On the 25th July 2019, I
made my 15th club visit of the term to Eunos Bilingual Toastmasters
Club, in the capacity of language evaluator.
The Club
Eunos Bilingual Toastmasters is
unusual in the best possible way. It is
nominally a bilingual club — English and Mandarin — but it welcomes members who
speak no Mandarin at all, or who speak it with varying degrees of
confidence. The shared love of language
and learning is a sufficient qualification for membership. This is the correct philosophy. A club that requires fluency before allowing
participation has confused the destination with the prerequisite.
The Opening
Club President Cho Cho Yi opened
with an address in both Mandarin and English on the qualities of a leader —
drawing on Confucius, who prescribed three qualities for a good ruler: virtue,
wisdom, and humanity. She then extended
this into a discussion of the Mandate of Heaven — the classical Chinese
political philosophy that legitimate authority derives from moral conduct and
the will of Heaven, and is withdrawn when leadership fails its obligations to
the people.
Area Director Marie Ong followed —
also in fluent Mandarin and English — speaking on the importance of focus and
the danger of losing sight of original intent as organisations grow and
evolve. The message was directed at club
officers but applied considerably more broadly.
The ability to deliver it convincingly in two languages simultaneously
was itself a demonstration of the principle.
The Speeches
Vinoth Mannan gave his second speech
— a humorous exploration of the various euphemisms the world has developed for
the humble toilet. The subject matter
was well chosen for a second speech: inherently funny, universally relatable,
and requiring no expertise to appreciate.
His instincts were sound. His
timing was not — he was unable to reach the minimum duration, which in a
humorous speech is a structural problem.
Comedy requires setup, development, and payoff. Rushing removes the space in which laughter
occurs. He shows promise. He will get better. The second speech is always too short.
Jamie Lau spoke with genuine passion
about how to assist baby birds that have fallen from their nests. She is visibly an animal lover and spoke with
the authority of someone who has actually done this rather than merely
researched it. She recommended feeding
baby birds mashed boiled eggs. She said
this without any apparent awareness of the existential dimension of the
recommendation. The audience received it
without comment. Some rooms are not
ready for that conversation.
Doreen Neo chose an extract from the
late Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew’s One Man’s View of the World —
specifically the section in which he reflected on his impending mortality and
the legacy he wished to leave: a prosperous, corruption-free meritocracy. In the weeks immediately preceding National
Day, the choice was apt. Lee Kuan Yew’s
reflections on legacy carry a weight that most speech topics cannot
approach. Reading them aloud in a club
meeting, with National Day approaching, was a quietly powerful decision.
Yeow Kian Poh then provided a
practical overview of the Pathways learning programme — specifically orienting
the senior members who had been on the legacy educational track toward
understanding the new system. This is
unglamorous but necessary work.
Toastmasters’ transition to Pathways was not smooth for members who had
invested years in the previous programme.
A clear explanation from someone who understood it was more valuable
than most speeches delivered that evening, even if it attracted fewer votes.
The Table
Topics
Gwen Ling presided over table
topics, with five speakers taking the floor.
A guest won Best Table Topics Speaker, which is simultaneously
encouraging and instructive. A guest,
walking in without preparation, matched or exceeded the prepared members in
impromptu speaking. This is either a commentary
on the guest’s natural ability or on the members’ need to invest more in
impromptu practice. Probably both.
The Language
Evaluation
My language evaluation covered three
languages while remaining primarily in English, appropriate for a bilingual
club where not every member shares all three.
I addressed the evolution of language, the challenges of translation,
and the specific problem of Chinese idioms: how they carry layers of meaning,
cultural reference, and historical context that resist direct translation into
English or Malay, and how the attempt to translate them often strips the
flavour while retaining only the shell.
The converse is equally true and
equally important. When a speaker
successfully brings an idiom, a proverb, or a mythological reference from one
language tradition into another — when they find the English equivalent that
captures not just the meaning but the texture of the Chinese original — the
speech gains something that a monolingual speaker cannot produce. Multilingualism, properly deployed, is not a
complication. It is a resource.
The evaluators were Sim Lai Ngin,
Soe Haty, Jenny Au, DTM, and Wiwiek Najihah.
The Awards
Best Speaker: Jamie Lau — passion
for a subject is its own form of preparation.
Best Evaluator: Wiwiek Najihah.
Best Table Topics Speaker: Guest.
The Overall
Assessment
Eunos Bilingual Toastmasters is a
club that has figured out something many clubs have not: that the point of a
language club is not linguistic gatekeeping but linguistic growth. Members who cannot yet speak Mandarin
fluently are welcomed into a Mandarin bilingual club. Members who speak it well are challenged by
the presence of those who do not, because explaining a concept across a
language barrier develops a precision that comfortable fluency sometimes
erodes. The meeting was substantive,
warm, and well-run. The president and
area director set a high standard at the opening. Most of the speeches genuinely engaged with
their subjects.
Terence Nunis, DTM | Division Advisor, District 80 Division M | Club Advisor, AIA Toastmasters | Past President & Founder, Awesome Toastmasters
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