13 June, 2005

declining standards of english education

Le Mason makes a spirited defense of Sarong Party Girl’s decision to bare all, and in doing so makes a disturbing comment.:

… someone like Xiaxue is deemed as doing her country proud and letting the rest of the world know about life in Singapore, while a very much better writer like Sarong Party Girl is typecasted as someone who’s shamed the nation. Hello, in case you haven’t noticed, one is a god-damned ah lian who peppers her distastefully pink blog with foul language and talks as
if she’s the only person who deserves to live on Earth. And writes bad grammar. And makes eye-soring spelling errors too.
On the other hand, we have another Singaporean who writes very well– so well her standard and command of English puts some of your own writers and reporters to shame– and all you focus on are two tiny photos that show exposed nipples and nothing more. Have you made any comments on how well she writes? To be frank with you, if I was teaching a class of mature students, I’d recommend they read SPG’s blog because of how well-written the entries are. And yet, I hear some schools are getting
their students to learn how to blog like Xiaxue.
(emp, link added)

Dear lord no! Alert the gahmen immediately - we need a "blog good English" campaign.

For what it’s worth, given that Singapore is a country that only recently allowed racy material such as Cosmopolitan, it’s not a surprise that this is being picked up as a news item. It’s a shame that reporters are acting ’scandalized’ by the matter, but SPG runs a high-traffic site and she knows what she is doing. (At the risk of sounding like Wonkette, I sense a "book deal.")

I’m more scandalized that Singapore schools would teach students how to write like XiaXue. If that’s actually true, I’m horrified.

Kenny Sia also weighs in (nsfw).

by @ 1:46 pm. Filed under Culture, Blogs, Singapore, Southeast Asia

5 Responses to “declining standards of english education”

  1. barffie Says:

    How lame can those teachers get?! Can’t they differentiate between good and bad writing?!

  2. Kenny Sia Says:

    Waddya mean ‘WEIGHTS IN’.

    Ehhh… my weight is quite ok ok!

  3. j. Says:

    i completely agree. i’m not an enormous fan of either blog, but i’d rather read SPG’s any day for the quality of english than xiaxue’s. getting students to blog like the latter is downright scary.

  4. Malcolm Says:

    Sarongpartygirl definitely writes better than Xiaxue. Just because we don’t share her lifestyle doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate her honesty. There’s nothing fake about her, and the photo proves it. By comparison, the Ah Lian uses Photoshop to front her pink wardrobe. She’s probably the oldest virgin in town too.

  5. esther Says:

    Chanced upon your blog and I totally agree with you about Xiaxue, read her blog and found that she is simply a rude girl who should mind her own business and language. If Singapore thinks that Sarong Party Girl is an insult to our nation, perhaps she should consider Xiaxue too.
    Do not think that Xiaxue isn’t that “morally chaste” as she assumes she is.

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