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Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls on the Heap

Pepi, Luci, Bom (Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón; also known as Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom and Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls on the Heap) is a 1980 Spanish black comedy film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Starring Carmen Maura, Eva Siva, Alaska and Félix Rotaeta, the plot follows the wild adventures of three friends: Pepi, an independent modern woman; Luci, a mousy, masochistic housewife; and Bom, a lesbian punk rock singer.

Pepi, Luci, Bom is Almodóvar's first feature film. It was shot in 16 mm and blown up to 35 mm for its theatrical release. It became a cult film, emblematic of La Movida Madrileña, a period characterised by a sense of cultural and sexual freedom.

Plot
Pepi, a young independent woman living in Madrid, is filling up her Superman sticker album when she receives an unexpected visit from a neighbour policeman who has spotted her marijuana plants whilst spying on her via binoculars from across the street. Pepi tries to buy his silence with an offer of anal sex, but instead the policeman rapes her. Thirsty for revenge, Pepi arranges for her friend Bom, a teenage punk singer, and her band, Bomitoni (Bom and Toni and also a pun of vomitoni, or "big puke"), to beat up the policeman. Wearing Madrilenian costumes and singing a zarzuela, Pepi's friends give the man a merciless beating one night. However, the next day Pepi realises that they had attacked the policeman's innocent twin brother by mistake.

Undaunted, Pepi decides on a more complex form of revenge. She befriends the policeman's docile wife, Luci, from Murcia, with the excuse of receiving knitting lessons. Pepi's idea is to corrupt Luci and take her away from the wife-beating policeman. During the first knitting class, Pepi's friend, Bom, arrives at the apartment heading for the restroom in order to pee. This leads to the suggestion that, since Luci feels hot, Bom should stand on a chair and urinate over Luci's face. Bom's aggressive behaviour satisfies Luci's masochism and the two women become lovers. Back home, Luci has an argument with her husband in which she complains about what he had done to Pepi. When he threatens to whip and kick her out, with a renewed sense of liberation Luci leaves her husband and her home, moving in with Bom.

The three friends, Pepi, Luci and Bom are immersed in Madrid's youth scene, attending parties, clubs, concerts and meeting outrageous characters. In one of the concerts, Bom sings with her band, the Bomitonis, a song called Murciana marrana ("The slut from Murcia"). Luci becomes a proud groupie. The highlight of one of the parties is a penis size contest called Erecciones Generales (General Erections), a competition looking for the biggest, most svelte, most inordinate penis. The winner receives the opportunity to do what he wants, how he wants, with whomever he wants. He selects Luci to give him oral sex, which makes her the most envied woman at the party.

Eventually Pepi is forced to find work as her father decides to stop her income. She becomes a creative writer for advertising spots designing ads for sweating, menstruating dolls and multipurpose panties that absorb urine and can double as a dildo. Pepi also begins to write a script which will be the story of lesbian lovers Luci and Bom. The chauvinist policeman is desperately looking for his wife. Meanwhile, he takes advantage of naive neighbour Charito, who is in love with Juan, his twin brother. Pretending to be Juan, the policeman slaps, then sexually assaults Charito.

Finally, the policeman finds Luci coming out of a disco and kidnaps her from her two friends. He gives Luci a terrible beating that sends her to the hospital, where Pepi and Bom visit her. They quickly realise that they have lost Luci. She has decided to return to the person who mistreats her best – her sadistic and tyrannical husband. His brutality is what Luci has always wanted or became accustomed to. Bruised and bandaged in her hospital bed, Luci tells Bom she is returning to him for a life of abuse. Bom is lost without Luci and laments that pop is also out of fashion. Pepi has the solution to both problems. Bom should move in with Pepi as her bodyguard and start singing boleros.

Casting
Carmen Maura took the leading role of Pepi and Félix Rotaeta portrayed the abusive policeman. Both were instrumental in the film's development. Maura was already an established actress, having found film success with Fernando Colomo's Tigres de papel (1977). She became Almodóvar's reference actress in the first half of his career. Bom is played by Alaska, then a teenage punk singer, who inspired the character she plays. Gara went on to take the artistic name of Alaska. She has enjoyed a successful artistic career as a singer, first in Alaska y Dinarama and later with Fangoria.

Many actors that appear in minor roles went on to play more important ones in Almodóvar's subsequent films: Kiti Manver (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) plays a hot-tempered, Andalusian rock singer; Julieta Serrano (Dark Habits); Cecilia Roth (All About My Mother); Fabio MacNamara (Labyrinth of Passion), a singer and painter, plays a transvestite Avon lady; Cristina Sánchez Pascual (Dark Habits) appears as a high-pitch bearded woman frustrated in a marriage to a homosexual, in a parody of Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Assumpta Serna (Matador) has a non-speaking cameo, while Almodóvar himself appears as the host in the general erection contest.

