English Mad (Sunday People)

First published in New Sunday Times
21 December 2008

English-Mad

Children at the ‘Crazy English’ boot camp


HOW obsessed can you get with learning a new language? Would you go around talking to every foreign tourist you meet on the street? How about attending a ‘Crazy English’ boot camp where thousands yell out English lessons at the same time? 

As crazy as it sounds, these are some of the things you will see in Mad About English, the latest documentary by award-winning filmmaker Lian Pek. 

The former CNN correspondent takes the viewers on an enlightening journey as she interviews various characters in China in their quest to master the English language, once considered the forbidden tongue of the “foreign devils”.

They changed their mind when they won the bid to host the Olympic Games for 2008.

You’ll meet, among other people, a police officer who speaks with an uncanny New York Bronx accent (“Forget it, man. Put the gun down!”) 

“I was filming in China at one point when I realised that there was a big interest in learning the English language,” says the Singaporean filmmaker whose previous documentaries include Sayonara Changi and Born Again Buddhists. 

Her quest led to James Yang, a 74-year-old who had formed two English clubs where old folks like him learn English together. 

On the national linguistic fervour: “I guess before the Olympics, it dawned on the Chinese that there would be half a million people who would descend onto their country. They were hungry to do business and to trade with the foreigners.”

Mad About English was filmed in China in places like Beijing, Guangzhou and Yunan.

It premieres tonight on Discovery Channel (Astro 551) at 10pm.