How should we judge a government?

In Malaysia, if you don't watch television or read newspapers, you are uninformed; but if you do, you are misinformed!

"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." - Malcolm X

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience - Mark Twain

Why we should be against censorship in a court of law: Publicity is the very soul of justice … it keeps the judge himself, while trying, under trial. - Jeremy Bentham

"Our government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no
responsibility at the other. " - Ronald Reagan

Government fed by the people

Government fed by the people

Career options

Career options
I suggest government... because nobody has ever been caught.

Corruption so prevalent it affects English language?

Corruption so prevalent it affects English language?
Corruption is so prevalent it affects English language?

When there's too much dirt...

When there's too much dirt...
We need better tools... to cover up mega corruptions.

Prevent bullying now!

Prevent bullying now!
If you're not going to speak up, how is the world supposed to know you exist? “Orang boleh pandai setinggi langit, tapi selama ia tidak menulis, ia akan hilang di dalam masyarakat dan dari sejarah.” - Ananta Prameodya Toer (Your intellect may soar to the sky but if you do not write, you will be lost from society and to history.)

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

What our new generation lacks

Thanks to Bayi, who sent me this:

"Now I understand why the younger generation is so different from our older generations…



E.g. The Chinese Character for LOVE. The new LOVE Character does not contain the "heart" pictogram (in red)."

My wife attended Mandarin classes (once a week) for more than a year and is now in Standard 2 level! I am sure people in KL would be envious of the low monthly fee of Rm20! She looks forward to attending class and would be disappointed whenever there were functions to attend or when she was away. Her main problem at her senior age has to do with memory - the usual inability to recall what she had learned just a week ago. But because of her fairly regular use of Mandarin whenever she had the chance, her conversational Mandarin is good, though often with a sprinkling of Hakka pronunciation instead. This was because when she first started to learn from the factory supervisor, he explained in Hakka! In fact, even though I am not any where near her level, there are certain expressions in Cantonese which I could relate to in Mandarin but which she could not understand because I watched more HK Cantonese serials and films. The beauty of Chinese language and its characters is that it can be understood by all the different dialects! But there had been changes since, with the introduction of Pinyin and the introduction of simplified version of the Chinese characters, like the above example.

Now, we have people with different levels of knowledge in Chinese: the old school who use the original Chinese characters; the new school who use the simplified version; the old and the new schools who use both versions; as well as those who learned from Romanized version as in Pinyin. Like in all languages, there will be those who could understand and speak it, yet actually illiterate (cannot read or write it), like myself. But I am learning it in a way, when I watched Mandarin films, especially those with English or Bahasa Malaysia subtitles, by paying more attention. I also take note of advertisements which have names and descriptions in Chinese characters and try to make some sense from them. Sometimes, by knowing a few characters, I could infer the rest! For example, 'chut yap peng onn' (in Cantonese) which means literally '(go) out (come) in safely' which is normally hung outside a house.
Link

No comments: