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Excerpts of speech by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry & Education, at the launch of Lychee Fragrance and seminar on bilingualism last Sunday at the News Centre, SPH.
Developing a significant group of people who are highly competent in their mother tongues and English will give us advantage in the increasingly dense linkages of a globalising world.
Individuals who enjoy the flexibility of bilingualism and the cultural understanding it allows will be able to interpret the world for others, and to adapt more confidently to a changing and culturally ambiguous international environment.
As a society, the mingling of multiple perspectives provides fertile soil for fresh and novel ideas to take root and grow. It also nurtures a deeper respect for the differences between cultures that do endure.
Local literature now faces the challenges and opportunities of a completely new setting. First, we are effectively a bilingual society, after four decades of nationhood.
The 2000 census showed for the first time that a majority of the Singapore population is now literate in two or more languages (56% in 2000 compared to 45% in 1990). This is especially so for the better educated, and for the young.
Among Chinese youth - those aged 15-24 - 88% are literate in Mandarin and 98% in English. Literacy does not, of course, translate into depth of understanding of culture. But our bilingual education does provide us with an important base to leverage on.
The second change is in the wider world, in Chinese identity and culture. Until the 1990s, scholars described the identity of the Chinese people as reflecting a century and a half of humiliation.
Just 10 years ago, many observers also felt that the Tiananmen tragedy had irreversibly also severed the emotional attachment of the modern-day Chinese diaspora, in the US and elsewhere, to the mainland.
These accounts are now rapidly becoming a distant past. China is emerging as a major world player. Its continuing economic modernisation and technological advancement is giving the Chinese people new confidence in themselves. It is transforming the meaning of being Chinese, in a way that scholars are just beginning to examine.
We do not know exactly how Chinese society will evolve as it advances economically - how individualistic or community-oriented socially, or how nationalist or internationalist politically.
But culturally, it is more likely to be more open to the world, driven by the tremendous enthusiasm of young Chinese generations to learn from the West and catch up as quickly as possible.
We are unlikely to see a return to an insulated culture. Every primary school student in China now studies English - from Primary 1 in the cities, and Primary 3 in the countryside. In 20 years, they will have a vastly larger intelligentsia reading and communicating with the world in English.
Likewise, many more people outside China will learn Chinese. Just last week, I visited a school in the Boston area, one of the top performers in the US (Roxbury Latin School). It is 360 years old, the oldest continuing school in the US.
The students still take Latin and Greek, and do well in them. But the principal told me that he was trying to persuade the school board to have the students take Chinese in future.
He felt it was very odd to groom future American leaders who did not understand Chinese.
These trends will reshape the way the Chinese interact with the rest of the world over the next generation. They will mean an increased interplay of cultures, greater use of both English and Chinese, greater multiplicity of perspectives, and denser interaction of peoples. It is already becoming evident in cities like Shanghai.
Our bilingualism is a strength we can build on. We are seeking to groom a stronger Chinese cultural elite, which retains its competence in English. But our fundamental advantage will be in being a cosmopolitan Asian city, rooted in Asian traditions and open to the world.
Our cultural eclectism will be an advantage. It will allow our writers to provide a unique set of lens for looking at China and the rest of the world. It is a huge world for us, outside Singapore. Several local Chinese writers and scholars of literature have already gained recognition abroad, including in China.
Our distinct multicultural perspectives, and the continuing appeal of the Singapore model of multicultural society, give us a future in the wider world. It is for us to shape this future, collectively.
The development of literature and the arts, in our many languages and cultures, is essential to growing the creative imagination. It is part and parcel of how we borrow critically from our past, shed practices and beliefs that are unsuitable or irrelevant, and choose and invent our future.
We must build on and strengthen our bilingual tradition, and keep our distinctively Singaporean multiculturalism, to maximise our future potential.
