Quizzes and songs among the offerings at portal created by SPH’s omy.sg and Business China

Secondary 3 student Rachel Peh struggled with Chinese when she first went to Nan Hua High.

She was used to an English-speaking environment in Raffles Girls’ Primary. To improve her Chinese, she listened to Mandarin pop songs.

Yesterday, Rachel, 15, put her knowledge of Mandarin pop to use when she and two other youths helped Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during a quiz on the Chinese language and modern China.

Mr Lee aced two of the three questions on his own but was unsure when asked which Singapore singer – the choices were A-Do, JJ Lin, Stefanie Sun and Jocie Guo – had never appeared on China’s Lunar New Year Eve television show.

After consulting the three assistants, he answered correctly that it was Stefanie Sun.

The quiz marked the launch of CLing, a new Web portal (cling.omy.sg) set up to help raise Chinese-language standards among young Singaporeans and expose them to various aspects of modern China through quizzes, Web novels and songs.

CLing is jointly created by omy.sg – Singapore Press Holdings’ (SPH) bilingual news portal – and Business China, a business networking group.

At its launch at the Dragonfly nightspot in St James Power Station, Mr Lee said Singaporeans need to speak good Mandarin and take advantage of the opportunities China presents.

Reading Chinese newspapers is a good way to stay in touch with the language, he said. He also urged Singaporeans to speak proper Mandarin.

“If people from other countries cannot understand our Mandarin, it will not be useful to us.”

Some 300 participants, mostly students and young working adults, exchanged views with four local music personalities.

Producer Billy Koh, lyricist Xiao Han, composer-producer Lee Shih Song and singer Chen Diya shared their experiences in building up the local Chinese music scene and achieving success beyond Singapore.

Mr Chua Thian Poh, chairman of Business China, said it aimed to stimulate young people’s interest in China and encourage them to deepen their know-ledge through various activities and platforms, including CLing.

Mr Robin Hu, senior executive vice-president of SPH’s Chinese Newspapers Division and Newspaper Services Division, said an interactive new media platform like CLing would play an important role of reaching out to young Singaporeans.

kianbeng@sph.com.sg

Get understood

“If people from other countries cannot understand our Mandarin, it will not be useful to us.”

PM LEE, on the importance of speaking proper Mandarin

Courtesy of The Straits Times, 19 July 2009

• The answer is ‘Jocie’... no, it’s ‘Stef’
  2009-07-19