Singlish for Idiots: Wait a while, OK?

Ju is coming to 10 months and is most adept at shrill yelling, cackles and wet razzing which leaves either the 

floor or the person next to him drenched in drool.  I don't know if he really understands language, i.e. when

he hears "Bye, Bye" does he associate that with waving, and hence waves, since he only waves maybe 8 

out of 10 times we coax him with Bye Bye and only after 5 to 10 seconds of exuberant goodbyes from 

everyone. He's started to ignore me when I yell at him to stop, but he does give me a knowing look before 

he about-turns and goes on his merry way into whichever room he is banned from. 

Today I will say a little more about the most frequently used Chinese words in our household: wait, and 

okay? And of course, more clues on our peculiar Singlish ways!

*****

Okay or not?

One of my frequent refrains to Ju is "Wait a bit, okay?". I would say:

等一下, 好吗？ or 等等, 好吗？ 

(deng yi xia, hao ma) or (deng deng, hao ma) 

好吗 (hau ma) can work as a tag to a statement.  The function of the tag is to turn the statement 等一下(wait a bit) 

into a suggestion or a request. Another way to say "is that okay?" is 好不好? which is literally "good, no good" but

translates also to "good, or not?"

This explains why Singaporeans like to use the Singlish term "okay or not?" to turn a statement into a question,

like this: "Each of us pays $10, okay or not?" instead of saying just "okay?" or "Is it okay if each of us pays $10?"

It totally makes sense because "okay or not" is the literal translation of  好不好 (okay, not okay). 

Next, to express consent and agreement, the response is usually 好  (hao) or  好啊 (hao a) with the 啊 in

neutral tone. [This also explains why in Singlish there is so much "ah"'s, it's because people are translating the  

啊 word into their English sentences.] 

*****

Wait a while, okay?

The other infamous singlish phrase is "wait a while". It is a literal translation of the Chinese 等一下 (deng yi xia).

The phrase 一下 always follows a verb (like 等, to wait) to indicate that the action expressed by the verb is 

informal and does not last long. Like such:

我看一下，好吗？ (wo kan yi xia, hao ma?)

Lit: I look, okay? 

Meaning in context: Could you let me have a look at it? 

So when I want to ask Ju to hang on to his horses and just wait a bit, I say 等一下 because I mean that he

should just wait a second or two, hence the  一下 which loosely translates to "a while". So the usual way we

would ask someone in the informal way to wait a sec is: 

等一下啦! (deng yi xia, la!) 

This is why when Singaporeans actually mean to say "Hang on a sec!" or "Wait, please", they instead say
"Wait a while lah!".

Multilingual Experiment: Yes, No and "Give"

Ju is 9 and a half months and for the past two months, has been hearing pretty much everything in triplicate, as our multilingual project goes into full swing. Ju reacts very reliably to "NO!", "NEIN!" and "BU KE YI!" but he also reacts to other phrases. Most important, the 3 languages are very different in terms of structure but more for Chinese. Aside from the pesky cases in German, simple German is structured very similarly to English:

EN: Give me the ball.

GER: Gib mir den ball.

But in Chinese, you would conjugate this sentence very differently, because we place the object (the ball) in front and importantly, there is no "the" since we don't use articles before nouns, but there is a term 把 "ba" which you have to place in front of the noun so that it makes sense:

CH: 把球给我 (ba qiu gei wo)

So if you wanted to tell a native Chinese speaker from a non-native one (who used the online translator for example), he/she would say: 给我球 (lit: give me ball). But this is a literal translation from English and doesn't work in Chinese. Verbs would never come in front of the noun in Chinese unless it is used in the Interrogative:

CH: 给我! (no article)

EN: Give it to me!

GER: Gib es mir!