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贸工部兼教育部高级政务部长尚达曼上星期日在报业中心为为《荔子情》一书的发布和一个双语教育座谈会主持开幕，以下是他致词的摘要。
培养一批精通双语的人才，可以让新加坡在联系日益紧密的环球化世界里占有优势。
能够灵活掌握双语和熟悉两种文化的人才，可以帮助他人了解世局的变化，也能更有信心的适应瞬息万变和文化差异日益模糊的国际环境。
社会上多种观点的交流，能为全新的构思提供萌芽和茁壮的肥沃土壤。人们也会对不同的文化产生更深的敬意。
本地的文学创作，正面对一个全新局面的挑战和机遇。
第一、建国40年后，新加坡已经是一个双语社会。2000年的人口普查第一次显示大部分新加坡人口，特别是受过较高教育和较年轻者，认识两种或多种语言（从1990的45%增加到2000年的56%）。
介于15到24岁的年轻华人，88%懂得华语，98%懂得英文。当然，这并不代表对文化的深刻认识。但是，我们的双语教育却为我们提供了进一步发展的重要基础。
第二、中国人的共同性和文化已经有了改变。一直到90年代，许多学者仍然认为中国人的共同性在于反映了150年的耻辱。
许多人觉察到中国人的无力感和无助感，这是西方帝国主义、日本人的侵略、国民党和共产党的冲突和战后40年文化被高度政治化的结果。
在10年前，许多观察家也认为天安门事件无可挽回的切断了现代海外华人对中国大陆的情意结。
这些都已经成为过去。中国已经崛起为世界强国，持续的经济现代化和科技上的进步，赋于中国人全新的信心。身为中国人的意义正在蜕变，这是一些学者正在探讨的课题。
我们不知道经济发展将如何改变中国的社会。人们会不会变得崇尚个人主义而使社会失去凝聚力？中国在政治上会趋向国家主义或者国际主义？
不过，因为年轻中国人希望快速学习和赶上西方的冲劲，中国在文化应该会对外更加开放。
中国文化不太可能再和外界绝缘。每一名中国小学生都在学习英文，城市小学从小一开始，乡村小学则从小三开始。不出20年，中国便会有大批知识分子能够以英文与世界交流。
同样的，很多人会开始学习华文。上星期，我参观了波斯顿一所具有360年历史和成绩卓越的学校，也是美国最古老的进修学校。
学生们在学校学习拉丁和希腊语，并取得优异的成绩。但是，校长说要说服董事部让学生学习华文。他觉得学校培养的未来美国领袖如果不懂华文，将是很奇怪的事情。
这些趋势会重塑中国人和外界将来的沟通方式。它们意味着更多的文化交流、更多人使用英文和华文、更多观点的出现、和不同国家人民更紧密的交往。这样的现象已经在一些中国城市出现，上海便是一个例子。
本地华文文学的未来决定于我们能否适应这新的环境——首先、具备双语能力，不再只是熟悉任何单一文化的新加坡人；其次、中国和外界的交流将引发许多全新的观点。
我们可以进一步发挥我们的双语优势。我们正努力培养一批能够同时掌握英文的华文文化精英。我们的基本优势在于新加坡是一个国际化亚洲城市，既有根深蒂固的亚洲传统，又能完全对外开放。
我们的文化折中主义是个有利因素，本地作家将能以独特的眼光透视中国和整个世界。一些本地华文作家和文化学者已经在中国和其他地方享有盛名。
我们特殊的多元文化背景，和新加坡作为一个多元文化社会模式的吸引力，让我们在可以在广阔的世界里憧憬我们的未来。我们必须同心协力共同塑造这个未来。
通过我们的多种语言和文化，发展我们的文学和艺术，是培养创意想象力的重要途径。这是借鉴以往的经验、推陈出新、选择和塑造我们的未来的工作的一部分。
我们必须加强我们的双语传统，保持我们的多元文化特性，以便充分发挥我们的潜能。
·叶琦保译
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