Just read this news report about what Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore advised his fellow citizens. Mr. Lee is the former Prime Minister of Singapore who led Singapore from a resource poor country with only its human capital to become one of the richest country around this region. Mr. Lee is a very intelligent man. When Singapore got separated from Malaysia, they were about the same level as Malaysia, but Malaysia had the advantage of having very rich natural resources like petroleum, plenty of land, tin deposits, even a little bit of gold deposits, wide expenses of rubber estates and now oil palm estates. Singapore had none of these. But because of good leadership and hard working citizens and a pretty much corruption free government and private sector, they are way ahead of Malaysia now. The previous national airline split into two. Malaysia's part became Malaysia Airline System (MAS) and Singapore's part became Singapore Airlines (SIA). The former CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of SIA (now retired), Dr. Cheong Choong Kong (better known as Dr. C.K. Cheong), actually is/was a Malaysian, in fact was my former Statistics lecturer in my university, University of Malaya. He very likely have taken up Singapore citizenship, I don't know. He led SIA to become one of the top airlines in the world while MAS had to depend on the Malaysian government for survival.
Back to the subject of this post. Mr. Lee Kuan Yew advised the citizens of Singapore to make an effort to keep their mother tongue. So Chinese can speak Engiish and Chinese. Indians and speak English and one of the Indian languages. Malay can speak English and Malay. In this way, Singapore will have a huge advantage in this globalised world, and Chinese can interact easily with China (now a fast growing economy and world power), Taiwan and many parts of the world where there are Chinese migrants. Some have estimated 1 in 4 people in the world are ethnic Chinese. Malays can interact easily with Malaysia and Indonesia and the rest of the world, and Indians can interact with India, also a fast growing country, and with the rest of the world. (Whether things like fast growing economy is a good or bad thing, your grandpa have a double mind, but a country with a growing population need a growing economy so that its growing population can find and keep jobs, but it has other effects I would rather not talk about here. Maybe you will understand your grandpa when you grow up). With this multi-lingual population, Singapore will have a huge advantage over lots of countries.
Malaysia too can have this advantage if it so choose (in fact it do have it, but to a lesser degree than Singapore because of racial pride).
English is not the best language to be the international language as its way of spelling and pronouncing English words is atrocious. Have you ever heard someone trying to speak English according to the spelling (phonetically), like the Japanese? You will have a hard time understanding what they are trying to say. In fact, one of your aunt's name is spelled in a way that can be considered as a kind of "parody" of the English spelling. English only became the de facto international language by circumstances, not because it is best suited to become one. But not every country's citizen are master of the English language, and if you are able to converse with them in their tongue, you normally would be able to get along very much better.
Your grandpa sent your mom to a Chinese primary school for about the same reason as Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. She can now speak Chinese, English and Malay. China was a poor, backward communist country then, but is a sleeping giant waiting to wake up. It was not an easy decision because when you have to learn more than one language, you have to be hard working. There is a danger that if you do not work hard, you do not master any of them, and then you have a problem. You are neither here nor there, and may end up not not been able to keep up with the rest.
I do not know if your mum found that being multi-lingual is an advantage or not, but I think very likely it do give her an advantage over those who know only one language. I do not know what decision your parents will make for you, but whatever it is, I am sure you will grow up to become a hard working chap.
Mother tongue in books etc
Lee Kuan Yew in books
Lee Kuan Yew biography
Lee Kuan Yew memoirs
Lee Kuan Yew the man & his ideas
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