ACCORDING to the Cambridge Dictionary, “being self-centered” means being overly focused on yourself, your own needs, your own opinions and your own activities while paying little to no attention to the feelings or needs of others.
It is a sign that a person lacks empathy and struggles to see things from another person’s perspective or care about how they feel.
This was precisely the accusation hurled by Threader Vindh_86 (@vindh_pv) at neighbour(s) deemed to be insular in their dealings with fellow condo residents.
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His bone of contention?
The use of Mandarin by a resident in a condo chat group that has multi-racial users raised his heckles.
Apologising for raising the matter but felt it had to gone “overboard”, the poster felt that use of Mandarin in a “common platform for all residents where we collectively have Malay, Indian and Chinese lacked respect” to the rest who don’t know languages other than Malay and English.
In other words, please don’t be so self-centered and selfish, expecting others to conform to your linguistic expectations which are out of sync in multi-racial Malaysia.
To hammer home the point that usage of Mandarin in a residents’ chat group is irritating, one Chinese resident could be seen complaining that s/he too could not understand what was being conveyed.
Another message urged resident(s) to be inclusive.
The irate condo resident insisted that the post was not to create racial tension “but being human, I wonder how people can be so self-centered, not thoughtful about the feelings of others”.
The post has generated 33.7K likes, 1.1K comments, 2.6K re-posts and 387 shares at time of writing, denoting that use of the national language is a trending topic.
The sense of irritation and frustration was shared by this Chinese-educated poster who simply called a spade for what it –
“Mandarin supremacists are annoying.” He went on to argue that it was unbelievable that there are residents ignorant of local laws because of the language barrier.
“Imagine calling yourself Malaysian but don’t know the national language 💀 how to survive like this,” lamented this disgruntled citizen.
“Even Mainland Chinese know how to use their phones to translate road signs,” he sighed.’ Why can’t you?’ seems to be the pertinent query here.
Another commenter – a Chinese chap who attended vernacular school – concurred with the sentiment and proclaimed that “these Mandarin supremacists are so insufferable”.
One bemused commenter asked what was the purpose of communicating in Mandarin? Was it to show that “you’re the most Chinese of Chinese?”
Reminding the linguistic offender that the group chat was for ALL residents to communicate, it was pointed out that a common tongue understood by everybody should be used.
Providing an outsider’s perspective, a Singaporean Malay was less-than-impressed by this “exclusive” behaviour that was becoming more prevalent in her homeland due to more Malaysian Chinese gaining permanent residence or citizenship.
Was it due to sticking only to their own kind from young in a vernacular school environment?
More than one annoyed netizen also voiced their displeasure at those who steadfastly refuse to speak the national language but are affronted when they are equated with Mainland Chinese.
A Mandarin-illiterate Cantonese speaker was annoyed that certain Chinese assumed all their brethren to be able to read and converse in Mandarin.
She also found the manner in which some Chinese would insist on speaking Chinese despite the presence of non-Chinese speakers to be downright rude. “Have some respect” was her demand.
Underlining that it Is a LOCAL issue, one commenter recounted how he was never left out of any conversation during a camping trip with friends from China as they spoke English.
“I could get that level of decency from my China friends (when he was staying overseas) yet I can’t easily get the same decency from people who live in so-called multi-racial multi-lingual Malaysia,” he recounted.
It is really that simple.
Learn some manners and for goodness sake; if you possess a blue IC, please learn to use the national language. – Oct 29, 20236
