I have something to say about one of Gina's newly posted article in her blog. Basically, she is trying to correct her little daughter's "Singalish." Little Mabel was born and educated in Singapore. So... whats the problem? Whats so shocking to see that she is also picking up some local usage and accent as well?

So whose English is more standard? I am not trying to write a linguistic research paper about it here. But when our president speaks English, you will tell he's a Texan. Then what's so wrong with Singalish? Canadians, Bostonians, Jewish, or lets just say, black all have their distinigished accents. And the point is language is a tool to communicate with others.

In our hospital there are more doctors from India, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Jordon, Romania than typical WASP's. All of them speak English, but not all of it standard English. So what? Their English is good enough to take care of the patients, to communicate with the nurses, and most importantly to finish their residency here in Michigan.

Even though I consider myself speak less accent (In Gina's standard, more "American English?") than most asians here, my Chingalish/ Asian accent is very audible. My coworkers would love to immitate it. At the end of the shift when I am really tired, my tongue easily gets stuck and the Chingalish gets even worse. Thats when I tell them, "Just leave my a*s alone cuz I'm f*cking tired." Boy, do they know what it means.

Having Chingalish accent has its own advantage as well. One of my favoriates is to pretend I do not speak English well enough to engage a conversation. This is when I try to avoid a boring conversation. As far as I remember I have used it successfully with my mother in law, I guess she's used to me by now not responding in a certain way because "I am a China girl who does not speak much English." Ah ha!

Singalish, Schmingalish. Capice?