Saturday, July 31, 2004
The Problem with Mobility
I read Zena's latest post with a touch of deja-vu.
She writes about accents; about the poncy gits who return home after two years with a "fake" british accent, and about the wonders of preserving her thoroughbred Singaporean accent, and quotes the Straits Times which, predictably enough, believes that a Singaporean accent is best in the biculturalism (or rather, biaccentualism) debate. Made in Singapore is always the best; and there's no need to feel inferior to the West.
Zena's another medical student in london who hails from Singapore, and her writing sometimes touches a (rather paternalistic) chord in me; it's rather like watching baby grow up. I guess maybe the relationship with the ex was a little like that too... One feels tempted to helpfully interject now and then - after all, I've been there, and done that.
Experience tells me that the usual result is resentful rejection (of advice) so perhaps I'll keep my geriatric (COUGH AND FROWN) and vitrolic retorts here, on my own blog.
First off, I'd like to say that one of the most amazing things about people is how adaptable we are. We can spend three quarters of our lives in a tropical country, and then fly halfway across the world to a temperate climate, and within a few months we've acclimatised. (Mad) people journey to the north and south poles, occasionally.
When I first got here, I thought I had a pretty neutral accent. It wasn't particularly British (even though my grandfather taught English under colonial rule and my ex-legal-eagle mother has a bee in her bonnet about el-lo-kew-shun, cue marry poppins) and it wasn't particularly Singaporean either, thanks to her subliminal influences through my youth.
I never really liked the Singaporean accent; it's a decidedly ugly accent. 'H's are dropped (Tree instead of three), 'T's are wielded with the subtlety of battleaxes ('why like Dat'), sentence construction is often awkward, stilted, and alternate words are pitched to sound as discontinuous as possible. Sing-song-singaporean, if you catch my drift.
I suppose I'm a bit of a cultural elitist when it comes to accents. The girls I found attractive were
1) an ozzie, but I suspect that had a great deal more to do with her personality than her accent
and
2) a canadian, but again, this had to do with personality, uh, and looks.
Nonetheless, getting back to what little point I had, when I first arrived I thought I had a pretty neutral accent. The brits, on the other hand, thought I had a yank accent. And disturbingly enough, a couple of canadians wanted to know where in Canada I came from. (eh??)
Now the Real London accent - the true british accent, and not the ridiculous public-school accent we in Singapore associate with England, and Bad Men holding guns to Chinky heroines' heads - is actually pretty easy to emulate. It's a very neutral accent that focuses more on mannerisms than accent per se. The mannerisms are by and large quirky, silly, and very, very human. (You big girls blouse you)
I will confess that I rather liked Britspeak after a while. Bollocks is such a nice word. heh heh.
And somehow, through the years, I've acquired it. It's always struck me how much harder it would be, living in the UK as I do, and not just staying here (there is a huge distinction) to preserve a Singaporean Accent than to gradually incorporate Britspeak into your daily lingo. It'd take a conscious effort on my part, and
1) I don't see the point, and
2) I'm far too lazy to do anything quite as pretentious as that.
So today, seven (going on eight) years later I've got a pretty much neutral accent with an unmistakably British tinge to it. (It'd also be far too much effort, and far too pretentious to do the Public School thingy, since I don't encounter that on a daily basis. Having said that, one of the blokes I fenced with the other night was from Eaton. heh)
It worries me sometimes, now that I'm considering going home to work amongst my options.
Singaporeans, you see, are ALL accentual elitists.
The one thing that sets us apart from other people of other nations (even malaysians!) is how much we care about how people speak. And how ready we are to condemn (or crucify. or cane on the bum. or hang.) nonconformists.
If it isn't overtly Singaporean, then it's evil (unless of course it's californian, in which case give us a shag then).
