Now that i'm at home, i read the straits times instead of STREATS and TODAY. And part of the Straits Times is the forum pages. In the forum pages today, there are a few people writing in about learning of Chinese. They want to make chinese optional, as they say that just because you are chinese doesn't mean you need to know chinese. That we may be forcing our kids to learn chinese, when that time may be spent mastering other things they are good at and interested in like science and maths.

Ok, this is from a person that failed chinese throughout secondary school, and only got a C6 for my O levels. See, i believe that chinese should NEVER be optional. One person who wrote in gave the example of African Americans in the US don't need to know their african languages. Well... that may be so, but wouldn't it be BETTER if they DID know their african languages? I'm not one to be interested in culture, chinese or otherwise, but i believe that it is important no matter what. Making chinese optional would probably result in 70% of people not taking chinese, and not knowing how to speak chinese. And to me, that'll be just sad.