Filming
Pepi, Luci, Bom is Almodóvar's first feature film. He had previously made only short films in Super 8, Salome a short in 16 mm and a feature-length film in super 8 Folle, folle, fólleme, Tim (1978) (Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Tim), none of which had a soundtrack.

The genesis of Pepi, Luci, Bom was a story written by Almodóvar called General Erections published in 1978 in the magazine El Víbora. General Erections was a comic parody of the 1977 general elections in Spain. The idea to take that story and develop it into a film was born out of his collaboration with the theatrical group Los Goliardos. Performing with them in a small role in Dirty Hands by Jean-Paul Sartre, Almodóvar met Maura and Rotaeta, who encouraged him to make a film out of General Erections. Almodóvar rewrote the story and changed the title to Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls on the Heap).

The initial budget was only 500,000 pesetas that Maura and Rotaeta helped to collect. At the time, Almodóvar was working for Telefónica, Spain's national telephone company, as an administrative employee, therefore the shooting took place on weekends with a group of volunteers. Without the backing of a studio, Almodóvar was forced to make extensive use of location shooting. The real-life residence of gay pop artist painters Costus (Juan Carrero and Enrique Naya), who also appear in the film, served as the place where Luci and Bom set up their home.

The shooting was chaotic; it began in 1978 and lasted a year and a half. Due to the lack of financial means, it took an entire year to produce a film of only 50 minutes. This was insufficient for commercial distribution length. More money was needed and backing from Pepón Coromina, a Catalan producer, allowed Almodóvar to add 30 more minutes of film, shot over the following six months of 1980. The film was blown from 16 mm to a 35 mm format to allow its theatrical release. The crew lacked experience and the cameraman cut off some heads, particularly during the general erections contest scene. The long and chaotic shooting created problems in continuity. When filming started, Alaska was 15 and by the time the filming wrapped she was 17. The first scene when Pepi goes to answer the door to the policeman was shot in June 1979, she opened it in December 1979 and they sat together in June 1980.

Reception
The film premiered on 19 September 1980 at the San Sebastián International Film Festival in the section devoted to new directors. It later toured the independent circuits and then spent four years on the late-night showing of the Alphaville Theater in Madrid.

Reviews in Spain were mostly negative, objecting to the film's frivolity and vulgar humour. Pedro Crespo, in the conservative newspaper ABC, described the film a "merely a variation on the age old tradition of vulgar comedy transformed into a contemporary language". Diego Galán, in El País, praised the film concluding, "We are in the presence of an astonishing and up to now, unique work. Almodóvar has made his first professional full-length film and in so doing has undermined the most respected taboos of our foolish society". The Spanish newspaper El Periódico, described Almodóvar as "a stubbornly passionate defender of substandard movies".

Pepi, Luci, Bom was released in the United States in 1992, only after Almodóvar became a famous art house film director. The reaction of American critics to the film was, on the whole, hostile. It was generally rebuked for its thematic and formal inconsistency. Janet Maslin of The New York Times considered the film a "rough unfunny comedy notable for its bathroom jokes, humorous rape scene and abysmal home movie cinematography". She found that Almodóvar's "daring is limited to shock value of a very adolescent variety, and to plot turns that are better described than seen". Rita Kempley of The Washington Post called it an "amateurish directorial debut, a smutty sexual sideshow most safely viewed in a full body condom".

The film cost 6 million pesetas (approximately €36,000) and grossed 43 million pesetas (€260,000) in its initial release in Madrid. With its many kitsch elements, campy style, outrageous humour, and open sexuality, the film became emblematic of a cultural movement of its time, La Movida Madrileña. It amassed a cult following and established Almodóvar as an agent provocateur.

Theme
The central theme of the film – female resilience, independence, and solidarity – would be a constant throughout Almodóvar's career, albeit better depicted in his later and more accomplished films. As with the female characters in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), All About My Mother (1999) and Volver (2006), Pepi and Bom are self-sufficient, independent and their friendship is shown as more important than any sexual or love attachment. By contrast, men are either non-existent or presented unsympathetically, such as the policeman in Pepi, Luci, Bom, Raimunda's abusive husband in Volver or Pepa's unfaithful lover in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Although Bom and Luci form a lesbian couple, their story is ultimately less important than Pepi and Bom's friendship. While the friendship of these two remains strong, Bom and Luci's affair ends when the latter returns to a heterosexual life of abuse with her husband.

Two scenes put Pepi and Bom's closeness in the foreground. Contrasting Luci's troubled household, Pepi is presented cooking Bom's favourite dish: Bacalao al pil pil. The film aptly closes with the two friends looking ahead to a new life shared together as roommates, helping to support each other. The film also takes on other themes frequent in Almodóvar's filmography: sexual heterodoxy, drug addiction and a love of pop culture.

Genre
Among Almodóvar's films, Pepi, Luci, Bom, his first, is the one who takes more explicitly comedy as a genre. All the others (with the possible exception of 2013's I'm So Excited!) incorporate elements of melodrama. The characters are shown as comic archetypes. Pepi is the independent witty modern woman. There is the nasty radical policeman. Bom is shown as a perverse rebellious teenager and Luci as the abused housewife.

The amateurish presentation of the film and its crude humour also sets the film apart from the rest of Almodovar's filmography. Even in Labyrinth of Passion (1982), Almodovar's subsequent film, comic elements are not presented so bluntly. By then, there was also a huge improvement in plot structure and filmography over his first film.

Analysis
The comic book origins of the film are evident in its loose structure, provocative vulgarity and the intertitles made by Spanish illustrator Ceesepe, then an unknown member of La Movida Madrileña. The film was plagued by financial and technical problems: Almodóvar claimed humorously that "when a film has only one or two, it is considered an imperfect film, while when there is a profusion of technical flaws, it is called style. That's what I said joking around when I was promoting the film, but I believe 'that that was closer to the truth."

Stylistically, the film owes a debt to Paul Morrissey's first films and above all to John Waters' Pink Flamingos (1972). Almodóvar confronts the spectator with unexpected outrageous situations, including a lesbian golden shower scene in the middle of a knitting lesson.

The technical and plot defects of the films are apparent, particularly when compared with Almodóvar's subsequent polished and complex works. However, the film captured the spirit of its time, La Movida Madrileña, presenting Madrid as an exciting city where anything goes.

The film centres on youth culture, showing it as wild, frivolous, adventurous and free from taboos. There is political symbolism in the right wing, old macho attitudes of the policeman, who represent the disappearing Francoist society and is presented unsympathetically. Pepi and Bom stand for Spain's modern woman, the wild new face of a liberated democratic Spain. Luci is the self-sacrificing Spanish housewife, trapped between the old and new Spain. She is a masochist who yearns for the brutality of the past.

Blurring the limits of sexual identity, transsexual characters appear in many Almodóvar's films. Here there is a drag queen called Roxy, played by Fabio McNamara, Almodóvar's singing partner in a glam rock parody duo. The comic elements of the film defy good taste and are bluntly presented. Almódovar does not linger in the oddness of the sexual relationship between a traditional housewife in her forties and a rebellious punk teenager, which is presented without judgment as nothing out of the ordinary. Pepi, Luci, Bom is clearly an amateurish film; a first-time director, Almodóvar learned his craft as he made it.

Soundtrack
The film opens with the song "Do the Swim" by Little Nell, singing co-star of Jim Sharman's 1975 film The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The counterculture song "Murciana marrana", written by Fabio McNamara, is prominently featured, performed by Alaska and Los Pegamoides with a mixture of vulgarity and absurdity. The film closes with a Latin-American song "Estaba escrito" by Chilean singer Monna Bell.

DVD release
Pepi, Luci, Bom is available on Region 2 DVD in Spanish with English subtitles. It was released in the United Kingdom as part of The Almodóvar Collection (Vol. 1). The film has not been released on DVD in the United States.


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Jean Bérain

Jean Bérain may refer to:
 * Jean Bérain the Elder (1638–1711), French draughtsman and designer
 * Jean Bérain the Younger (1678–1726), French designer, son of the above

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Jean Bérain


text:
Talk:Helmut Berger

Biography assessment rating comment
The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Edofedinburgh 02:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Image:MariaSchneider-HelmutBerger-LeBaiser.jpg

Hi, nice article :-). In the case you are interested in a pic of Helmut and Maria... Greetings. MutterErde 08:30, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
 * actually, I made the article because of the redlink in the picture Lectonar 13:11, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

The photo is NOT from the actor you speak about!

title: Talk:Helmut Berger


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Clear Creek (Sacramento River tributary)

Clear Creek (Ínaam in Karuk) is a tributary of the upper Sacramento River in northern California.

Geography
The creek is 60.6 mi long, flowing in southern Siskiyou County and northern Shasta County. Clear Creek is the first major Sacramento River tributary downstream of the Shasta Dam.

Clear Creek originates in the Trinity Mountains, between Shasta Lake and Trinity Lake in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, and flows into Whiskeytown Lake reservoir, impounded by Whiskeytown Dam. Past the reservoir, the stream bed continues south until its confluence with the Sacramento River. The Spring Creek Tunnel bypasses that section and delivers water from Whiskeytown Lake directly to Keswick Reservoir, both part of the Central Valley Project.

