Deconstructin Jonas Fine Tan.
Deconstructin Jonas Fine Tan.
“At the end of the day, this fascination with languages helps me to connect with other people who don't have my experiences, who have not made the same mistakes that I've made, who have not gone through the same joys and lows that I have. Everyone looks like they’re living a different life — nationality and language and linguistic divisions play a very big part in creating that false impression — but actually we're all the same.”
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Deconstructing Jonas Fine Tan.
It's difficult to pin down Fine. He is that rare, surprising, oddly specific blend of androgyny, intelligence, stylishness, and quirky intrigue. He speaks 11 languages and counting. He is a psychology and linguistics student at Oxford. He volunteers with migrant workers and sex workers as a translator. He is a viral sensation on social media for being a delightfully engaging language prodigy. He's also young, passionate, hyper-aware, socially-minded, full of electric possibilities, and so much more, that an interview like this feels like we're only skirting the surface. But here we go.
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The interview.
Far East Plaza, Singapore.
17 July 2023.
photos and text by Rebecca Toh
Rebecca: Hi Fine! You speak 11 freaking languages. What do you say to people who say this is something only super-smart people can do?
Fine: I think there are very successful polyglots who are not educated. Many. Many in my parents' generation, who are able to speak Malay, Mandarin, English, and other dialects. They could speak Japanese during the war. And it's not because they were smarter or more formally educated. They simply learned the languages out of practice and necessity.
R: So let's talk about how you ended up learning so many languages.
F: I learned them because it's fun. It's a hobby. I've always had an interest in languages. I remember at a Popular book fair, when I was in primary school, I forced my mother to buy me a Bahasa Indonesian course on CD. I was just drawn to it. At the same time, my Mandarin was absolute trash. But I'm an AC boy lah, at the end of the day.
R: What about with your parents? What languages do you guys speak with each other?
F: My mum is essentially monolingual. She only speaks English. My mum's dad is South African Chinese, so he spoke Hakka and Afrikaans, and my mum's mum is Peranakan. My grandma spoke Malay and English and Japanese, because of the war. After my granddad died, which was very early on in my mum's life, my grandma would only speak to my mum in English. So my mum grew up not speaking any dialect at home. She does speak a little Malay, and it's better than her Chinese in my opinion. But... with a massive caveat that my mum can't count past ten. It's quite funny. But being monolingual has been okay for her, although I like to joke with my mother that her Chinese is worse than my fifth language. As for my dad, he speaks Hokkien as his native language, because my grandparents were both born here but my great grandparents were born in either Fujian or Taiwan.
R: What is your life like in Oxford? Culturally, socially, do you fit in?
F: I guess I've never been someone who struggles with fitting in. Maybe my experience is not a representation of most people's experiences. I make friends very easily. For me, culture hasn't been an issue. Even in Singapore, we get to exist around many different cultures. In the UK, I don't think I've struggled at all. I'm very lucky. I have a very supportive community. And wah, subtle flex, but I got elected student body president last year. But I don't like the university, the management, the bureaucracy... I dislike that.
R: Do you feel like making friends is something that's related to how well one communicates?
F: I think making friends is about how well you relate. The idea of, wow you speak well, you speak eloquently, sure. Maybe there's a metric where you can measure how eloquent a person is, in the sense of how well they transmit information. But if you speak the most proper English, and I talk to you in the most chapalang (Singaporean slang that means ‘a random mix’) English, you won't go, this guy is an idiot, I'm not going to talk to him. It's the same in the UK. For me, my friends are very lovely in that they don't understand me when I speak Singlish, but they are very happy to learn.
R: I think you brought up a very good point. It's about relating and connecting. But there are a lot of Singaporeans who will say, "You know when I talk to ang mohs (Singaporean slang for ‘Causasians’) right, I will have to speak in their accent, otherwise they can't understand me". What do you think about that?
F: I think it's about power dynamics, as in who is in power. This is a whole field of social linguistics - linguistic power, linguistic prestige, where certain language varieties are valued more than others. Have you realised that generally in our Singaporean parliament, there's a specific accent that everyone uses? Or our news anchors who are like, "Tonight on Channel NewsAsia". This is called 'diglossia', where we have two ends of a spectrum - a prestige language variety and, for lack of a better word, a chor lor (Singlish for ‘rough’) variety, which is Singlish. The proper terms are 'acrolectal' and 'basilectal'. Acrolectal dialects are what you see on our news, and basilectal dialects are what our grandparents speak. You know how when your grandparents who never learned English properly try to speak English? That's basilectal.
So it's this idea that here we value acrolectal English more than basilectal English, which is Singlish in Singapore. That's where the government takes the opinion that we must speak properly. We must speak well. Speak good Chinese, speak good English, speak good Malay. It's very prescriptivist, which I'm not a fan of. I'm very much a linguistic descriptivist, which is... We describe the language as it is. Languages will not stay the same. They're not static. They're not relics. They're in constant flux.
R: The Singapore government was at one point really pushing for English and not so much for mother tongues and other dialects, but at the same time we really benefited from those language policies.
F: I think from a practical perspective, it definitely makes sense. In that... The US is the global hegemony. They control everything because everything is pegged to the US dollar. And so English is, as a result, also the global hegemonic language. Because if you don't speak English, you don't speak the language of the international trade. And I think Singapore is very smart for doing that... When you are nation-building, you don't think about, oh, how does this affect our culture? Our identity? That is a secondary thought. The primary thought is how do we get ahead? And so I definitely think that the government made the right decision. But I think now that we are at a juncture where so many of us are speaking English as our native language, it's time to dial back. A bit.
R: So I got to ask. What is your fascination with languages? Why do you care so much about them?
F: What a profound question. If you boil it down, I think it's because so much of our self is encapsulated and defined by language. So is our daily experience. I had this thought the other day because I happened to come across an entirely deaf family who were sitting next to me as I was having dessert. They were all signing to each other. This was the first time I've ever seen an entire deaf family, and also the first time I've ever come into contact with Singapore Sign Language. I was quite interested.
But my fascination with that is, wow, so they will never know what it feels like to hear what we say. Fundamentally, that is such a big gap between us as human beings. At the same time, I think my own personal fascination is with language structures. Inherently, every language has a different structure. A very, very different way of expressing the same things. That's just really cool. Why does this language write like that? Why does this language construct ideas like that?
Language has also really helped me connect with what I want. What I've realised is that I really want to work for social causes. I've come to realise that I find more value in myself if I can do something with and for other people. But of course, you know, it's the whole altruistic argument. Are you really altruistic? Or are you just doing it to make yourself feel better?
R: We will never find out.
F: We will never find out. Because it's a circular argument. But at the end of the day, learning languages and this fascination with languages is really helping me to connect with other people who don't have my experiences. Who have not made the same mistakes that I've made. Who have not gone through the same joys and lows and the same experiences that I have. Because inherently, everybody is living a different life. And nationality and language and linguistic divisions play a very big part in that. All these things can create a false impression that we're different. But actually we're all the same.
R: You are also interested in translation right?
F: I love love love translation. I used to translate for migrant workers who were quarantined during COVID. That was in Thai. I would also speak to some of them in Tamil, but my Tamil was really shit, and still really shit. Like my Tamil is absolute trash. I'm usually just like, I put this here, please sit down, how are you today, next week what you doing?
R: You don't need anything more than that actually.
F: It's also because of the context I use Tamil in. It's only with elders and old folks.
R: So during COVID you were in Singapore?
F: I was in Singapore and doing national service.
R: You’re so young… Okay, so we were talking about translation.
F: I really wanted to translate for books. I actually started my degree at Oxford studying Portuguese and linguistics rather than psychology and linguistics. And so I spent an entire year studying Portuguese translation because I was interested in documenting indigenous languages in Brazil. I thought, if I can't even speak to them in their language, how am I ever going to document their language?
R: How come the switch then?
F: I was torn between doing medicine and linguistics for a long time. My dad's a doctor, my mum's an occupational therapist. I worked in hospitals for a long time. It's sort of an extension of social work in a way. I did an internship where I was doing research at NUS medicine for a year before I left, and I was like, I actually really like biomedical research. After doing a year of Portuguese - and the Portuguese course at Oxford, it's very archaic, very literature-heavy - I'm like, why the fuck am I learning about 15th century colonialists who are having wet dreams about some Indian lady? So I switched to psychology at Oxford, which is very neuroscience-heavy.
R: So the big question is, have you read Babel yet? (Context: The central character of R. F. Kuang's novel "Babel" is Robin Swift, a Chinese boy who trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, so that he can gain admission into Oxford University's prestigious Royal Institute of Translation in an alternate-reality 1830s England. Reminds you of anyone?)
F: No. I bought the book, but I really have no time. People keep comparing me to the character Robin Swift. I met the author in Oxford when she was doing a town hall. She was like... Oh my god, aren't you that TikTok guy, to a room of 500 people. But I legitimately have had no time. My research deadlines are every week.
R: You are studying. You were elected student body president. You're doing research. You volunteer. I'm not surprised you haven't read Babel yet...
F: Also it's a bloody chunky book.
R: Do you know what you want to do after Oxford?
F: Academia, probably. But I guess socially-oriented academia. Either medical research that's oriented towards public health, or linguistic research where it's oriented towards language documentation. Oh, I'm even considering just going into sociology.
R: What about working in the government?
F: I have always considered that. Or at least civil service or public service. I think there are a lot of things that Singapore needs to improve on. This is not me wearing my linguistics hat. This is me wearing my politics, my social awareness hat. I think we need to change the way we treat migrant workers. The way we treat free speech. We are no longer in the 1960s or 70s. We are no longer in the era where, if you say something wrong, the whole country's gonna blow up. I think LKY was very decisive with that in the past, and it worked in our favor in the long run. But that needs to change. Being unable to openly protest, it's just a bit shit lah.
R: Are you on a scholarship at Oxford?
F: I'm very privileged. I come from a wealthy family. I mean, I'm not going to deny my privilege. I have the privilege of doing Oxford on my own money. So I said no to scholarships. This whole blowing up on TikTok, on Instagram… not in my life plan. And people writing fan fiction about me, definitely not in my life plan. So I guess I want to keep things open. Because you never know what's going to happen. But yes, I would love to work in the government. And I would just love to have a part to play in Singapore's development. And overall I'm hopeful.
R: Honestly I feel hopeful about the future too, talking to the younger people, talking to people like you. All the Gen Zs I know, many of them are amazing and brilliant and really creative. And they care deeply about society. So I think it would be cool if you decided to work in our government and try to change some things.
F: I think Singapore today has an unwillingness to change. I have this joke with my Southeast Asian friends in Oxford. Singapore in Southeast Asia is an anomaly in that we're very rich, but other than that, we are all bonded by the fact that our governments are all messy shit.
R: Yeah, but I think we try very hard to disguise that in Singapore. On another note, what do you think about your recent fame on social media?
F: I think I'm not this glorified character that everyone is making me out to be. I have been reflecting on this question because people are really venerating me. And they are being like, he has such a lovely personality, he works for social causes. Yes, I do. But I've also hurt people. I am a human who has made really terrible mistakes, who has done really stupid shit, you know? And I'm an idiot. I've been a dickhead to certain people. An asshole. I'm an upper class Singaporean who went overseas to Oxford. Like, I went to Anglo-Chinese School independent. I am THE dickhead. There are things that would make me undesirable to most of the public. Some people are like, "He's just some atas kid (Singlish for ‘posh kid’) who just has too much privilege". When I did my TikTok live, people asked, how do you get to go to Oxford? And I'm like, oh, I come from a rich family. And people are like, thank you for your honesty. I've hurt some of my friends before, I've spread rumours when I was younger, I've said nasty things to people. Admitting these things openly and being honest about it has been a lot easier for me.
R: It's really liberating right? Because if you have to keep up this front of being a perfect human being, it's going to hurt your mental health.
F: I hate it. People are asking me about my private life on social media, and I always tell people, guys, I'm a human. I'm just a dude. Like, I'm just a dude who happens to have a platform.
R: Do you hate the attention? Do you wish you could go back to your cave?
F: A little bit. A little bit. But I enjoy being able to educate people on linguistics. I was lamenting to a friend that I just want to roll and melt into the ground. I feel like I've become a caricature of who I actually am. It's not the fault of the news media, of social media, it's just the way that the internet is. You can't gather the nuances of a human being based on something that you see on a screen.
R: People think they know that, but they don't. And they keep forgetting, because fame can be very distracting.
F: I think being in therapy has really helped me. I've been in therapy for about four years? Growing up queer and chronically ill really fucked with me lah, I think. But therapy has really helped me reframe and just realise that at the end of the day, it's not that deep. This whole fame thing, it's also not that deep. It's waning. If I don't post anymore, or if I post something that people don't resonate with, I'll fade into obscurity. And that's okay. But I am very glad that I have this platform to educate people and advocate for what I think is right. My friend was telling me, think about it, you are now a literal force for good. I can advocate for social causes online. I have a following who will actually listen to my opinion and think that I'm some genius. I guess I'm happy that I'm lucky.
R: I think it's great, because you get to push the needle on some issues that people simply don't give enough of a shit about. One downside of fame I can think of, though, is personal safety.
F: Yeah, I'm a bit concerned about that. But I'm taking my time and slowly compartmentalising everything, and slowly dealing with these things as they come along. I have not answered my phone for the past three days, because I have so many people texting me, but I have no bandwidth to reply. I have no energy. I've managed to socially burn out. Which I did not know was possible. You can ask any of my friends. They are like, how did you manage to socially burn out? I don't know. I say this as I'm going out for dinner tonight. And as I'm doing this interview now.
R: You are a Libran right? Librans do need balance in their life.
F: Yeah. And I have no balance.
R: Do you have any personal heroes?
F: Wow, Good question. I guess heroes are people who I believe have been agents for good. But I don't really have any personal heroes. I think maybe it boils down to my view of humanity. I can respect what people do. And I really do respect certain people. I love Dolly Parton for channeling her stardom and her money into social causes and things like that. But would I say Dolly Parton is my personal hero? Not really. I guess glorifying a human is also not fair to them. Because like for me now, I'm definitely not this person everyone is making me out to be. Like sure, I speak these languages and I love doing what I do. That in and of itself gives me value and it's valuable. Does it mean I'm a better person than someone else? No. So do I have any personal heroes that I believe are better than everybody else? No. But I love the actions of people.
R: Are you comfortable with talking about your mental health?
F: This one might be difficult because it's also talking about my queerness. Growing up queer in a religious school, that was not a good idea. I used to think of myself as a mistake of God. And I think being chronically ill definitely contributed to that. At the same time, being queer in a very homogenous society, in a very religious household, because my mother is very Christian and I grew up in a boys' Christian school, that did not help. And so, I think I spent a lot of my life not valuing who I am, and just seeing myself as some mistake of nature, or at least some mistake of existence. And I just believed that it wouldn't be fair for me to live.
R: Did you talk to anyone about your feelings before you went to a therapist?
F: I did, many times. And I guess I pushed away a lot of friends because of it. They ended up becoming my emotional punching bags. The way that I saw it was that they were my friends so they needed to listen to me. At the same time, they are human with their own needs. And yet they somehow became human punching bags.
R: So you were very unhappy as a young person during that whole period?
F: I mean, I was a very unhappy person for almost my whole life. And I think I still am. The way I see it... the world is pretty shit. But that's also why I find value in doing good. Because I want to make sure that other people don't feel as shit as I ever did. And I guess at the same time, I'm in this unique position where I've had many struggles and am incredibly privileged, wealthy, and educated. I've got these resources behind me. So I guess it's merging these things into something that makes sense to me, and using it to do good and to make sure other people don't feel shit.
R: So when you say the world is very fucked up, can you elaborate? Like what is very fucked up? What's wrong with the world?
F: I think it's the inequalities. I'm literally saying this as a wealthy person. Things are very unequal. And that's a part of our system. Years of colonization and globalization have led to these things. I think that's why I'm also a very vocal anti-colonialist. I think I said in some of my videos, the idea of having one global language is inherently colonialist. At the same time, I also think we live in a world where governments focus a lot on controlling narratives. At the end of the day, maybe you could call me a libertarian - although not really the American kind of libertarian in that I want to get people shot by a gun - but I'm someone who really hopes that people's freedoms and people's abilities to choose are respected. At the same time, people need to learn to respect each other. For example, in Singapore, people say, oh why should we care about the bangla workers (a Singaporean short form that refers to South Asian migrant workers)? I hate the way they use that word. It's almost a slur. And people don't acknowledge that we have Chinese privilege. A lot of my Malay and Indian friends were called slurs when they were younger. Things like, oh haha when we off the lights we cannot not see you. Do we acknowledge these things? No.
R: Right. What do you think of your own friends, your own generation of people? Do you feel like there's some shift in their consciousness?
F: There is a shift, but there's also a division based on people's experiences. I guess there are some people who have never had to experience anything else in their lives. But I really hope people can change. And I've seen them change. Some of my friends who have grown up with homophobic views have changed. Being homophobic is not an inherent quality in them. Talking to them and talking through my own personal experiences, they're like, oh, you're just another human being who's just been dealt a bad hand. So I think it's about connecting and being open to listening to people who might be against you. And being soft. People are a lot more receptive when you're soft.
R: How would you describe your mental health right now, with so much going on?
F: I am on a journey... that probably never ends. Did I love myself in the past? Hell no. Do I hate myself anymore? No. Do I love myself? Ooh, deep question. I think so. I'm on a mental health journey. I think everyone is on a mental health journey. And I think the one thing that binds us all in the human experience is suffering. Even the most privileged person. The most lucky person ever. Robin Williams, such a big mental health advocate, always talked about his journey with it. The media would say, he's gotten better. He's doing so well now. Then he ended up killing himself anyway. But in terms of mental health in Singapore, there is this idea that, if you are struggling with your mental health, you're weak. From a policy perspective, the army treats mental health and physical health as two separate entities. They have two different tracks of medical care. If you get a PES status because of a psychiatric condition, you are given a tag that separates you from everyone else. They've argued that it's because they need to watch out for you, and sure they can watch out for you, but that tag stays with you for the rest of your life. If you ever want to work in government service, they will be able to see it. So that needs to change.
R: Do you think that moving overseas has helped you?
F: I think it's helped me to frame myself, and to find out who I am as a person.
R: When you are overseas, it's easier to just be yourself. You don't have to mask.
F: Yeah. So I've had boyfriends in the UK. I've had girlfriends. I've been living my most authentic life.
R: What makes you happy?
F: Being able to see that something I did makes other people feel good. Not in the people-pleasing way. There's a difference. People are like, are you a people-pleaser? I'm like, hmmm. No. Because I'm not here to make people be happy with me. I just need people to be happy. I think that's why I'm so passionate about social causes. Because as long as other people feel better, they don't even have to love me. They don't even have to see that it's something I did. My research is about this indigenous language, right? When these kids finally get to connect with their culture, they're never going to be like, wow, thank you to Jonas Fine Tan for helping us with that... They're just going to be like, wow, I'm glad this resource is available. And I'm happy about that. I love that. Or the medical research I did. If someone in the future benefits from the medical treatment that this paper eventually helps to produce, very good. I'm happy. So that's what makes me happy. I think it's about being able to have the power and the agency as a human being to make a tangible impact.
R: What troubles you these days?
F: One thing I'm struggling with is learning to cope with my changing life. Maybe this comes back to the fame thing, and to other things. I hate Oxford. I nearly dropped out actually. Their academic system is just not my flavour. I realised I should have gone to Cornell or Yale. I wanted a more liberal artsy programme. I wanted to be able to explore my interests more. Oxford is very, you do this, you do that. They don't give you the option to choose your modules. At the same time, their entire degree is determined by one exam at the end of the entire degree. So if you fuck up, you're done. If you get third class honours, they'll be like, okay, go. Take it. They are not going to change because this is how they've done it for the past 600 years. But given that my social media career is really burgeoning in the UK, I'm just going to go back. And it's not like I'm doing badly.
R: So Fine, a serious question now. What are you staying alive for?
F: I want to experience more. I want to experience the positives, the negatives, the highs and lows of college football. You know the reference? It's from a really stupid episode of Riverdale. I guess I just want to experience everything at the end of the day. Do I want bad things to happen to me? No. But, if they come... I guess I've accepted the fact that people will do bad things to me, they will make life difficult for me, I will make life difficult for other people. Whether deliberately or inadvertently... Hopefully not deliberately. At the end of the day, it's the human experience. Suffering is the only thing that binds us together, as I said earlier. And I guess I just want to experience the good, the bad, the ugly, the sexy. Haha.
R: And you are THE sexy. Hahaha. So you like Buddhism?
F: I like the philosophy of Buddhism. To my mother's dismay and to my father's happiness. Hahaha. At the end of the day, I do the good that I can. Is that enough for other people? I don't know. But is that enough for me? Yeah. What I live for is my ability to experience more and to do more. And I really police my own morality now by living by my own morals. I mean, are my morals correct? Who knows? And my own morals are, do your best to hurt other people the least. Do your best to do good for society as a whole. Will I fuck up along the way and maybe end up making things worse for some people? Probably. I'm not some omnipotent being who can foresee the consequences of my actions 50 years down the line. But if I'm doing something in my own power at a time where I'm able to... And if I'm able to see that there's an impact and learn and keep growing, I'm perfectly happy.
R: Will you say that you're in a good place now? Mentally?
F: Much, much, much better. I don't want to actively kill myself anymore. I guess I'm in a much better mental health space because I get to be... I get to be a person. And being a person right now, I guess that's enough for me.
“People are like, are you a people-pleaser? I'm like, hmmm. No. Because I'm not here to make people be happy with me. I just need people to be happy. I think that's why I'm so passionate about social causes. Because as long as other people feel better, they don't even have to love me. They don't even have to see that it's something I did.”
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