And as you can see, again, there is no need for an article (it) in Chinese.The word 把 is a curious little word with mutiple meanings. It is an article as in 一把刀 (a knife) where 把 indicates the article associated with the noun knife. Or, as in the way I used it above when asking Ju to give me the ball, it's necessary when forming such sentences (1):

我把蛋糕吃完了

Lit: I (the) cake eat finish already

where 了(can be loosely translated as "already") is the clause that changes the sentence to the past or present perfect tense and  把 indicates that I did an action to the cake (I ate it). Or (2):

请把书还给我

Lit: Please (the) book return give me

where 请 means "please" in the most polite and formal form; 把 again indicates that an action is to be done to the book (return it); and 还给我 means "return to me" although the formation in Chinese is "return give me". Again, no articles necessary and in the interrogative form, you drop the 请 so it means "Return the book to me". As I said, the noun always comes first, but you need the clause 把. 

NEGATIVES

Unlike in the English "No" and German "Nein", Ju would not have heard any Chinese equivalent. Instead, we use different negating words depending on the context. This video is great in explaining how we negate in Chinese.

Ju hears mostly these phrases:

EN: No!

GER: Nein!

CH: 不可以! 

Bu Ke Yi (Cannot, Must not)

In Chinese, 不 (bu) doesn't mean anything on its own. It has to paired with 可以 (can) to mean cannot, and the implied of course is the action. So I would yell at Ju: 不可以进厨房 (lit: cannot go into kitchen).

To answer a question in the negative, as in "No. I don't want", in Chinese we say 不要 without having to say what it is (the article "it"). So I would ask Ju:

EN: Do you want it?

CH: 你要不要? (lit: You want don't want?)

And to indicate negative quantity, we say 

EN: There is no more.

GER: Es gibt kein mere.

CH: 没有了 (lit: don't have already)

where 有 means "to have" and 没有 negates it. So for Singaporeans, you get why people like saying "don't have!" when they mean "there isn't any" or "don't have anymore" when they mean "there isn't any left". So in Chinese, 了modifies "don't have" depending on what you mean:

没有了 no more left

吃了 have eaten

不要了don't want anymore

可以了 (now) (you) can

The best part about learning a language as a child is how you pick up these rules of grammar naturally just by listening to the phrases and sentences every day. I don't have to teach it to Ju formally and it is only when I thought about writing this post that I realised just how many rules and how complicated Chinese really is if you try to learn it with the rules of grammar!

Here is another great video which describes the rules of structuring sentences in Chinese (some of them).

Project Baby: 9th Month Milestones

The past month has been quite amazing in terms of Ju's cognitive development. He seems to understand a lot more because he responds readily now to us whenever we speak to him, usually "NO!" and "STOP!"  He had a successful run in Phuket although we had our first experience of a cranky baby in a really full diaper in a small cabin descending onto Changi Airport. I didn't know which was funnier, the fact that we had to prop him upright, stuffing his diaper with tissues for 20 minutes while our pilot found parking, or that half the cabin were strapped in by their seatbelts with nothing else to do but smell Ju's overflowing diaper.

Fine motor skills

Last month, Ju learnt how to clap and wave. The clapping is hilarious and he seems to be associating the Chinese phrase for it, as I make it a point to say 拍拍手 each time he claps. He has learnt how to use his fingers to spin objects like the swirly thing on his walker. The result is he tries to spin everything (including his lips), no matter if they can spin or not. His curiosity has got the better of him. He is attracted to anything that dangles and lately, the power sockets in the house. He can spend minutes on end fiddling with the bit where the telephone wire goes. It's not a good idea, I know, even though our sockets are "safe" in that two out of three holes are always shut with the added security of a switch which Ju has no way of flipping on. He has learnt to point at things too. He can pick up small crumbs and put them in his mouth, and move a cracker from one hand to the other.

Gross motor skills

Ju is now cruising quite steadily. He can walk as long as he is holding on to something. He can pull himself up almost anywhere with support, he can do this with a wall or someone's leg. He crawls so fast that it's actually scrambling than crawling. He is interested in steps now, and even though we live in an apartment without stairs, he likes to go over the one step into the kitchen and the balcony. He has learnt to beat a tambourine and in addition to biting everything, he spends his playtime tossing his toys around. He loves balls big and small, and would happily toss it back and forth with you. He is also obsessed with other children's balls, and would stare incessantly, waiting for them to offer him the ball. He continues to enjoy the water and got a real tan after our holiday in Phuket.