California Historical Landmark
The site along Clear Creek where Pierson B. Reading discovered gold in 1848 was declared a California Historical Landmark No 78, on December 6, 1932, at 40.5922°N, -122.4777°W. Reading's Bar in Clear Creek is also a California Historical Landmark, No. 32.


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Speak Mandarin Campaign

The Speak Mandarin Campaign (SMC; ) is an initiative by the Government of Singapore to encourage the Chinese Singaporean population to speak Standard Mandarin Chinese, one of the four official languages of Singapore. Launched on 7 September 1979 by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and organised by the Promote Mandarin Council, the SMC has been an annual event promoting the use of Mandarin.

Background
In 1966, the Singapore Government implemented a policy of bilingual education, where Singaporean students learn both English and their designated mother tongue, which was Mandarin for all Chinese Singaporeans by default. The Goh Report, an evaluation of Singapore's education system by Goh Keng Swee, showed that less than 40% of the student population managed to attain minimum levels of competency in two languages. It was later determined that the learning of Mandarin among Chinese Singaporeans was hindered by home use of native Chinese varieties, such as Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese and Hakka. Hence, the government decided to rectify problems facing implementation of the bilingual education policy, by launching a campaign to promote Mandarin as a common language among the Chinese Singaporean population, and to discourage use of other Chinese varieties.

Launched in 1979 by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, the campaign aimed to simplify the language environment for Chinese Singaporeans, improve communication between them, and create a Mandarin-speaking environment conducive to the successful implementation of the bilingual education programme. The initial goal of the campaign was for all young Chinese to stop speaking topolects in five years, and to establish Mandarin as the language of choice in public places within 10 years.

According to the government, for the bilingual policy to be effective, Mandarin should be spoken at home and should serve as the lingua franca among Chinese Singaporeans. They argued that Mandarin was more economically valuable, and speaking Mandarin would help Chinese Singaporeans retain their heritage, as Mandarin supposedly contains a cultural repository of values and traditions that are identifiable to all Chinese, regardless of topolect group.

Evolution
The focus of SMC began with encouraging more people, especially the young, to speak Mandarin in place of dialects, allowing people from different dialectal groups to communicate better with a common language and, at the same time, reducing language barriers between the different groups. This is important in the unification of all Chinese in Singapore, especially after independence. To meet the demands of globalisation and other economic challenges as a young nation, the government began to place greater emphasis on English. As a result, many English-educated Chinese Singaporeans began to lose their Mandarin or Chinese language skills.

During the 1991 Singaporean general election, the People's Action Party (PAP) won a lower majority than usual, in part because of opposition parties' exploitation of the linguistic anxieties of working-class, dialect-speaking Chinese Singaporeans. Those Singaporeans clung onto their dialect as part of an identity, refusing to register their children in schools with Mandarin names.

As a result, the PAP government switched its focus away from dialects, towards encouraging English-speaking and educated Chinese to speak more Mandarin. In 1994, the SMC specifically targeted English-educated business professionals and working adults. It promoted the use of Mandarin, to keep their "links" to cultural roots, so as to better appreciate the "heritage and value" and, most importantly, complement the economical aspects as China began to rise in the business sector. In 2010, through The Chinese Challenge, the SMC moved towards a cultural aspect, whereby its main focus is to promote Singaporeans to hold on to their "roots", knowing their own culture well.

Campaigns
For each SMC, a slogan was created and a different segment of the Chinese community was targeted.

1983
华人讲华语，合情又合理 (Mandarin's In, Dialects Out) In 1983, the promotion of Mandarin moved to markets and food centres, closer to the heartlands. Between 1983 and 1987, Telecoms also offered 'Dial for Mandarin Lessons' services on a 24-hour basis every day. Peak-hour calls averaged about 40,000. "A need for common language between different ethnic Singaporeans or effective communication of thoughts" and to "preserve cultural roots by learning written Chinese and speaking Mandarin, since culture is transmitted through written words", were some highlights of the campaign launching speeches in 1983.

