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| People walk along Orchard Road, the retail and entertainment hub of Singapore and a major tourist attraction. (Photo: Komar, Shutterstock) |
Singapore's bilingual policy has been the cornerstone of its development "from third world to first." However, as global power shifts from the West to Asia, especially with regards to China, it may be time for Singapore to upgrade its bilingual policy to biculturalism.
Singapore's bilingualism refers to the use of English and one of the three commonly heard ethnic languages, namely Chinese, Malay and Tamil. biculturalism is inclusive of bilingualism, but its connotation is much broader, including customs, religion, art and so forth. Singapore's biculturalism should be a mix of local culture and one of the three ethnic cultures of Chinese, Malay and Indian.
China has been one of the world's fastest-growing economies and will become the largest one within the coming decades. As a result, there has been a global interest to learn Chinese language so as to better establish closer business relationships with China.
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