Well, you don't have to use WeChat if you are not interested in serving the market that uses WeChat, which is mainly the non-Singaporean Chinese living in Singapore and the region. Many of us would think of WeChat as a business tool, and the incentive for using WeChat is to capture a wider market so that we can earn more money and probably get rich.
Is it so? If your reason for using WeChat is mainly to make money and nothing else, I suggest you don't use WeChat. For sooner or later, your selfish motives will be known to people and people will start to abandon you for being so money-minded.
To me, the one and the only reason to use WeChat is to go back to our roots. As an ethnic Chinese, I find that because of the years of growing up and being influenced by popular culture, which is basically Western culture, I have lost my roots.
For example, I don't write Chinese often and find reading Chinese articles more taxing than reading Engish articles. As a result, I grow further and further away from Chinese culture. Well, this doesn't affect my livelihood, as I train in English 90% of the time. Because of my distance with Chinese language and Chinese culture, my wife and my 3 children (age 14 to 19) also distance themselves from Chinese and its culture. For example, my children see little practical use of Chinese in the academic world.
I can foresee that in time to come, my children's children and their offsprings will become more and more non-Chinese in their behaviour and outlook. In fact, this is already happening in Singapore now. Many people in Singapore like to use Facebook to expose their family's issues, some even scold their brothers and sisters in Facebook. We know that a person that is very 'Chinese' would never openly scold their family members in public, and Facebook is indeed the world's largest public platform with 1.8 billion users worldwide. A very 'Chinese' person knows that 家和万事兴, 家丑不可外扬 meaning that a peaceful family will bring prosperous life and one should never broadcast family quarrels.
Today people in the Western world admire the rich 5,000 years of unbroken culture that the Chinese have. Many Westerners, people from Africa, Middle East, Central Asia and even Pakistan are learning Chinese culture enthusiastically. To these non-Chinese, Chinese culture is never in their roots. But why are they so eager to learn Chinese culture? Because they know that they can become a better person if they adopt some of the virtues that Chinese culture offers.
The irony is that the Chinese in Singapore are not interested in Chinese culture when our roots are obviously Chinese. I just feel that our society would become less harmonious if we stay away from Chinese culture. This is not just my opinion, but also my feeling.
As a responsible educator, I feel that one little thing I could do is to promote Chinese culture. What better way to promote Chinese culture than WeChat, the dominant tool used by the Chinese? This explains why I conduct so many WeChat classes. From August 2017 to now (19 May 2018), other than one month holiday in November, I have conducted 56 WeChat classes in 9 months, this averages 5 a month, more than one every week.
If you too feel that going back to your Chinese cultural roots is important, I welcome you to use WeChat. In fact I truly believe that this is the one and only reason to use WeChat
Written by Andy Ng, Chief Trainer of www.asiatrainers.com To know when is the next WeChat course (in English, Mandarin and Cantonese), text to Andy at 65-8201-4347
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