The following pictures show a 1980s Speak Mandarin Campaign booklet. The campaign was first initiated in 1979 to encourage Singaporeans to speak Mandarin in place of the various dialects such as Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese etc. Interestingly enough, this booklet was printed by the Ministry Of Culture; a department that came into being in 1959, during the island's first self-government under the British colonial rule, before its dissolution in 1985.

“(It was) the start of losing our favourite HK TV dramas in Cantonese like “Man in the Net”. Christine's (my wife’s) brother would disappear halfway during a family dinner at a restaurant just to catch this TV series.”

- Joseph Fernando