2000
讲华语？ 没问题！ Speak Mandarin? No problem! The official speech during the launch of the Speak Mandarin Campaign 2000 was given by Mr. Mah Bow Tan, Minister for National Development. In the speech, he gave credits to the SMC, for successfully establishing Mandarin as a principal language of communication amongst Singaporean Chinese, but says that a higher standard of spoken Mandarin needs to be achieved. Having a good command of Mandarin exposes people to culture and heritage, as well as facilitating dealings with Asia's potential economy powerhouse, China. The community and schools have new roles to play to increase and improve the use and standards of Mandarin in Singapore.
 * The Campaign was officially launched at the premiere of a Chinese movie "A Tale of the Sacred Mountain".
 * The Mandarin Film Festival was the first film festival organised by the Promote Mandarin Council. It was held from 17 to 22 September at the Golden Village Grand, Great World City. The Festival screened 12 critically acclaimed films produced by some of China's best producers and directors.
 * Singapore's first Mandarin a cappella CD album entitled "A Cappella Fanatix, Mandarin A Cappella" was jointly produced by Young Musicians' Society and the Promote Mandarin Council.
 * The forum entitled "Mandarin for the Family" was held on 18 November. The speakers comprised educationists who discussed teaching methods for the learning of Chinese, as well as well-known personalities who shared their experiences in learning Mandarin and using it both at home and in the office.
 * The Chinese Heritage Series, which comprises arts and cultural performances ranging from 新谣 xinyao, hand puppet to Chinese Orchestra was held at various shopping malls.
 * SMC celebrities' web chats – a series of web chats with well-known artistes and personalities was held.
 * A Speak Mandarin Campaign commemorative book entitled "Mandarin: The Chinese Connection" (华人，华语，华文) was produced.
 * The first CD-ROM on learning Mandarin was produced. Entitled "Speak Mandarin? No problem!" (讲华语？ 没问题！), it is an interactive learning CD-ROM which caters to adults who know basic Mandarin and have a desire to improve it.

2006/07
华语 COOL! (Mandarin [is] COOL!) The official speech during the launch of the campaign was given by Wong Kan Seng, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs at the official launch. The message for that year was for Chinese Singaporeans to use Mandarin "not in place of, but in addition to English as Mandarin adds so much to our cultural and personal enrichment and business effectiveness. Together with its partners, the Promote Mandarin Council is now encouraging Chinese Singaporeans to go beyond just seeing Mandarin as "hip" or "cool", but also to deepen their knowledge of the rich heritage." 2006's theme of the campaign is "华语 COOL", with the goals of making people deepen their appreciation of the Chinese heritage and to be able to communicate in "cool" Mandarin in addition to English. The Campaign uses a lifestyle-oriented approach, revolving around movies, music and metaphors, extending the theme of "华语 COOL". Some examples of resources of the movies, music and metaphors include:
 * Mandarin Rocks @ K Box
 * MusicNet Song Book with Hanyu PinYin
 * 成语 365 (一天一句) "Idioms 365 (An Idiom a Day)" by PanPac Education
 * CoolSpeak! Column in Sunday Times
 * Huayu Cool on 938LIVE
 * Straits Times' new "成语 Cool" (Idioms [are] Cool)

The theme song for the campaign for that year is 我想听你说 (wǒ xiǎng tīng nǐ shuō) by Singaporean singer, Joi Chua.

Some of the other partners include ComfortDelGro, Lianhe Zaobao, Mediacorp TV, STOMP, Tong Shui Café and the SAF Music & Drama Company.

2007/08
To promote Mandarin as an enjoyable, fun and living language via popular lifestyle activities, to show how Chinese Singaporeans can embrace Mandarin in their daily lives, was the aim of SMC in 2007/ 08. The tagline is '讲华语, 你肯吗?' (Speak Mandarin – Are You Game?). SMC also retains its "华语 COOL!" branding which is now familiar and popular among Chinese Singaporeans.

For a period of 12 months, starting from 5 November 2007, the campaign featured a series of fun and engaging programmes and activities by its partners. Key strands of SMC 07/08 are Sports, Culture and The Arts, Design and Lifestyle.

Sports
During the official launch of the campaign on 5 November 2007, Mr. Lee Swee Say, Minister in Prime Minister's office, announced the partnership between the SMC and various sports organizations. The sports partners for 2007's campaign include the Singapore Sports Council (SSC), the Football Association of Singapore, the S-League, and The Cage. The Straits Times and STOMP! also launched a new initiative, 'On Your Marc, Get Set, Go!' following The Straits Times' correspondent Marc Lim on his Mandarin-learning journey as he picks up pointers from national athletes.

Culture
Going for a fresher look, the SMC's promotional materials, from outdoor advertisements to posters and collateral, are designed with an edgy, vibrant and contemporary feel. Activists are also featured in the posters, to encourage more Chinese Singaporeans to explore Mandarin together with them. The campaign's theme song "挑战 (Challenge)" was created by two of the most sought-after talents in Asia's Mandarin Pop scene – Eric Ng (composer) and Xiaohan (lyrics). The song was performed by Ngak, a good example of a predominantly English-speaking Chinese Singaporean. Partners, including Theatre Practice and Funkie Monkies Productions will be tapping on theatre and music, to encourage Chinese Singaporeans to enjoy speaking Mandarin.

The arts, design and lifestyle
Partners such as Night and Day – Bar+Gallery+Friends and 77th Street came together for the first time with some of Singapore's 'edgy' designers, to create an exciting initiative to promote SMC 07/08. Theatre Practice also continued to make Chinese Theatre accessible to Singaporeans who are interested in Chinese Theatre and culture, thus, opening the doors to SMC's target audience.

2009/10
华文？ 谁怕谁 (Be heard in Chinese) The 2009 SMC started with a series of videos on foreign children speaking correctly pronounced and fluent Chinese, showed that anyone can learn Chinese, that it is not something only the Chinese people can acquire. The video shows foreign children talking about either Chinese myths or other Chinese related culture. The Promote Mandarin Council is trying to alert Singaporeans to embrace Singaporean heritage and pass it on to the next generation.

The purpose of these "Be heard in Chinese" videos was not to mock Singaporeans, who are born Chinese but cannot speak Chinese. Instead, it reminded parents to create a learning environment for their children, to get to know Chinese via culture and knowledge, instead of seeing it as a tool to venture into the China market.

In the following year, the SMC started a series of promotions on "The Chinese Challenge", where it moved to a wider audience and became more general. The main purpose of "The Chinese Challenge", which is an online contest, is to provide an interactive platform, to encourage Singaporeans and even Permanent Residents to enjoy and improve their Mandarin and deepen their knowledge of Chinese culture, through experiencing the finest in Chinese culture and language. Therefore, it is not to just asking people to learn Chinese, but also to create an environment that allows them to learn Chinese effectively.

In addition, in order to attract more youths towards speaking and knowing Chinese, in 2010 "The Chinese Challenge" added a student category, to reach out to more youths.

2011/12
华文华语，多用就可以 (Mandarin. It Gets Better With Use) For 2011's campaign, the Government plan was to boost Mandarin lessons, by making them more fun and engaging through the use of digital media. New initiatives, such as the Theme Song Contest and Short Video Clip Competition, were introduced and targeted at youths and students. Newly appointed Chairman of the Promote Mandarin Council, Mr Seow Choke Meng, extended his invitation for all to support the Promote Mandarin Council in its efforts to promote Mandarin, and urged all Chinese Singaporeans to leverage on their foundation, and use Mandarin frequently to keep the language alive in our community.

In 2012, to celebrate the 33rd year of promoting Mandarin in Singapore, the Promote Mandarin Council introduced a brand new initiative- the iHuayu iPhone app (released on 24 July 2012). iHuayu offers 50,000 bilingual business and Singapore-related terms frequently used in the media, accompanied with sample sentences and scenarios. The app can be purchased for free from the iTunes Store. Android mobile phone users can also download the iHuayu (i华语) application on Google Play. Also introduced is a new song – Shuo  –  as part of the initiatives for 2012. The song encourages listeners to speak more and to use the language, as it gets easier with use. Shuo is composed, arranged and produced by Iskandar Ismail and performed by Singaporean artiste, Tay Kewei.

Implementation
The Speak Mandarin Campaign is a year-round campaign, which uses publicity and activities in the community to create awareness and to facilitate the learning of Mandarin. Every year, the Speak Mandarin Campaign will collaborate with different partners to reach out to a wider scope of audience. For instance, in 2005, the partners of Speak Mandarin Campaign, which are the Singapore Zoological Gardens and Singapore Night Safari, started to add Chinese interpretation for signs and directions and even the pamphlet were written in Chinese. By doing so, not only does it help tourists from China, it also helps create a learning environment for local children to learn Chinese.

Initially in 1979, where the campaign first started, use of Mandarin was promoted from all public domains; in the early years, there was some selective dialect suppression as well. Government officers including those in hospitals were not allowed to use dialects except to those over 60 years old. People under 40 in the service line were also made to communicate in Mandarin instead of dialects.

Attempts to limit the domain of dialects began in the 1980s, with the last Cantonese TV programmes being phased out in 1981, and the only Hong Kong TV series shown being dubbed in Mandarin. However, these were hindered by the aggressive expansion of Hong Kong's Cantopop industry into Singapore, although state-owned television tried to simultaneously promote Mandarin by requiring subtitles in the standard language on dialect programming. The government proved more successful in limiting access TV3 from Malaysia, which carried Cantonese programming, by preventing people in government-built housing blocks from installing the special antennas required to receive the channel. It also prevented local newspapers and magazines from carrying listings for it.

In addition, in collaboration with Speak Mandarin Campaign, Golden Village started to show more Chinese movies especially of local production to increase the awareness of speaking Mandarin. The Singaporean state did not prioritize the suppression of the dialects. However, suppression of dialects was never a major part of the campaign, since the government was tolerant of old peoples' use of dialect, and assumed that young people would have no use for dialects. In fact, the government promoted Cantonese opera as a traditional ethnic performance and sponsored night classes in Cantonese music in government-run community centers.

One of the most influential implementations that the Speak Mandarin Campaign has used is The Straits Times. For instance, as part of the campaign to promote greater use for Chinese, the English newspaper would publish daily Mandarin vocabulary lessons in order to help Singaporeans improve their standard for Mandarin.

Other ways of encouraging people to learn Chinese is to sign up for speak Mandarin courses, listen to Chinese music, explore online resources and download audio lessons, which can be found in the official website of Speak Mandarin Campaign. Besides, in 2005, there were publications of CD-ROMs and tapes on Mandarin lessons, handbooks of English-Chinese terms as well as telephone Mandarin lessons to help people to learn Mandarin. Notably, in 2006, my Paper which was published by the Singapore Press Holdings became the first free Chinese newspaper to be given out in Singapore. In 2008, my Paper went from being a Chinese newspaper into a bilingual newspaper and the circulation rate hit 300,000.

Education is one of the most effective ways to promote use of Mandarin. In 2004, Singapore government specially set up a committee to review methods for teaching Chinese courses, whereby creative Chinese writing courses were set up in schools in 2005, as a way to intrigue and engage students in learning Chinese. Also, other education organizations such as Nanyang Technological University has set up a Chinese faculty and even collaborates with Confucius Institute to help train teachers with regards to Chinese language, to improve the standard of Chinese education in Singapore and in order to influence people with regards to the use of Chinese.

Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, a native English speaker who had learned Mandarin later in life, expressed his concern about the declining proficiency of Mandarin among younger Singaporeans. In a parliamentary speech, he said: "'Singaporeans must learn to juggle English and Mandarin'. Therefore, he launched a television program, 华语!, in January 2005, in an attempt to attract young viewers to learn Mandarin."

Following this, in June 2005, Lee published a book, Keeping My Mandarin Alive, documenting his decades of effort to master Mandarin—a language which he had to re-learn due to disuse:

"'...because I don't use it so much, therefore it gets disused and there's language loss. Then I have to revive it. It's a terrible problem because learning it in adult life, it hasn't got the same roots in your memory.'"

In the same year 2005, the campaign started to rebrand Chinese by using local artists and cool leisure activities, hence the birth of the slogan "Mandarin [is] Cool!".

Outcome
The success of the campaign was evident 20 years from the launch of the campaign. The campaign has significantly reduced the number of non-Mandarin speakers in Singapore. The use of other varieties at home dropped from 81.4% in 1980 to 19.2% in 2010. Meanwhile, households that claimed to use Mandarin as the dominant language at home increased from 10.2% in 1980 to 47% in 2010.

Criticism
The Speak Mandarin Campaign has come under criticism from several fronts. Dialect speakers have complained that their children have to study two foreign languages – English and Mandarin. This is contrasted to a possible alternative policy of English and their native language. Lee Kuan Yew himself recognized this and acknowledged that for many Chinese Singaporeans, Mandarin is a "stepmother tongue" and "dialect is the real mother tongue". Furthermore, in 2009, in spite of the ongoing 华文？ 谁怕谁(Be heard in Chinese) movement, Lee admitted that the teaching of Mandarin Chinese in schools went the "wrong way" and that due to his insistence on bilingualism, "successive generations of students paid a heavy price". In June 2010, Lee also said that "Mandarin is important but it remains a second language in Singapore".

Some critics include that the Mandarin education system's goal of promoting cultural identity has left many younger generations of Mandarin speakers unable to communicate with their dialect-speaking grandparents. They have compared the policy to that of Russification and intentional language elimination. The reduction in the number of Chinese dialect speakers in Singapore has raised concerns on the issues of preservation of these dialects. In March 2009, when The Straits Times ran an article by Dr. Ng Bee Chin, who was quoted as saying that "40 years ago, we were even more multilingual.... All it takes is one generation for a language to die."

The article soon caught the attention of Mr Chee Hong Tat, the Principal Private Secretary of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew. In the letter from Mr Chee to the editor in The Straits Times Forum, he highlighted the importance of English and Mandarin over dialects and spoke of how speaking dialects ultimately "interferes with the learning of Mandarin and English". He added that "it would be stupid for any Singapore agency or NTU to advocate the learning of dialects, which must be at the expense of English and Mandarin."