It's funny, the Honkies do it with clothes (I was close to this girl in first year uni, who looked a bit like err. was it fann wong? dunno. typical waifey fresh-faced look. She tried to explain it to me, summat to do with how not dressing well reflects poorly on their parents) and we do it with accents. Singaporeans, incidentally, are slaves to fashion as well, except they pretty much dress alike. The kids, anyhow. They all wear their hair the same way, have the same stick-thin figures, and wear the same clothes... it's almost as if they're all in uniform most of their lives. Londoners (by which I mean City people) in contrast are often exquisite dressers. They're not a pretty people (gimme germanic features anyday. Claudia Schifferrrrr) but they are well groomed.
J, a once-close friend of mine went home and received a lot of stick for her supposedly ang-moh-rised accent after three years in uni.
J is a lovely girl with the heaviest peranakan accent I've ever heard. It's not quite Singaporean, but it's obviously 100% south east asian. It's almost as if her simply having lived here for a while branded her an outcast the second she set foot on home soil again.
I can't wait to go home and put my unacceptably anglicised head into the Lion's maw. Sigh.
Maybe I should just give up and go work in California. heh.
*****
It doesn't help that I don't know what I want. I need to think, except that thinking will get me nowhere. And so, instead, I catch myself staring at my mobile phone and doing the opposite.
*****
I haven't ever really found a place that I call home
I never stick around quite long enough to make it
I apologize that once again I'm not in love
But it's not as if I mind that your heart
ain't exactly breaking
It's just a thought, only a thought
But if my life is for rent
and I don't learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
'Cos nothing I have is truly mine
' always thought
that I would love to live by the sea
To travel the world alone
and live more simply
I have no idea what's happened to that dream
'Cos there's really nothing left here
to stop me
It's just a thought, only a thought
But if my life is for rent
and I don't learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
'Cos nothing I have is truly mine
if my life is for rent
and I don't learn to buy
(Well) I deserve nothing more than I get
'Cos nothing I have is truly mine
While my heart is a shield
and I won't let it down
While am I
'fraid to fail
so I won't even try
Well how can I
say I'm alive
If my life is for rent...
- Dido, Life for Rent
I suppose it should bother me that all the songs that seem to capture my life and thoughts are sung by female soloists.
She writes about accents; about the poncy gits who return home after two years with a "fake" british accent, and about the wonders of preserving her thoroughbred Singaporean accent, and quotes the Straits Times which, predictably enough, believes that a Singaporean accent is best in the biculturalism (or rather, biaccentualism) debate. Made in Singapore is always the best; and there's no need to feel inferior to the West.
Zena's another medical student in london who hails from Singapore, and her writing sometimes touches a (rather paternalistic) chord in me; it's rather like watching baby grow up. I guess maybe the relationship with the ex was a little like that too... One feels tempted to helpfully interject now and then - after all, I've been there, and done that.
Experience tells me that the usual result is resentful rejection (of advice) so perhaps I'll keep my geriatric (COUGH AND FROWN) and vitrolic retorts here, on my own blog.
First off, I'd like to say that one of the most amazing things about people is how adaptable we are. We can spend three quarters of our lives in a tropical country, and then fly halfway across the world to a temperate climate, and within a few months we've acclimatised. (Mad) people journey to the north and south poles, occasionally.
When I first got here, I thought I had a pretty neutral accent. It wasn't particularly British (even though my grandfather taught English under colonial rule and my ex-legal-eagle mother has a bee in her bonnet about el-lo-kew-shun, cue marry poppins) and it wasn't particularly Singaporean either, thanks to her subliminal influences through my youth.
I never really liked the Singaporean accent; it's a decidedly ugly accent. 'H's are dropped (Tree instead of three), 'T's are wielded with the subtlety of battleaxes ('why like Dat'), sentence construction is often awkward, stilted, and alternate words are pitched to sound as discontinuous as possible. Sing-song-singaporean, if you catch my drift.
I suppose I'm a bit of a cultural elitist when it comes to accents. The girls I found attractive were
1) an ozzie, but I suspect that had a great deal more to do with her personality than her accent
and
2) a canadian, but again, this had to do with personality, uh, and looks.
