The day that the greats of PSC came to Sendai

Sendai, how many people in Singapore have heard of her? Yet, today the Director of PSC, with her assistant director, manager and our scholarship officer came to Sendai.

Alarmed by the decreasing take-up rate of Japanese scholarships in Singapore, the entourage came to pick up more information on how to market Japan as the place to study and learn.

Nowdays, 18-year old youths from Singapore are spoilt for choice. With the rows of As and distinctions, they no longer have to beg for scholarships; prestigious scholarships are offered on a silver platter. The American or the English Dream roots itself firmly in these young minds; a chance to study in renowed universities of the West. The old PSC tactic of offering scholarships to non-English speaking countries to the undecided, the Take-It-Or-Leave-It tactic no longer works. If PSC does not offer me a scholarship to the US or the UK, I can always approach DSTA or ASTAR. Why should I compromise?

Yet, the decrease in the number of scholarship-holders to non-English-speaking countries have never been so significant. At this rate, there will be no one studying in Germany, Japan or France in 2 to 3 years time.

The ability to communicate with our important economic partners in their language, the understanding of the culure is an asset, not a liabilty, as many youths decry at the 5 years of getting a degree in Japan, or 7 years to get a masters in Germany as compared to the 4-year system in UK and US. Yet, how many of the scholarship-holders in UK or the US can say that they spend 4 meaningful years there? Is life only about the pursuit of academic acheivements?

To master English or Chinese?

I think that to many of us, to be effectively bilingual in both English and Chinese is very difficult, if not impossible. Even those who are perceived to be the creme de la creme in terms of languages, are not able to stand up against native speakers of English and Chinese.

I have taken pride on being able to speak, write and read comfortably in both languages. However, when I came to Japan to study a few years ago, I find that though Singaporeans' English are on the whole, much better than their Asian counterparts, we still sound incoherent in front of the native speakers, including both Americans and British. The same can be said for our Chinese. We have been too used to speaking a language that is sprinkled with phrases from the different languages in our daily life, that we forgot how to speak in one language alone. How many of us can say that we speak in purely English or Chinese/Malay/Tamil everyday?

However, knowing both languages is indeed a great advantage. Whenever, I meet other foreign students, I can speak in English with them. Nevertheless, speaking in Chinese to the Chinese or the Taiwanese will elicit a more enthusiastic response since we share a common cultural background. Nothing beats a Chinese proverb or two in the conversations.

It is imperative that Singapore keeps its bilingual language system, though I must admit that without compromises, we will end up being proficient in none. Maybe it is indeed the way to go if we are to maintain our edge in this part of the world.

Racial discrimination in Singapore

As usual, I was surfing the net yesterday and out of inspiration I went to the forum written by Japanese who live in Singapore. And I was very shocked by one of the threads, " What are Singaporeans?"

This forum is written in Japanese and so many Japanese who live in Singapore vent their frustrations or their queries in the forum about Singaporeans, especially since most Singaporean will not read the forum. In the above thread, many Japanese were very surprised at the racial discrimination in Singapore, particularly between the Chinese and the Malays. Some even went to the extent in remarking that as the Chinese Singaporeans are in the majority, they have the right to do look down upon other races.

Being a Chinese Singaporean, I know that to a certain extent that racial discrimination do take place in Singapore, especially among the older generation. However, it is not as bad as they potrayed. I felt a little hurt that such hurtful remarks about Singaporeans are being hurled across the Internet, especially when they know that most Singaporeans will not get to know about the forum.

To clear things up, I wrote a reply on the forum. To my surprise, there was practically silence in the previously vibrant thread, save for a lone reply who inquired more about Singapore's past history of racial riots that I tried to explain in my forum. I believe that my reply came as a surprise to them.

Hopefully things will improve in Singapore.

I became a baseball judge today!

My first time to a baseball match ended up with me being the judge. I have only previously watched baseball matches on TV and I don't even know the rules well. What's more, I have not even touched a baseball bat in my whole life! Anyway, as I lost in the draw yesterday, I have to be the judge today. Luckily, there were 2 others with me.

As expected, the match was not of any high standards though there were a couple of not too bad batters. However, most of them were atrocious players. Most of them ended up with "3-shin" ( I don't know what is it called in English since I always watch baseball matches in Japanese). The match is part of the baseball tournament for the Electrical Engineering Department. Unexpectedly, if my laboratory wins tomorrow, we will proceed to the finals (my Lab usually fares terribly in sports).

Today's weather was really fine, but the winds blowing up to a top speed of 25m/s were really strong. The yellow leaves of the trees shook in the rhythm of the winds as the reddish brown autumn leaves swirled in spirals away from the ground and right up into the clear blue sky.

Despite, the 3 layer clothing I wore today, I shivered as each breath of wind took my warmth away.

But I do love the windy autumn of 2004.

A fine autumn day in the Kawauchi Campus of my University

Robbery !!

Another public holiday in Japan.
Got a call in the morning telling me that my lab was robbed in the wee hours in the morning. Nothing personal was lost but the memory of a few servers amounting to 8GB were stolen, regardless whether the computers were running or not. And the lab just bought new servers last week. Luckily no one was hurt.
There were no signs of forced entry and it is still a mystery how the theives got into the lab. Especially when the student ID card is required to enter the building after 10pm. Maybe it is an inside job. Apparently, the theives tried to steal from another lab, but someone was inside the lab and they gave up.
When I arrived in my lab, some of them were wringing their hands in desperation but most of them were pretty fine and curious about the whole thing.
I wonder how my seniors will be able to continue writing their master theses' in time for graduation. And some of them will have to present in tomorrow's seminar.
I also wonder if I can continue with my research tomorrow.

Harlow!

Welcome to Zhongruan's blog! Just created this blog after visiting the Google website today. Maybe it is a good idea to update people about my own happenings...