Deputy Information Minister Donald Lim urged public to assist by recommending part-time newsreaders in Hokkien, Hakka, Teochew and Cantonese for the RTM’s Chinese radio station Ai FM, in order to cater for the need to revert back to the 40 minutes dialect news broadcast, as promised by him on April 26.
Last March, the ministry trimmed its 40 minutes news slot to 20 minutes, due to unable to find suitable newsreaders.
“I have met the leaders of the associations and they have promised to introduce suitable candidates.” [...]“The task now was to find four part-time newsreaders for each dialect”
I’m neither a vivid fan nor a ad-hoc follower of the broadcast, but I realize the fact that, quite a huge sum of old folks out there who can only understand their own dialect, keep track of it everyday.
If senior citizen also being deprived of their basic right or probably self-branded entertainment, its really a pity to them.
Now, Donald Lim is offering, any recommendations, just for the sake of ah-gong ah-ma?
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I don’t think it’s for the sake of ah-gong ah-ma, I think it’s a pity that the dialects are dying out in Malaysian Chinese. I wish I could speak my own mother tongue (FuChow) but I cannot.
Dialects are an important part of our culture, our roots and identity, they give Malaysian Chinese the “personality” lacking in say, Singaporean Chinese (who only speak Mandarin and smatterings of Hokkien anyway). If all our names were written hanyu pinyin style like them or the Taiwanese, it wouldn’t be as fun.
When I went to Singapore, my Sporean Chinese friends were like “Huh? Teoh? What sorta surname is that?”
Dooot Doott… Har Ngor Sa Tiam, Yin Zoi Si Jio Kia Bo Go Sim Bun…
Hey, this Donald Lim is the one who was so excited about making all the HK series into Mandarin, preaching only Mandarin for Chinese. Now, wind change liao pulak. Can’t they make up their mind?
Actually, I quite like those days when they have ‘li kho bo wa kho’ where my mom and her friends (mom would be mid 70yrs old now) listen. And that time also have ‘lek te ho seng’ (redifussion) and all Hakka, Teochew, Hokkien news come on air.
My most memorable is ‘tunkuabdulamansuak’ (T.A.R. said….) starts with every news.
j-teoh,
I understand your concern as you can’t speak your own mother tounge.
However, I can’t see any sign of dialects are dying out in Malaysian Chinese. Forgot about Singaporean Chinese (I’m not sure how’s the dialect usage there), but I can tell you that from a Malaysian Chinese perspective, dialect here is being practised as pervasive as before.
I grew up in Penang Hokkien environment, and whenever I meet someone who speak Hokkien too, Chinese/English will be abandoned.
Sorry to say that Singaporean Chinese is lousy, not even understand Teoh stands for what surname?
As long as we hold pride of our own roots and identity, it’s good enough, even though you don’t understand your own dialect.
This, I am proud of you, as a Malaysian Chinese.