Nonetheless, getting back to what little point I had, when I first arrived I thought I had a pretty neutral accent. The brits, on the other hand, thought I had a yank accent. And disturbingly enough, a couple of canadians wanted to know where in Canada I came from. (eh??)
Now the Real London accent - the true british accent, and not the ridiculous public-school accent we in Singapore associate with England, and Bad Men holding guns to Chinky heroines' heads - is actually pretty easy to emulate. It's a very neutral accent that focuses more on mannerisms than accent per se. The mannerisms are by and large quirky, silly, and very, very human. (You big girls blouse you)
I will confess that I rather liked Britspeak after a while. Bollocks is such a nice word. heh heh.
And somehow, through the years, I've acquired it. It's always struck me how much harder it would be, living in the UK as I do, and not just staying here (there is a huge distinction) to preserve a Singaporean Accent than to gradually incorporate Britspeak into your daily lingo. It'd take a conscious effort on my part, and
1) I don't see the point, and
2) I'm far too lazy to do anything quite as pretentious as that.
So today, seven (going on eight) years later I've got a pretty much neutral accent with an unmistakably British tinge to it. (It'd also be far too much effort, and far too pretentious to do the Public School thingy, since I don't encounter that on a daily basis. Having said that, one of the blokes I fenced with the other night was from Eaton. heh)
It worries me sometimes, now that I'm considering going home to work amongst my options.
Singaporeans, you see, are ALL accentual elitists.
The one thing that sets us apart from other people of other nations (even malaysians!) is how much we care about how people speak. And how ready we are to condemn (or crucify. or cane on the bum. or hang.) nonconformists.
If it isn't overtly Singaporean, then it's evil (unless of course it's californian, in which case give us a shag then).
It's funny, the Honkies do it with clothes (I was close to this girl in first year uni, who looked a bit like err. was it fann wong? dunno. typical waifey fresh-faced look. She tried to explain it to me, summat to do with how not dressing well reflects poorly on their parents) and we do it with accents. Singaporeans, incidentally, are slaves to fashion as well, except they pretty much dress alike. The kids, anyhow. They all wear their hair the same way, have the same stick-thin figures, and wear the same clothes... it's almost as if they're all in uniform most of their lives. Londoners (by which I mean City people) in contrast are often exquisite dressers. They're not a pretty people (gimme germanic features anyday. Claudia Schifferrrrr) but they are well groomed.
J, a once-close friend of mine went home and received a lot of stick for her supposedly ang-moh-rised accent after three years in uni.
J is a lovely girl with the heaviest peranakan accent I've ever heard. It's not quite Singaporean, but it's obviously 100% south east asian. It's almost as if her simply having lived here for a while branded her an outcast the second she set foot on home soil again.
I can't wait to go home and put my unacceptably anglicised head into the Lion's maw. Sigh.
Maybe I should just give up and go work in California. heh.
*****
It doesn't help that I don't know what I want. I need to think, except that thinking will get me nowhere. And so, instead, I catch myself staring at my mobile phone and doing the opposite.
*****
I haven't ever really found a place that I call home
I never stick around quite long enough to make it
I apologize that once again I'm not in love
But it's not as if I mind that your heart
ain't exactly breaking
It's just a thought, only a thought
But if my life is for rent
and I don't learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
'Cos nothing I have is truly mine
' always thought
that I would love to live by the sea
To travel the world alone
and live more simply
I have no idea what's happened to that dream
'Cos there's really nothing left here
to stop me
It's just a thought, only a thought
But if my life is for rent
and I don't learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
'Cos nothing I have is truly mine
if my life is for rent
and I don't learn to buy
(Well) I deserve nothing more than I get
'Cos nothing I have is truly mine
While my heart is a shield
and I won't let it down
While am I
'fraid to fail
so I won't even try
Well how can I
say I'm alive
If my life is for rent...
- Dido, Life for Rent
I suppose it should bother me that all the songs that seem to capture my life and thoughts are sung by female soloists.
