Knowing One’s Heritage

In a multi-racial country, it is often that the language of the most populous race is adopted as the sole national language, ostensibly as a unifying vehicle toward a single national identity. If the said country has gained independence from the shackles of a colonizing power, then it’s plausible that the language of the colonizing power would linger on, especially if that language enjoys the status of a global lingua franca, and become the de facto national language of the former colony, until such time when nationalist imperatives make it untenable.

What about the minority races then? Would their ancestral cultures be integrated into the national one? In full? In part, say, as a compromise via a social contract hammered out as part of the birth pangs of a newly independent nation? Or would the minority races be assimilated into the national culture, shorn of any vestiges of their ancestral cultures, the defining elements of one’s heritage?

What constitute the defining elements of one’s heritage? Language? Spoken or written? Religion? Customs such as ancestral worship? Festivals? Generally, to the extent that religion is often much less race-based than language and social customs, it is fair to say that one’s language would be rated as such. Note that the focus here is on generality, which necessarily permits of exceptions that are not the rule.

I’m ethnic Chinese and hail from Malaysia, a decidedly multi-racial country. Thanks to my parents, who came to Malaysia from China, I was sent to a Chinese school for my primary education. But we had Malay and English taught as subjects too. So, basically, tri-lingual, though the level of proficiency differed as the medium of instruction was Chinese. So that gave me a solid grounding in the Chinese language, and also paved the way for my subsequent forays into the Chinese literature, Chinese culture, Chinese philosophy, and the latest addition, Buddhism that persist till today.

Again thanks to my parents, I enrolled in an English secondary school upon graduation from the primary school. There I first encountered, in hindsight, the disparity of a parallel school system. Before that, I vaguely remembered, on the way to my school, passing by another school where students, though my age, were from more varied racial backgrounds as evident from their skin colors. I learned that students from vernacular schools (be it Chinese, Tamil) and national schools need to spend the first year of their secondary school education in what was called then Remove Class. It was really a transition class for students from primary six to brush up on their English before facing the full rigor of an English education system starting from Form One, except for those from English primary schools who enter straight into Form One.

On reflection, I probably would have achieved the same proficiency in English had I gone straight into Form One based on three factors that were in my favor. Firstly, immersion. The perceived English handicap would have been made good in no time since English was going to be the medium of instruction. My confidence in the “power” of immersion in attaining language fluency is not misguided as I had personally seen its impact at work. In Form One, I found that my classmates who were from the English medium actually speak Mandarin, the most common form of spoken Chinese, fluently, but they don’t write as well except for their own names in Chinese. Later on it hit upon me that my hometown comprised mainly Chinese where mandarin is the primary mode of oral communication. I had even met Indians who speak mandarin. Thus via a state of after school daily exposure and immersion, these classmates of mine from the English medium began to pick up Mandarin, without knowing their written characters.

Secondly, the difference in the level of English taught at the rudimentary level in the Chinese schools and that used in the English secondary school, while admittedly of a higher standard, was not beyond catching up if one really puts one's mind to it.

Lastly, I had always exceled at learning as evident from my near top-of-the-class performance throughout the 6 years of primary school education. Personally I would acknowledge that I did have a slight, OK maybe appreciable, edge over an average student because of my learning disposition and I would hesitant to generalize my case to be representative of my peers.

Then again the level of education dispensed is usually pegged at meeting the aptitude level of the lower echelons of the student populace as opposed to an elitist one that caters for gifted students. So in that sense, my experience, or rather extrapolation of my language learning performance, may not be exclusive after all.

Subsequently, the English primary school system was abolished, and the cessation of the use of English as a medium of instruction gradually but surely migrated upward until finally even the institutions of higher learning were not spared, completing the Malayanization of the public education system and marking me as one of the last few batches of students who had their entire secondary school and university education in English.

What am I driving at, you may ask? Well, I’m coming to it. I’m suggesting that immersion is the best way to learn a language, regardless of a student’s age. So, put in a Chinese school, students of any race would have achieved fluency in Chinese by the time they graduate to secondary schools. By the same token, the students will continue to master another language that is the medium of instruction at the next level, be in English or Malay.

From then on, any disparity in academic performance among students would likely have less to do with language and race, but rather learning disposition and study support environment, especially at home.

Nobody is going to dispute the merits of knowing more than one language beyond one’s mother tongue, or adopted mother tongue as the case may be. I’m certainly fortunate to be trilingual, one of which is my mother tongue, by dint of favorable circumstances.

So reading up on my Chinese heritage, written in Chinese that encompasses all the nuances, the subtlety, the prose and style that is uniquely Chinese and that could only appear in any translation in form but not in spirit, I feel endeared to the Chinese culture and am proud of the heritage that forms one of the early civilizations of the world.

In my mind, that in no way contradicts the demands that attend to being a citizen of a nation, including loyalty. We can be proud of our cultural heritage, and be proud of the country that we were born into in the same breadth.

One deserves to learn one’s cultural heritage the best way possible, through the language that defines and helps propagate the same heritage. The social contract aside, that should be facilitated in the most efficient way, as borne out by keeping the primary school system in the Chinese vernacular, the immersive way.

Giving choices to her citizens is a hallmark of a progressive nation, and learning of one’s cultural heritage certainly ranks among the most basic. No argument of political expediency, nor rationalization based on economic premises should justify anybody but the myopic for advocating otherwise.