I saw a couple near my home the other day.
One angmoh man, one Asian woman.
The woman may or may not be an SPG.
And she may or may not be speaking in a distinct Western accent.
The key word here, is distinct because what came out of her mouth was definitely an angmoh accent.
British, in fact. Mainly.
The intonation and even the choice of words were designed to sound like sentences that might come out of the Queen's mouth.
"That's pretty wicked," the Asian woman had said.
The problem is, Ms Asian Who Spouts British Accent had said the word "pretty" like an American, softening the 't's such that it sounds more like priddy instead of prittee.
I may sound priddy judgemental but I'm definitely sure Ms Asian is putting on an accent.
I really shouldn't be bothered by something so trivial but fake accents has always been my pet peeve.
It's not so much that I cannot accept people who speak with accents.
I can. If it's natural.
My partner of 20 years J for instance.
Despite having converted to be a proud pink-IC-carrying citizen, and despite having spent his education in Singapore since 11 years old, he still speaks English with an Indonesian accent.
Perhaps, it's deeply embedded in him -- his entire family including his sister-in-law who's from Surabaya speak like that.
I strongly believe that accents are planted and cultivated very early on when we learn to speak -- and subsequent changes in accents is not natural but by choice.
Sure, if one chooses to adapt a different accent, that's perfectly fine.
But not when the purpose is to put on a fake front because it's glamarous.
I have a friend whose mission in life is to elevate his own status and show off whatever little he can: His degree, his wealth, his love for art and just how widely-travelled he sounds when he speaks with an American accent because he studied in the US.
Said friend would try very hard to sustain his accent.
But like a heavily made up geisha who uses cheap cosmetics, as the night goes on, his accent wears off, revealing who he truly is beneath that put-on accent. Just a Singaporean boy who attends a non-elite school and sounds exactly like that.
For that friend, he ought to worry about fixing his grammar more than sticking to a fake accent.
And don't get me wrong -- I have nothing against neighbourhood schools at all.
My problem is fake accents, fake identities.
And I'm also a bit miffed at how we Asians often tend to look up to Western accents as superior.
I always wonder: If I ordered food at a posh restaurant with Hokkien-accented English, would I be mocked by fellow diners and the smartly dressed waiters? If my presentation to my board of directors were delivered in, say, English with a Vietnamese accent, would I impress anyone? Or can I get better service on the phone if I called and sounded like I just got off the boat from somewhere?
Years ago, a Singaporean friend whom I was studying in Australia with told me that if we sounded too Singaporean, the angmohs won't understand us.
"What's more, we should blend in and sound like them!".
That bitch goes around speaking with an American accent on good days.
And while I was there, I did pick up the accent.
In fact, I'm so good with sounding Aussie that if you closed your eyes, you wouldn't expect that those words are coming out of the mouth of an Asian -- a very proud Asian who disapproves of unnecessary Western worship.
During one term break, I took a holiday at the Gold Coast.
I ordered fish and chips and when the young Aussie girl handed me my food, she leaned over and said sincerely -- but with deliberate slowness in case my Asian ears didn't catch her -- that You speak good English.
I know she wasn't being sarcastic. I swear she was earnest because that poor girl must have interacted with 500 Japanese tourists a day and none of them would speak English the way I did -- with clarity and a distinctly Singaporean accent.
But I was young and also priddy guai lan back then so I couldn't bite my tongue.
I smiled, and said with equal slowness that I learnt English from OUR coloniser.
I left that poor and sincere girl to digest my Asian sarcasm.
When my younger brother studied law in the UK and came back during school holidays, he would always speak with a crisp English accent just to irritate me, knowing full well that I'm irked.
I once told him that I will slap him across the face if he didn't stop it.
My English-accented threat was well received.
Now that I'm more mature, I am also milder.
And when I do come across fake-accent spouters, I go right to the heart of the matter.
I keep asking them about their accent and trace the origin right back to that person's ancestral roots.
My partner J says I have nothing better to do.
"I can't understand you amid your thick Indo accent," I replied him, giving him my best Bapak accent.
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