic TC, unless of course, tired of their parents’ constant use of what they consider to be an archaic language, they run away from home and lose all exposure to it. When the day arrives where the kid comes back from school refusing to speak a single word of TC, then so be it. This doesn’t mean the parent has to stop. Just keep speaking to them in TC, and only use English when absolutely necessary. One day, if and when the kid wants to become fluent in their own dialect, then at least they have a basic foundation of comprehension they can rely on to learn on their own. Whether its through looping the Snow White DVD, or visiting Chaoshan for a few months by themselves.

For a long time, I’ve harbored this dream of, when the day comes and I have children, sending them each summer to Chaoshan to live with relatives so that they can be fluent. That’s still way in the future. I don’t know if that’ll actually happen, but if it does, I doubt I’ll be the first to try.

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 06:23:57 +0000

oh sorry…just saw your name in chinese and realized your name is actually Huay Leng. i’m from the states, so i got a little confused.

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 06:21:59 +0000

Lee Huay, I haven’t quite finished reading your entry yet. I had to stop and ask you a question before I continue reading. Where in Shantou did you buy the Snow White dvd? When I visited the Chaoshan area, everytime I was in a DVD store and asked for things in Teochew, I’d get directed to the section with ancient movies like 蝦魚來 (don’t have the dvd’s in front of me, so I probably wrote the chinese wrong. but it was He Hou Lai in Teochew). so i have a bunch of these disks, mixed in with karaoke vcd’s, but nothing as cool as Snow White. i am very, very jealous :-)

i’ve only read one sentence so far, but I’m already loving your blog entry. now i shall continue reading your entry.

btw, found your blog on a friend’s facebook post