Communication

We've been singing nursery rhymes in 3 languages non stop to Ju. It seems that he not only enjoys them, he claps his hands when he hears his favourite "Backe, backe kuchen" and "Yi Shang Yi Shang Liang Jing Jing" (Twinkle, twinkle in chinese). He doesn't babble much and his verbal abilities are limited to grunting, shrieking, whining, chuckling and yelling. He does understand my sharp commands of "Fang shou!" (let go [of that]) and "Bu ke yi!" (Cannot [do that]). I've taken to using sharp corrections like "Ah!", using my tone to convey to him that he can't do what he's doing (poking and pulling wires) since I did that a lot with dog obedience training. Call it what you will, but it works. The baby at this stage is responding much more to our tone of voice than the content of our speech. Other times, we speak to him as we would to any adult of course. This is so he would get used to the languages being spoken to him.

Multi-lingualism

The funny thing is, our input has been uneven. I speak Mandarin to Ju but the frequency is not as high as the English he gets from my mother, his main caregiver during weekdays. Daniel's parents spent 3 weeks here, during which they spoke exclusively in German to Ju. There are some phrases that Ju understands in German (like "Komme raus!") but not in Mandarin since he likely hears it less frequently. His Oma also taught him phrases like "Wie grosse is der Julien?" (How tall is Julien?) to which he stretches his arm up high above his head. I tried it in Mandarin and got no reaction, but he obligingly raised his arm when I said it in German. So after that, I repeated it in Mandarin as well.

Feeding and Sleep

Ju's 5th tooth is descending steadily and his sleep pattern has only gone from bad to worse. He wakes intermittently and has to be coaxed back to sleep. The 1am waking is the worst, that one usually requires a milk feed before he would go back to bed. We dragged his mattress into our bedroom, next to our bed. We did this for two reasons: first, our bed was getting too small for the three of us and two, he no longer cries or whines when he wakes. Instead, he crawls silently out of bed, which has horrific repercussions in an adult bed. Once, I woke at 5am for some reason, just in time to see Ju at the foot of our bed, about to topple over the edge. I reacted in a split second, it must be these maternal instincts I keep hearing about, and grabbed Ju's foot just before he went over. I gave Daniel the third degree for putting him in bed with us. From then on, Ju slept only on the floor. He is also eating semi solids like porridge, banana, papaya, cereal. He loves rice crackers, the ones that melt in the mouth so it doesn't require chewing. That's our secret weapon as it keeps him busy for a few minutes.

*****

I usually give Ju lots of space to explore as he wishes, I prefer to get him to play independent of my participation. It seems to be working as Ju can play and explore by himself while I sit at my desk writing my blog post, for instance! I shout to him from time to time if I don't see or hear his hands and knees on the floor. He would come scrambling over to me whenever he needs some attention or a drink of water. Then, off he goes again. The 9th month is really a great time, despite all the sleep I am losing.

Lang Lang plays Chopin's Op 10 No.3

The climax is at 2:45. Lang Lang is pretty well-known for his melodrama, but still, talent is talent. I can't help but hang on to his every breathtaking key.

Lang Lang - the black keys etude (Chopin, Op 10 No.5)

Now watch him play it with an orange!

The Pot Calling The Kettle

Khaw BW was quoted by Channelnewsasia: "The Workers' Party needs to come clean with the people what information have they got about Mr Yaw and in particular, what did they know about him prior to the May election. And if they know, why did they field Mr Yaw. I think it is sad that the voters have been misled by the Workers Party".

Oh for crap's sake.

This is the sort of irrelevant snarky remark that I've never been comfortable with since hello, there's never been much of an Opposition presence for the PAP to make snarky remarks at. Khaw may have commented before knowing of the WP's press statement that the CEC had been clueless up to the point of YSL's disappearing act.

