Are you Kejia too? I am, as far as linguistic heritage is concerned. All of my grandparents spoke what I understand to be a variant of Fui Chiu Hakka at home, though my maternal grandfather actually came from a Fujianese-speaking family from Guangzhou. My actual blood heritage is pretty mixed up, and most records were believed to have been lost during the war or passed on to family branches we never meet anymore. Geneology sounds fascinating, especially with diasporan people like us.

Nope; my family is from Guangxi, near the border with Guangzhou. We speak Cantonese, as far as I can tell. Linguistic heritage is very confusing- I was more fluent in Hokkien than Cantonese as a child because my nanny spoke Hokkien. My lineal blood descent is pretty clear though, with good records preserved. You might say we're in opposite situations.

I guess growing up in S'pore or Penang, you'd tend to speak Hokkien first. Cantonese doesn't have much space in modern S'pore, with HK serials dubbed into Mandarin and Hokkien as the common vernacular.

In M'sia, it really depends on region. Even within the Klang Valley, while Hokkien dominates in Klang town near the coast, Fui Chiu hakka takes over in the inland areas near Ampang and south of KL. KL itself is a Cantonese area, as are most older Chinatowns worldwide. Other Kejia enclaves that I know of here in the Peninsula are Ipoh (mix of many types, actually), Sg. Lembing in Pahang and most of Sabah. Many Chinese here in KL speak or understand about three dialects - usually Mandarin, Hokkien and Cantonese. Where you settled down often determines the dialect you use at home, rather than what you actually spoke back in China.

I barely pass muster in Cantonese, and probably won't be able to carry on a business discussion with a Hong Konger. I can also barely make out the news broadcasts in formal Hakka over the radio, owing to my limited vocab. Give me the BBC or Guardian Online anytime.

I'm guessing that you grew up under the National Education Policy, were taught in Malaya and so don't read or write Chinese? Not that it matters; ten years of learning it in Singapore and I can barely read or write it either.

Till now, I'm wondering whether we actually have any semblance of an education anymore. In 1982, I was a part of the pilot batch for the KBSR (new curriculum for primary schools) which was only carried out in specific schools. Highlights of this policy were the dumping of primary school science, history and geography into a mixed social sciences subject. By the time we got to secondary school, it was clear that the unified curriculum concept was falling apart, and new ideas were being injected on an ad hoc basis without considering the overarching structure and goals of the original overhaul. And what a confused bunch of kids we were.

Anyway, back to the topic - yes, we did not learn Chinese in the non-vernacular schools. We could have taken it in Saturday classes, but at much more basic levels than in Chinese schools. I suspect that the lack of direction in non-vernacular schools prompted a mass exodus of chinese children into Chinese schools - by the time I finished secondary schooling, my old primary school had hardly any Chinese pupils left. And at the same time the Chinese schools have been bursting at their seams since, while vernacular teachers are drastically short in supply.

Vernacular schools are the sacred cow of the Chinese community. The government cannot eliminate them due to the influence of chinese voters. Blueprints from the Merdeka era have always called for an eventual unified education system, something like what S'pore has done, but political expediency has led to this policy remaining on the backburner indefinitely.

Judging from blogs, I can see that young S'poreans generally do not appear to be too happy with Chinese and usually "send it back" when they finish secondary school. The reason is simple - saturation level use of English and over exposure to American Culture. It's the same reason why Bahasa Melayu has failed to take hold in the urban popular culture and commercial arenas here. I only know formal Malay and would sound like a stiff nerd if I tried to have a conversation with a native speaker.

But I have to write my thesis in Malay!