Remembering the Traditional Chinese Textbook in Chinese Filipino Schools Back in My Day

Bahay Tsinoy, museum of Chinese life in the Philippines

 This textbook was a symbol of my past trauma, especially during my high school years. I didn't have formal Chinese education and I had to face off with someone who was pretty much like the late Miriam Defensor-Santiago. Sure, that MDS-like teacher taught me a lot of stuff that I learned later in life. I'm still grateful I ran into that MDS-like teacher who still helped me after she flunked me. However, I feel the traditional Chinese textbooks were a really big hurdle to learning how to speak Mandarin.

It's no joke that Mandarin has become more and more widely spoken. According to Langoly, this isn't a surprise to me as to why I viewed Mandarin as very important:

There are around 1.118 billion speakers of Mandarin Chinese, and it has been spoken in China for more than 3,000 years. Mandarin Chinese is also the official language of Singapore and Taiwan. There are many other languages in China (like Cantonese), but Mandarin is by far the most widely spoken.

Many people mistake Mandarin for the most spoken language in the world. In reality, it’s the language with the most native speakers and is the most spoken language in Asia. This means there are a lot of great advantages for people who speak Mandarin.

This is also no surprise about Mandarin as Asia's ever-growing language according to Langoly:

There are over 1.2 billion people who speak Mandarin, making it the most spoken language in Asia and the language with the most native speakers in the world. It’s the official language of China and Taiwan and is one of 4 official languages in Singapore. Within China, people speak many different dialects, some of which have significant differences from Mandarin and can be considered their own language. But Mandarin is the only official language of China and is spoken by over 70% of the population.

Mandarin consists of over 50,000 characters, although you only need to know 2-3,000 characters to be considered fluent. It’s also a tonal language with 4 different tones that affect the meaning of a word. It’s considered a difficult language for English speakers to learn, but being able to speak Mandarin can open doors in many sectors like business and diplomacy. 

However, the books never bothered to bridge the gap. Instead, when you're in a Chinese school, it's pretty much one size fits all. It's no wonder cheating is very prevalent in the Chinese class. I remembered flunking Grade 2 because I secretly asked, "What am I learning?" It doesn't help it when elders say, "Pass! Pass! Never mind if you learned something or not! Just pass and get a good grade!" Never mind that the key to getting good grades well-deserved is not just hard work but also studying smart. Studying hard is one thing but are we taught to study smart?

Bahay Tsinoy, museum of Chinese life in the Philippines

Back then, teachers had no choice but to teach Zhuyin Fuhao. One time, we did use some romanize (and wrongly done) and we had to erase it. We were told to practice using Zhuyin. The big problem was that we had to memorize an entirely different set of Chinese with the traditional Zhuyin. What was never seen was that Zhuyin was going to become less and less used eventually. The problem was that the Taiwan standard was followed. Taiwan had drift against Pinyin because of political reasons. I'm led to believe that Hanyu Pinyin's invention was antagonized because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took credit for what one of its biggest critics did. The late Zhou Yougang was a heavy critic of the tyrannical regime of Mao Zedong. Later, Zhou died at 111 years old while he was a critic of the CCP.

The big problem posed by these textbooks is that they don't bridge the gap. They require the person to learn Chinese immediately before entering the class. Didn't we go to the classroom to learn Chinese first? Also, if Zhuyin was used to teach us how to read, why aren't we taught the fundamentals of how to read before memorizing questions and answers. Worse, the memorization of questions and answers becomes meaningless if people don't understand what's being memorized. The only thing they fear was the scathing remarks of their conservative Chinese Filipino parents (who probably can't even speak proper Mandarin) and that the teacher wouldn't hit their hand with the ruler or pointing stick.

Some people took too much pride in their good old days. It's not as if one can use Zhuyin Fuhao to register their business in a non-Chinese-speaking country. Try to notice how Hanyu Pinyin has been helpful in getting the business permit. I go to get some milk tea and I see Chatime (which Cha is written in Pinyin) written as ㄔㄚTime? That would be very funny. The City Hall wouldn't even honor it because they don't know how to read Zhuyin. The integration of Pinyin isn't only because it's easier. It helps non-Chinese speakers and Chinese speakers have a closer bridge. These days, I feel bragging about how one is so good in Zhuyin is like taking pride in writing their reports on that paper-eating monster called a typewriter. Some people do still use typewriters for some reason (e.g. filling out forms as neatly as possible) but it's not really recommended for efficiency. I really hate using the typewriter until now!

These traditional textbooks never taught one how to speak Chinese. One had to learn how to read Chinese first but what if Chinese isn't one's default language? It's a stupid assumption that Chinese Filipinos automatically know Chinese. A language isn't spoken by one's genetics but by one's learning. A Chinese man who grows up in America may not even know how to speak Chinese. An American who goes and studies Mandarin in Beijing will be able to speak Chinese. The traditional textbooks are unreasonably demanding of the learner. There's no real reward in learning how to read except for not getting disciplinary action from the Chinese language teacher. 

It's time the books should be put as museum artifacts. It could represent how previous generations tried to keep the Chinese language like it was meant only for them. However, with the rise of Mandarin speakers, these old textbooks are a no-no to learning Mandarin. Instead, the use of bilingual Chinese textbooks can slowly build up conversations. Learning Mandarin Chinese can be done by building understanding. The old textbooks never bothered to do that. It'd make sense if the books were in China or Taiwan. Even Taiwan and China started to modify the way Chinese is taught to non-Chinese speakers. 

The boomers need to see that learning methods must evolve. It doesn't matter how many times you get rid of a Chinese language teacher. The problem itself is the system that teaches Chinese. Some people do have their horror stories about the traditional Chinese textbook. I have mine too. A good grade can only be rewarding if it was done not just out of hard work but also if learning was the top priority, not just the grades alone.