The minister went on to "remind voters to consider a person's character when they go to the polls, adding that there is no difference between a person's personal and professional life once he or she enters politics" -CNA. Very funny. I wonder on what basis I, a voter, am supposed to make a judgment of character? On spurious media reports? Gossip? Lack of exposed skeletons?

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence of dirt, people. Before the pots start calling the kettle black, perhaps they should give the Straits Times free rein to go after any and all forms of dirt on the ruling party members the same way the ST got all orgasmic over the YSL scandal.

Dirt is dirt, there shouldn't be double standards.

Oh and I would really, really love to hear more about there being no difference between a person's personal and professional life once he or she enters politics.

Do I take it literally to mean personal and private domains are the same, and therefore what he wore to bed last night gets treated with the same relevance as which question he is going to answer in Parliament today?

Or should I accord the minister a little more credit and interpret him to mean that one's private life should be as open to scrutiny and accountability as one's public life? If so, then what's with all the lawsuits and even more curious, why didn't the senior cadre welcome a free-for-all discussion of Tin Peiling's ex-boyfriends and her weakness for Kate Spade, choosing instead to urge people to leave her private life alone?


We can hereby place KBW's comments as Exhibit 213 in the gallery of Foot In Mouth Moments. Perhaps in the near-future with a political landscape not dominated by the PAP, members can finally rest in their rightful place: the museum.

Clever, Clever WP

Photo from TOC

I am writing this quickly as the news just broke a while ago: the Workers' Party has expelled Hougang Member of Parliament and their ex-comrade, Yaw Shin Leong.

As stunned responses flood social media and office chatter heats up, the probable first question on your mind would be, by-elections in Hougang?

Besides it being a hoot (a by-election so soon after the last General Election), it would be priceless opportunity to put the PAP scorecard under scrutiny, it would pretty much be a great report card on their post-election (2011) performance.

When I commented that this was a brilliant strategic move by the WP, since it forces the PAP's hand, a friend had doubts that it would be a win-win for WP. They may not win a by-election. I disagreed. For these reasons:

First, the mood on the ground (from the blogosphere and online media reports) is Hougang residents don't much care about the adultery "scandal" that has been dogging YSL. It's great gossip fodder for the few who relish in the demise of others, but most people are more concerned about how their MP could and is helping them, and so far, YSL's performance as an MP hasn't been blemished.

Second, Hougang is a pro-WP ward but it was largely LTK that they have allegiance to and YSK was his proxy during the GE 2011. LTK's staunch supporters will see this sacking as a decisive move on LTK's part to remove the rot, and likely have even more "respect" for this bold move. In a possible by-election they would simply vote whomever WP pushes forth as the replacement.

Third, Hougang is a single-seat ward. No matter what, WP can parachute in a replacement easy-peasy, and my guess is they already have one in mind (hint: GG). I doubt the Elections Department can manage a redrawing of boundaries to make Hougang disappear in the next few weeks.

So, no matter what transpires from hereon, my bet is it would be a win-win for the Workers' Party.

And this shows very clearly that a few people in the WP are very, very clever indeed.

*******
Update 16 February & Postscript

Reports in the mainstream press (TNP and ST) have revealed some other interesting news from the WP press conference. According to the party, Yaw had not come forth to dispel or clarify the rumours when invited to by the CEC on multiple occasions. The implication is that the CEC was just as much in the dark as everyone else who had been clamouring for the "truth". In response to the PM's accusation that the WP had "let down the voters of Hougang", LTK rebutted this by claiming the WP had fixed the problem (by sacking Yaw). 

