But it’s so Chinese!

Here’s to the end of the week. a week of promised breaks and broken (said) promises.

But no, we, at shmabila don’t dwell on such things. and so we headed over to the singapore chinese chamber of commerce & industry. where the original ‘cunning and shrewd’ incarnates first gathered in 1906. since then, nothing much has changed, i’d reckon. still the same crafty and astute chinese business people populate the place.

The initially packed SCCCI hall, and a very enthusiastic first speaker

We were there by mr james du’s invite, for the mid-autumn festival event, which the tian fu club hosted, to bring the new and old chinese immigrants on this very special day. the day when chang’e flew to the moon and thus heartlessly abandoning her lover, houyi, to the arms of despair but i digress. nab was feeling out of place in her hari raya baju (not that i blame her) while we were making our way over to the par-tay. upon reaching our destination, we were slightly at a loss; we were greeted with all things unfamiliar. no james, no tony and no english-speaking person in sight. as we were about to place a desperate call through to james, lo and behold, he was standing at the top of the stairs. and so, in we went. and speaking of painting the town red… *cue picture*

it started at 3pm and opened with a panel of 4 speakers each taking turns to give a speech relating to the issue of new chinese immigrants and tips on making life easier here, without entirely compromising your roots (and there i thought it was just going to be all chit-chat, lanterns, mooncakes and tieguanyin chinese tea).

Some ideas (as best as i could decipher/infer) thrown up during the socio-political seminar:

• Practice using English, don’t be afraid. regardless of how the pronunciation sounds.
• Chinese who come here are proud of their identity and would hold on to it dearly (E.g. there are parents who are afraid that their kids who attend local schools would learn to like to use English and forget about Mandarin)
• To what extent do the new immigrants assimilate with society?
• Main aim of Chinese immigrants here: to contribute to Singapore
• A wonderful anecdote by 李彦小姐, an ex-NTU post-grad. married with a daughter and settled down here.

The three speakers and the moderator (extreme right).

Half way into our stay (poor nab was highly conspicuous and worse, we kept hearing the words ‘马来人’), third member may, having recently touched down from Hanoi, made contact. she’s now sick and has possibly contracted dengue. well, guess she missed out on a jab there! fret not may, by the powers vested in me, i hereby prevent you from having anything else except a cold. because there are tons of recorded speech in advanced mandarin that are just waiting for you to translate. i know, you can thank me later. =D

2 hours of speeches later and after about half of the hall was emptied, we were then told that the festivities would last till 11pm. okay. but that’s besides the point. we managed to snare 2 ladies. both financial accountants. one is the aforementioned ms lee, the other, a ms jasmine hu. who you say? well, she was the one who expressed her pleasant surprise in a less than eloquent manner (‘but it’s so chinese!’) in response to us understanding the gist of what was being said. i think that might have endeared us to her. hence, moral of the story: when in the presence of a very chinese event, say you understand!

I guess it’s fair to say mid-term breaks is one big lie.

-Shan.