On Dispute of English Standard

Note: The blogger recently received certain mockery remarks from his e-buddies such as "perfectionist", "trying to get noticeable" and others after raising the issue of English standard of their email exchanges. This prompted him to decide to shut up on this subject and prepare to distance from the daily chain-mailing activities.

Reproduced below are an email from the most respectable Dr JB Lim and the blogger's reply:

Wednesday, 4 May, 2011 11:21 PM

To our dearest TO,

Oh, please do not be too harsh on yourself. I feel so uncomfortable surrounding this whole issue about language. I feel so terribly, terribly guilty to share your thoughts with all our buddies. Please forgive me, will you? To err is human, to forgive divine. We all make mistakes.

We all are writing in jest, in the spirit of sharing. My Mandarin-Chinese for instance, is atrocious even by primary-level standard. Yet I am still learning. By comparison, your command of the English language is par excellent to those of to-day’s English educated school leavers. This is clearly mirrored in your style of language expression and writing in your blogs and e-mails. There is no shadow of flattery here.

In you, there is no parallel, no equivalent, no analogous, in as far as word-for-word, sentence-for-sentence, and paragraph-for-paragraph in your translation and the articulate usage of the English language. We can clearly see this in your blog. You are likewise, equally adept in Chinese and its translation into English and vice-versa. There is no silhouette of doubt about this. You are truly a Chinese in culture, tradition, customs and beliefs (Ni shì zhenzheng de wenhua, chuantong, fengsu he xinyang Hua ren).

In contrast, even for the adequately versatile English educated individuals we find in the streets today, seldom do we find such parallel in bilingual flexibility. Theirs is beyond belief.

There are not many Chinese school educated people inclusive the National-type school graduates these days who are fluent, flowing, assured and effortless in their expression in the English language as you do; bearing in mind you were brought up in a Mandarin education environment. We must congratulate you for this achievement, unconditionally and deservingly. In fact you can criticize and appraise our English. This is not a problem with me, albeit I am, along with others, categorized in the English-medium literary group.

Even as I struggle to learn and remember Pinyin construction, the proper arrangement and usage of the Chinese words and their intonation, I find my effort insurmountable and overwhelmingly insuperable at my age. To add to this insult, whenever I try to seize an opportunity to converse in Mandarin with a Chinese educated acquaintance, they invariably and consistently shut me out by reverting to English in the dialogue. That only shows the sub-standard Chinese I have in my struggle.

So kindly do not be too harsh on yourself and on the rest of us. We too are very stressed in this quarrel. We are always learning and ever ready to overcome our weaknesses and shortfalls. We learn new facts, new words, and new languages, inclusive of improving on old ones. We do this everyday even as I type this sentence. That’s the hallmark of child-like qualities of learning, and in essence, reflects our humility.

Wealth is not just about money, but in wisdom too - without reservation, and without condition. God gave King Solomon not just wisdom to rule over his people, but wealth too, because he did not ask for wealth, but wisdom in his dream. God then gave him both. What a beauty!

Please forgive me for igniting the spark of this hornets attack. I am sure you do.

Thank you for listening.

Yours always

jb lim

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Saturday, 7 May, 2011 12:00 AM

My Dear Dr JB Lim,

Thank you very much for your kind words about me. I don’t deserve all the praises, but humbly accept all your advices therein.

You make me think of a famous phrase from the "Analects of Confucius" that goes, “zhāo wén dào, xì sǐ kě yǐ” (“朝闻道，夕死可矣”). It literally means: “To be able to acquire knowledge of the correct path (in life) in the morning, there will be no regret dying at the sunset.” You are the “dào”, you show me the correct path, and for that I am very very indebted.

Although you are not Chinese-educated and may not have read Chinese philosophical books, you are constantly practising the ways of many an ancient Chinese sage like Confucius. For instance, you have proven yourself to be “xué ér bù yàn, huì rén bù juàn” (学而不厌，诲人不倦: insatiable in learning, tireless in teaching) and you are so “xū huái ruò gǔ” (虚怀若谷: to have a mind as deep and wide as the valley OR open-minded and humble), just to name a few. We all must really learn from you as part of our own life-long learning process.

I always remember 2 things about you when we first met at the “Hari Babi” dinner. I was seated next to you and thus could even hear your murmur.

At one juncture when CK called you “Dr Lim”, I heard you quickly interrupted, “there is no Dr Lim here, just JB.” Then when someone brought up the question of whether a person’s eye-ball can be removed for operation and fixed back later, I couldn’t remember exactly what you had explained, but your concluding remark of “not that I know” was remarkable to me. You really speak to the best of your knowledge and no nonsense. This is an example of Confucius’s saying: “zhī zhī wéi zhī zhī, bù zhī wéi bù zhī, shì zhī yě” (知之为知之，不知为不知，是知也: Knowing is knowing, not knowing is not knowing, and that is knowing.) Simply put, it means true knowledge is when one knows the limitations of ones knowledge.

Now, back to the stormy subject that I probably may have over-reacted over certain e-buddies’ remarks or insinuations, I am going to stick to my declaration about “shutting up” and not saying anything more after sending out “my last comment”.

I also intend to self-impose a MORATORIUM of say a month or longer with immediate effect whereby I shall stay away from all exchanges of mails with most if not all of the e-buddies in this group. No hard feeling, guys…..just wish to spend less time reading chain-mails and stay cool, that’s it.

Thank you for your attention.

Regards,

TO Lau

06/05/2011