SINGAPORE: In a TikTok video posted earlier this week, a young woman appeared to take potshots at Singlish, the high value placed on academic performance, and the large number of fines in the city-state, and yet ended by underlining how much she loves Singapore.
Carolina Broberg’s video has since gone viral, getting over 344,000 views in the past few days and receiving many comments.
Ms Broberg, a model of Singaporean and Swedish descent, captioned her video with “Still a proud Singaporean though,” along with a Singaporean flag emoji.
@carolinabroberg Still a proud Singaporean though 🇸🇬 #singapore #sg #singaporetiktok #sgtiktok
The context of her video is that many people have wondered about her experiences of having been born and raised in Singapore, asking her if it was like the hit movie Crazy Rich Asians.
“And I say if you take millions of people from China, Malaysia, and India and if you squeeze them all into the same tropical island, no one understands each other, and so they end up creating the ugliest, laziest form of English called ‘Singlish’,” she said.
She added that it’s “embedded” in the culture for the self-worth of every child to be “purely based” on how well they do at school, and the number of laws has created a people who are scared to even breathe the wrong way.
Ms Broberg added jokingly that at least everyone has money in Singapore and that they can walk its streets feeling safe, “admiring Marina Bay Sands, right?”
Although she meant it in good fun, some TikTok users may have missed her dry humour and felt that she was insulting the city-state, jumping in quickly to defend Singapore.
In another video she posted on Tuesday (June 10), Ms Broberg shot back at commenters who appeared to think she hates Singapore. She proceeded to list what she loves about the city-state, including the food, which she considers to be the best in the world. Another thing she appreciates is safety, saying that a person could leave a Birkin bag in a cafe for an hour and when they come back, it’s still there.
@carolinabroberg Replying to @Amy Since everyone thinks I hate SG #singapore #sg #singaporetiktok #sgtiktok
Over on Reddit, where her first video was also shared, commenters were inclined to be more chill, pointing out that there may be something to Ms Broberg’s criticism. However, what they did take exception to was how she characterised Singlish, defending it by saying that it’s quite an efficient way to speak, since it jumps straight to the point and eliminates unnecessary parts of a sentence.
“Singlish has been and will always be the language of the working class. It’s history as a creole formed in our melting pot that allowed people of different races to communicate despite their lack of education reflects Singapore’s multiracial origins,” wrote a Reddit user.
“The thing is, people act like Singlish (and Singaporean accent) is some horrible abomination that is unique to Singapore. But different countries/races/languages have their own accented English and their version of ###-glish,” wrote another.
The Independent Singapore has reached out to Ms Broberr for further comments or updates. /TISG
Read also: Singaporeans give American in SG permission to use Singlish, even say it’s ‘endearing’