I just landed in Singapore less than 6 hours ago, and I might be having jet lag, so this explains why I’m here writing a quick entry.

My month-long stay in America was a pretty great one. I stayed mainly on the East coast, though. I’ll need to make another trip to explore the West coast. I shall not bore anyone with detailed descriptions of what I did day to day, but what I did find interesting is that a number of Americans I spoke to expressed surprise at my level of command of English (I had the same experience a few years back in England). Interestingly, I’ve spoken to some folks from China before, and I remember them remarking that I speak Mandarin pretty well too (I must admit that my command of Mandarin pales greatly compared to English).

Of course, my experiences are anecdotal evidence but it seems to me that Singaporeans seem to be somewhat of a curious breed or even mysterious breed to people who have not had the chance to interact with a Singaporean. To Americans and the British, the assumption is that because I look Chinese, expectations of my English language ability drop a few notches. To Chinese folks from China, because I’m an overseas Chinese, expectations of my Mandarin language ability drop a few notches too.

I don’t know whether this is a good or bad thing, but I always find the phenomenon interesting. And I am quite thankful for being in an education system that encourage bilingualism, although I have to add the caveat that it is not easy to handle two languages. Somehow, one will always seem to be dominant and this creates confusion at times. I have a tendency to think in English most of the time and I sometimes end up speaking Mandarin using English sentence structure. :sad:

And of course, I’ve encountered some people who asked if Singapore is in China. :mrgreen: