Nor Ashman impresses

I must say that I’m very impressed with Nor Ashman, the son of our Prime Minister. Nor Ashman, who accompanied his father in One FM radio interview yesterday morning spoke fluent Mandarin to my surprise and when I heard his “Zhao shen, da jia hao. Wo de ming zhi jiao Ashman. (Good morning everyone, my name is Ashman),”, I was mistakenly thought that he was LeeHom Wang, the American-born popular Taiwanese singer-songwriter who spent years oversea and thus his Mandarin carries some mat salleh slang.

And I must say that whether or not the Prime Minister has any thing to do with his son kind interest in learning Mandarin, up to the extent of spending three weeks learning Mandarin at the Beijing Foreign Studies University in China last year, this young man is surely that of forward-thinking type who dare breaking the racial barrier and willing to learn a foreign language that even some of the Chinese in this country or our neighboring country Singapore are not kind in learning.

Some of my Chinese friends are so ashamed of speaking Mandarin in the public and some even worst, don’t even know how speak and write in Mandarin, as to them, speaking English or Cantonese are probably a class above the rest of the people, Chinese especially. But with China growing into one of the strongest economic force, the number of foreigners learning Mandarin is growing by leaps and bounds.

Many years ago when I was visiting Shanghai, seeing some Americans wearing smart suits relaxing and seeping coffee in Starbuck, speaking fluent Mandarin with their Chinese accompanies, then and there I realized that the world is fast changing, Mandarin has gained its increasing importance as China evolves into a major economic force in the present world.