As expected, the PM doesn't sound very enthusiastic about the prospect of a by-Election, and I am not surprised (see by 3 reasons above). In addition to the inconvenience of having to rustle up a campaign that wasn't planned for like almost every other election (except maybe Anson) in our post-Independence history, the PAP are probably not feeling at the top of their game at this point. Reasons:

a) The memory of recent screwups is still fresh in the people's minds -- they likely will think about the transportation bungles like taxi fare hikes, SMRT train breakdowns and the incompetencies of its ex-CEO.

b) People are likely still pissed off about the Ministerial Salary Review, the recommendations (by the Ee Committee) which were pushed through hastily in Parliament barely a week before the media leaked the CPIB probe into ex-SCDF and CNB chiefs for alleged misconduct and possible corruption. Anyone with functional use of their left brain could put the two together and conclude that the news could've been embargoed till after the voting on the Minister salaries. Even if it wasn't true, my mind which has now come to be soaked in a conspiracy-theory paradigm, believes it to be plausible. Therefore, trust in the PAP remains low.

c) Social media and online media has exposed a lot of the dominant party's shortcomings by highlighting on a weekly basis, the latest foot-in-mouth moment on someone's Facebook wall, causing a cyber furore that even the mainstream press can't ignore. In short, no PAP chap can sneeze without somebody noticing, examining the snot and announcing its noxiousness online. And there are plenty of other people happy to re-post or retweet it. Add a bad PR management policy to this, and you can understand why the PM is loathe to go down another path of potential face-shaming.

d) The communication strategy of the PAP remains the same: informing the public, recording the feedback and over-focusing on critiques rather than welcoming an open flow of debate. It's not the outcome that matters, you can still do what you want, but how you roll it out matters to how the public perceives you. Plus, people are getting more immune to non-subtle forms of propoganda and sub-texting in the mainstream press. For instance, they don't take too kindly to ST reports that the bottom 20% of the population saw their incomes increase the MOST in 2011 and there being no journalistic examination of what the Statistics Department announced as their hard data. When the numbers contradict social reality, people resolve this cognitive dissonance by rationalising that the government is up to its tricks again.

I think the PAP have been doing the best they can in the wake of GE2011. They addressed many of the issues that were the bugbear of the election last year, like housing. However, they haven't done much on the KPIs that are not so easily identifiable: the political culture of Daddy Knows Best, re-thinking their communication paradigm and being vindictive (attempting to sue for "defamation"). Unfortunately, the policies (good and bad) of the PAP the last 40 years culminated in today's reality that our online and alternative media is probably the most left-leaning and critical of the ruling party in recent history. This means that social media, the most powerful communication tool, is working more against them than for them because of the profile of users and the profile of information purveyors.

Now that the WP have come clean with their audacious and shocking announcement, public perception will lean towards a more positive reading of the WP leadership because they come across as decisive in ensuring the integrity of their party members. This is a very telling contrast to how the government has reacted towards the hoo-ha about the ongoing CPIB and prostitution ring investigations. It's not a fair comparison, I agree, but people are not fair, logical and calm. They are easily-excited and prone to believing ideas because they match their personal biases rather than look for the evidence to disprove the ideas. The trouble with the PAP leadership is they seem to believe (or at least expect) people behave in the first way whenever something unexpected and detrimental to their image happens, and they believe and expect them to behave the second way whenever the time comes for serious policy debate. 

Or here's another thought: in 1986 when JBJ lost his Anson seat when he was convicted of falsifying party documents, the PAP left the seat vacant for a total of 22 months until the next General Elections in 1988. Same thing when their own MP of Geylang West died that year. So waiting it out may be the other strategy, but an option that I doubt would work out for the best. For one thing, people have longer memories now and a shorter attention-span and patience for idiocy; it would be very difficult to explain and justify not calling a by-election. For another, it would be silly to let Hougang become absorbed into Aljunied GRC since that would be how the WP will run things if no MP is elected for Hougang.

Nope, I reckon the PM is definitely not having a good week.

Performance Review

Two weeks ago, I proposed a little something to spice up our married life: a performance review dinner! So instead of just plain old dinner -- a la date night -- we would review each other's performance the past year as spouses and parents.

I know, you were expecting something more romantic like a surprise gift or some activity involving sand and champagne right? Well, that's not how we roll.

Plus, the one who fared worse had to pay for dinner. We hadn't worked out the KPIs, but we agreed to list all the things the other one has done well and 5 areas that needed improvement. Why five? It's easy to criticise endlessly over the smallest things, so we should at least pick the 5 most important ones we want addressed.

And since we agreed that the PRD would be on Thursday, the review period would be from the time Ju was born until Thursday. We both had to write the list down before going to dinner so we had to use some time to think about it. Perfect. 36 hours to do a little gerry-mandering, you know, offer a free massage (no strings attached) and do the dishes to put Daniel in a nicer mood so he doesn't remember the not-so-nice stuff I've done recently.

So when I sat down and thought about my review of Daniel, this was what I came up with:

THINGS YOU DID WELL WHICH I APPRECIATED
1. Taking care of baby like his bath, diaper duty, bottle-feeding and assisted breast-feeding.
2. Taking leave to stay home with me and baby the first month. That was not only a big help, it made me feel good and that I wasn't the only schmuck at the mercy of Ju.
3. Cooking dinner and doing the dishes when I didn't want to.
4. Doing the dishes when I didn't want to (this one counts as a bonus).
5. Sharing the chores like laundry and cleaning the bathrooms which I hate.
6. Being the one to come kiss me after we've had a fight because I won't do it anyway.
7. Washing your feet when you come into the house and not wearing dirty clothes in bed.
8. Being punctual.
9. Not getting angry (most of the time) when I lose my temper or snipe and snap at you.

THINGS YOU CAN IMPROVE ON
1. You rarely offer to massage me and when I force you to, you could put more effort into it.
2. You still complain too much.
3. Don't drive like a moron (sometimes) and stop saying "chao chee bye" and "fuck" when driving.
4. You can eat less candy and cheese so that I can have some too (the cheese, not the candy).
5. Forgetting that I require meals even if you don't (this applies to when you are out at football or working late)

So we both brought our lists (mine was typed) to dinner and we exchanged them. Here was Daniel's list:

So apparantly I got 4 nods: for being a good Mummy; for being cool with Tobi and his parents staying with us (note: Tobi lived with us for half a year, I deserve a medal for that); for not sulking and resorting to emotional blackmail when he goes to football; and for not blowing up like a whale after giving birth to Juju.

Hmmm. I didn't know what to think for a moment. Number 4 had nothing to do with "performance" per se, since I did nothing to lose weight after my pregnancy, it was all preordained in my genes. I thought 3 pluses was a little stingy, given my 9 accolades to Daniel. Now to the minuses:

I rejected number 1 because I had good reasons to lose my temper; number 2, mood swings go under number one; number 4 is ridiculous and we didn't even have to discuss 5 (my identity card now reads "Mrs Vivien Schmidt" under my original name but that is just so I can enter the European Union with Ju without immigration asking me pesky questions about my relationship to him, as if there is any doubt from the way he looks). 

So we both agreed that I would work on not stressing out over "small things" and keeping my temper in check, and he would work on my list of things he should improve because they were entirely legitimate of course.  

Marriage is really easy if you simply live life the way you did as a single with the exception of sharing a bed and the mortgage. It's much less complicated when you have the resources to subcontract the chores to a low-wage helper, a lot of negotiation and conflict resolution is instantly redundant. But when you've got to make room in your life for a baby who is completely reliant on you for his every need, who develops sleep issues after 7 months of tranquil all-night sleeping, then your relationship is put to a stress-test. 

We are lucky in that we get to go on with our work almost as per normal, as our parents have taken over child-caring so that we can do our jobs with the 100% concentration that other parents who need to contend with day-care arrangements probably can't afford. We are also lucky that we had lived together for 3 years before the baby came along so we've worked out our system for getting along with each other (and each of our inherent idiosyncrasies) and getting things done before the ultimate relationship stress test. We are also lucky to each have a sense of humor so that in spite of all other bad habits, we end up smiling somehow. That's really important, humor.

And of course, the final piece, somebody should usually get their way most of the time in order to ensure a healthy relationship. That's why Daniel paid for dinner that night.