Malaysian questions why his brother needs to learn Mandarin for dentist role in Singapore

SINGAPORE: A rather fiery debate has erupted on Reddit over whether foreigners should be expected to speak Mandarin in order to work in Singapore. 

The discussion began after a user shared a Threads post in which a man angrily questioned why his brother, offered a dentist job in Singapore, was being forced to learn some Mandarin.

He wrote, “My brother was offered a job as a dentist in Singapore but was told he would need to learn a bit of Mandarin, as English and Malay alone would not be sufficient.”

“Why is a Peranakan man, descended from centuries of Nusantaran people, who speaks Malay, the language of the soil, suddenly being told he needs an imported tongue from China just to work in Singapura? Do the Chinese diaspora demand the same thing in France? No, they assimilate and speak French.”

“He’s not wrong, though.”

The post quickly sent Redditors into a frenzy, with some disagreeing with the post and others admitting that, well, the man did have a fair point.

One said, “Duno leh… can always stay in Malaysia and continue earning their beloved ringgit. Who’s forcing him to work here?”

Another commented, “I mean, is he wrong though? Ignoring how he framed it. Singapore switched from Malay to English as a common language decades ago. Yet, we now expect people to be trilingual? If you are not Chinese, that is. Like, what happened to English?”

A third wrote, “He’s not wrong though…there are so many issues regarding PRC immigration, can confidently say 2/3 of them can’t even form a basic English sentence, yet they can still flood in like crazy…the Chinese language privilege here is insane.”

Others also argued that since the brother works in healthcare, it does make sense for him to know some of the language, as many elderly Singaporeans can’t speak English.

One explained, “I do believe healthcare workers in Singapore generally can speak conversational Chinese. I’ve heard Indian and Malay doctors/nurses at TTSH speak in Chinese to the elderly who can’t speak English. Some even converse in dialect. I’m Chinese; I can’t speak a lick of dialect.”

Another added, “If a Singaporean Chinese were to go over to Malaysia to work as a dentist and they told him that being proficient in English and Chinese is not enough and having a certain mastery of Malay under the belt is imperative, I am sure the Singaporean would understand and adapt or find a job elsewhere.”

In other news, a man earning more than S$200,000 a year took to social media to share his frustrations about footing the bill on first dates, saying he refuses to pay alone if he feels the woman is simply using him for an “atas meal” that costs more than S$50.

Posting on the r/sgdatingscene forum, the man recounted how he had invited a woman out for a casual coffee and meal, only for his date to order a “ton of good food” worth S$85.

Read more: Man with annual income over S$200k says he won’t foot the entire bill if date orders ‘atas meals’ above S$50