SINGAPORE: When a non-Chinese Singaporean Reddit user highlighted the issues that arise when the language in local Chinese restaurants is almost entirely Chinese, their post sparked a lively discussion, with many commenters agreeing with the post author.
On Jun 16 (Monday), a post on r/Singapore, u/Unfair-Bike wrote at the beginning of their post that they’re an Indian Muslim with an interest in different cuisines, for the purpose of clarifying that the post is a personal rather than a political one.
The post author wrote that they enjoy some halal Chinese restaurants, especially Halal Lanzhou beef noodles at Tongue Tip, and they’re interested in trying more Northern Chinese cuisines if there are halal options.
They also clarified that they do not mean larger restaurant chains such as Haidilao, Luckin Coffee, or CHAGEE, “but rather the smaller restaurants you see popping up here and there, like in Bugis or Clementi,” where there’s a growing number of residents from mainland China.
The problem for the post author is that these restaurants primarily use Chinese on their menus and in their marketing, with hardly any English. This exclusion affects people who don’t speak Chinese, including food delivery riders who cannot read or speak the language, a problem highlighted in an AsiaOne article in 2023.
The post author added that even when restaurants do include some English, the text is often very small or only partially translated.
“In the menus, the translations can also be terrible,” the post author wrote, adding, “I do not know why the Chinese bosses are reluctant to put English signage. Do they think everyone speaks Chinese? Or do they only want the mainland immigrants as their clientele?”
“Even if I wouldn’t patronise since they’re not halal anyway, what if there’s someone who doesn’t speak Chinese but is interested in trying these Chinese places? Having no English makes this feel unwelcoming to some in Singapore, and don’t forget about the staff who also struggle with English!” they wrote, adding in an edit an appeal for people not to make the post “an excuse to be xenophobic.”
Many were sympathetic to the post author and agreed with the points they raised.
“As a bilingual Chinese, I honestly feel you. It’s something that I’m very annoyed by, even though I can understand the language perfectly fine. To me, English is the language that’s supposed to bridge the social divide between races and, hence, an important element of the social fabric in Singapore, but when businesses do not care to start using English, it feels like we’re taking a step backwards in social integration, which I think is one of the fundamental reasons that we have been successful,” was the top-rated comment.
“100000%, and I say this as a non-Chinese who did Mandarin as MT. As someone who understands the language, I get that it’s so automatic and easy to just take it for granted, but I see it from my family and friends’ POV, and it’s insane how much is coded as ‘not for us” and ‘you are not welcome’ by having things exclusively in Mandarin. point it out and people are all ‘ohhhh why so sensitive’. Worse yet in the workplace,” another chimed in.
“I wish I had awards to give this post. Thank you. You’ve hit the nail on the head here. It keeps boiling down to integration. As a minority, I feel it—increasingly I’m running into stores (not even Chinese restaurants) where none of the staff speak English AT ALL! I enjoy Chinese cuisine, but I feel like I’m being treated like a foreigner in my own homeland, and why? Because they opened up and didn’t even bother to pick up basic English?” a third wrote.
Interestingly, one Reddit user pointed out that this doesn’t just happen in Singapore.
“As a tangent, it isn’t just Chinese nationals who live in Singapore who do this. I live in England, and I was in the local Chinese grocer in town. They were chatting amongst themselves and kept referring to laowai (i.e., foreigners). I piped up and said, ‘Here YOU are the laowai!!’” /TISG