Don't I learn and speak English? What I am doing here?

I did not ask you to learn Chinese. I don't care. But I hope my son learn Chinese when he learn English at the same time. And I believe it's necessary for equality.

Quantum wrote on Aug 27^th, 2013 at 8:06pm:

No, I did not ask you to learn Chinese. But, if you do not learn other language, don't blame others that do not learning English at the same time. Don't blame others that do not integrate.

I believe I am better than you for the society. Because I learn English to communicate to the community.

Quantum wrote on Aug 27^th, 2013 at 9:33pm:

Both you and me are migrants or posterity of migrants. Why it's only my job to integrate? Both you and me have the job. Especially when you talk about equality.


Quantum wrote on Aug 27^th, 2013 at 10:07pm:

If you read more books instead of wasting time in drinking , you should know 200 years is only a short period in the history. There are still many advantages in a culture which had led the world for more than 2000 years. Integrating means to learn each others, not others follow your culture only.

Quantum wrote on Aug 27^th, 2013 at 10:27pm:

Do you know any about logic? I told you if you ask me to learn more about your culture, you should do the same. And you told me your culture is superior than me, so I have to follow yours. When I told you it's not true, you call me racist.

Why not you call yourself a racist when you say your culture is superior?

What is Australian culture? The original Australian culture is Aboriginal culture. All the other cultures are imported cultures.

How many years have your culture been here? Only about 200 years. The early Chinese migrants came here at least 150 years ago. How can you claim only your culture is Australian culture?

Quantum wrote on Aug 28^th, 2013 at 8:40am:

Bowen wrote on Aug 27^th, 2013 at 7:30pm:


As far as I know, English is the official language of government, law and business in Australia. A society needs at most one common language to function properly. Learning multiple languages isn't necessary for equality. If you teach everyone to read, write and speak in this one language, that's good enough.

There are hundreds of languages in the world and if we had to teach every single one of them to achieve "equality," that would be exhausting. Having an "official language" eliminates that problem.

It means you can communicate with people of British, Indian, Chinese, Malaysian, Korean, Japanese, Russian ancestry, etc. Otherwise it would be like what happened in the Story of the Tower of Babel in the Bible.

Don't get me wrong. I think there are benefits to learning foreign languages, but it isn't about equality. Some countries (like Malaysia) have been teaching multiple languages at school for decades. It's good for business in the South East Asia region where the two dominant powers are China and the USA.

The good thing about learning foreign languages is that if a group of people are planning some conspiracy (or making racist remarks), you know what they're saying. It won't sound like some secret code to you.

Bowen wrote on Aug 27^th, 2013 at 10:23pm:


Do they force people to learn Cantonese or Teochew in Guangdong?

What about the Min, Hakka and Gan dialects in Fujian?

I thought only "guoyu" was mandatory.

It might be difficult however, to find your way around in Hong Kong if the people there don't know Mandarin.

BTW, English is the "guoyu" of Australia.

Bowen wrote on Aug 28^th, 2013 at 11:30am:


Australia isn't very multilingual. Speaking foreign languages is something "frowned upon" in this country. Speaking English is considered a "patriotic duty" in Australia. That's at least the impression I got in high school. In high school, people found it offensive to hear "Asians" speaking a foreign language. Although I think the topic only came up a few times in high school, I assumed nothing had changed since then, during all those years I spent studying in high school and university, isolated from the rest of society and buried in books. If people didn't complain, it was because they were only trying to be "polite."

I think it has a lot to do with Australia's history. The fear of invasion is deeply entrenched in Australia's culture and national tradition. At school they would tell you about World War II and Japanese expansionism. Maybe things have changed, maybe they don't do that in school anymore, but that narrative is deeply entrenched in my mind. Until someone tells me otherwise, I assume they have ANZAC services every year in schools and have one minute of silence on Remembrance Day.

But I can just imagine ............ that maybe people have grown so "soft," they're afraid to talk about war to an eight year-old child ..................

While some people in China may have a fear of foreigners as a result of it being a victim of national humiliation in the 19th century, there's a difference between one person speaking a foreign language in China and one person speaking a foreign language in Australia.

One person speaking English in China is hardly a threat to a country of 1.3 billion people, compared to one person speaking Mandarin in Australia, a country with 23 million people. Multiply that by 100 or 10,000 and consider the consequences. Who would feel threatened first, the people in Australia or the people in China?

Bowen wrote on Aug 28^th, 2013 at 11:30am:


If I was hungry, walked into a restaurant in China hoping to be able to order a bowl of noodles and some prawn dumplings and nobody could speak English, I think there would be a big chance that I would starve.

This is the real problem. It is wrong and the language is not about the "patriotic duty". Actually, racism is breaking the "patriotic duty" of the minority. I will fight for Australia if necessary. At the same time, I'd love to speak Chinese with anyone who can understand Chinese instead of English. Because Chinese is my native language and I can express my meaning in more details.

Mnemonic wrote on Aug 28^th, 2013 at 12:50pm: