By Yeo Sam Jo

THIRTY years ago, the Speak Mandarin Campaign was launched to promote Mandarin as the lingua franca of Singapore's Chinese community.

Thirty years on, I think we have a success story - me.

In the 80s, I was born into an English-speaking family. Even though I speak English at home, years of mother tongue lessons have moulded me into one of the many bilingual youth in Singapore today.

Don't get me wrong, I am grateful that I am linguistically equipped. But I sometimes wonder if this was at the expense of my ethnicity.

I am a Hokkien-Chinese, but I often feel uncomfortable when people ask me what my dialect group is.

A part of me feels that there are expectations I ought to live up to.

I do not offer sugarcane stalks to Tian Gong, or the Heavenly Jade Emperor, during Chinese New Year. And the only Hokkien words I know are, for better or for worse, popular expletives thrown about in the army.

With my already bilingual tongue, Hokkien was never a necessity for me.

And I know I am not alone. Young people everywhere today speak either Mandarin or English at home. We don't hear dialect on the regular television channels. Even our identity cards are silent on our dialect diversity.

And to us, traditions like Teochew operas are little known outside once-a-year festivals and museums.

So yes, the Government's aim to standardise our tongues may well be a triumph, but it has diluted our individual dialect identities as much as a cultural way of life.

Here's the question: Have we lost more than what we set out to achieve - if so, does it matter?

My ancestors must be turning in their graves, yet I can't seem to feel sad for losing an identity that I never had. Instead, I find it easier to embrace my Chinese roots on a broader level.

For example, the practice of exchanging Mandarin oranges during Chinese New Year was originally Cantonese, but has now spread to most Chinese households.

Many traditions today no longer obey dialect boundaries. It is from this confluence of cultures that I derive a stronger sense of belonging.

So while we have acquired a common tongue, perhaps the cultural solidarity of youth today lies not in the language, but in the mutual shedding of an eclectic past.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.