Judge not a book by its cover (Singapore)

When I was in Primary Four (aged 9), we got a new Mandarin teacher, Mrs Leong, from Malaysia.  

In those days in British colonial Singapore, anyone who spoke Chinese, rather than English, would be treated as a second-class citizen.  Such was the pervasive practice at the time, with Singaporeans treating their fellow citizens with contempt (and toadying to white people).

One day, Mrs Leong went along to a government department to process an enquiry, which involved getting a signature from that department.  

In the 60s, Hokkien (the Fujian S.E.Chinese dialect) was the Chinese lingua franca (versus Cantonese these days), so between Singapore Chinese, the default language of communication would be Hokkien.

Mrs Leong, herself a native Hokkien speaker anyway, put her request, in Hokkien, to one of the two girls on duty, who then told her brusquely and superciliously, in Hokkien, “OK.  Go and wait over there.”

As Mrs Leong sat and waited, the girl gossiped with her colleague, in Mandarin, about some other girl’s latest boyfriend, filing her nails at the same time.  Ten minutes later, Mrs Leong went up to the counter and asked politely and meekly, still in Hokkien, “Can you please see what’s happened to my request?”  The girl barked, “I told you to wait, didn’t I?  Just go and sit down!”

Another ten minutes later, Mrs Leong asked again, only to be treated in the same way.

Yet another ten minutes went by.  Mrs Leong tried a third time.  This time, after barking at Mrs Leong, the girl then turned to her colleague and said, in Mandarin (thinking Mrs Leong wouldn’t understand it), “Honestly, these people!  They give you a heart attack, I tell you!”

Now, the reason the girl was so dismissive was Mrs Leong using Hokkien (implied: had not done any formal schooling, thus placing her even lower than a Mandarin-speaker), on top of her body language and her modest style of dressing (triggering the girl’s initial visual assessment that she must be a country bumpkin).

As it turned out, however, Mrs Leong had a university degree from the National University of Taiwan, which was — in those days — a notch up from a degree from Malaysia, even one from Singapore.  The Mandarin she spoke was, therefore, without the Singapore / Malaysian accent.  (I’d personally noticed in 1977, after two years away in Taiwan, that Singaporeans — shop assistants, enquiry desk workers, stallholders — would treat me with a lot more courtesy as my Mandarin sounded “posh”, quite different from the local version.)

Mrs Leong had put up with the girl’s appalling manner long enough.  This latest remark by the girl had gone a bit too far.  She said, in “posh” (by Singapore standards) accented Mandarin, “What do you mean, ‘These people’??  What do you mean, ‘Give you a heart attack’??  How dare you?!?  Let me remind you that you are a civil servant, and that your salary comes from my taxes.  I was making a simple request — just getting a signature from your department — yet you made me wait and wait and wait.  Not only that, you spoke to me so rudely each time.  And now you say I give you a heart attack?  HOW DARE YOU?!?  Get me your manager.  I want to make a complaint.”

The girl scooted off to her manager’s office, and returned with the signature in no time.

(Singapore, 1967)

* See also blog “The smell”.