Non-Chinese language communities, principally the Malays and Tamils, have argued that the effort placed into promoting Mandarin weakens the role of English as Singapore's lingua franca and threatens to marginalize Singapore's minorities. Dialects such as Hokkien, along with Malay have served as a language for the Straits Chinese, or Peranakan. In the Singaporean and Malaysian version of Hokkien, one cannot deny the plethora of Malay loan words, and vice versa. During the 1960s, Bazaar Lingua was a confluence of Malay, Hokkien, Tamil, English and other dialects. Some have expressed concern that requirements of Mandarin fluency or literacy could be used to discriminate against non-Chinese minorities. Current employment laws prohibit racial discrimination, but employers often circumvent this by requiring applicants to be bilingual in English and Mandarin.

The move by the Ministry of Education to standardise Hanyu Pinyin names for schoolchildren also received widespread backlash among polarised parents.

Other Language Campaigns in Singapore
The Speak Mandarin Campaign is one of the four official language campaigns in Singapore, the other three being the Speak Good English Movement, Bulan Bahasa (Malay Language Month) and the Tamil Language Festival. Each of the language campaigns are overseen by the respective language councils, with secretariat support from the National Heritage Board of Singapore.

title: Speak Mandarin Campaign


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DB Fernverkehr

DB Fernverkehr AG (German for "DB Long-Distance Traffic") is a semi-independent division of Deutsche Bahn that operates long-distance passenger trains in Germany. It was founded in 1999 in the second stage of the privatisation of Deutsche Bahn, under the name of DB Reise&Touristik and was renamed in 2003.

Products
DB Fernverkehr provides national and throughout-Europe long-distance transport services.

Train types operated by DB Fernverkehr are:

 * Intercity Express (ICE)
 * Intercity (IC)
 * EuroCity (EC) → mostly in cooperation with SBB, ÖBB and ČD
 * EuroCity-Express (ECE) → on the Frankfurt–Milano and Munich-Zurich routes in cooperation with SBB and Trenitalia

The company operates around 1,300 trains per day (as of 2010).

Under the brand name IC Bus DB Fernverkehr also operated some long-distance bus lines until 2020 in Europe, starting from the cities of Berlin, Mannheim, Munich, Leipzig, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Hamburg.

Alleo
Alleo GmbH, founded in 2012, is a joint subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn and the French state railway SNCF. The company is responsible for the marketing of the international ICE and TGV trains, which operate on the routes Frankfurt - Paris and Frankfurt - Marseille. In addition, the German-French train and service teams are coordinated by Alleo and trained for use on board international connections.

"Alleo" is led by Frank Hoffmann (DB) and Emmanuel Mroz (SNCF).

DB AutoZug
In 1999, the subsidiary DB AutoZug GmbH, based in Dortmund, was founded for the operation of car and night trains. With October 1, 2013 DB AutoZug GmbH was merged with DB Fernverkehr AG.

Ameropa
The tour operator Ameropa Reisen, founded in 1951, has been a wholly owned subsidiary since DB Fernverkehr AG was founded. Above all, it distributes short trips and city trips within Germany, as well as to neighboring countries.

IC Bus
Between 2013 and 2020, DB Fernverkehr AG operated long-distance coach lines under the brand name IC Bus. As of 2017, there were a total of 45 of these long-distance connections through 11 European countries.

According to ex-CEO Ulrich Homburg, the IC bus offer was not primarily about price competition with other competitors, such as FlixBus, but a supplement to the railway's existing intercity network. Thus, according to Homburg, prices should not be primarily geared to those of competitors.

DB Bordgastronomie
In most trains of DB Fernverkehr exists a gastronomic offer in form of a "BordRestaurant" or "BordBistro". These system gatronomies are coordinated by the organizational unit DB Bordgastronomie. DB Fernverkehr also trains its own specialists in system catering, who can later prepare and serve meals on board the trains as a steward (-ess).

Organization & Economic Situation
DB Fernverkehr AG is a wholly owned subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, but, in contrast to its sister company DB Regio, operates in a self-sufficient manner. The executive board of DB Fernverkehr is made up of Michael Peterson (CEO & marketing), Philipp Nagl (production board member), Heinz Siegmund (CHRO) and Joachim Müller (CFO).

Key figures
According to the annual report 2017, the company achieved a profit (net income) of 366 million euros. Compared to the previous year 2016 (136 million euros), the profit increased by 230 million euros (139%). 94 percent of the revenue generated DB Fernverkehr with revenue from passenger transport.

The traffic volume (in passenger-kilometers) increased continuously since 2014 (36.1 billion pkm) and in 2017 was around 40.5 billion pkm.

Competitor
In long-distance rail passenger transport in Germany, there are some private providers. These include BTE (partly marketed as Flixtrain), the Georg Transport Organization, Leo Express Germany (marketed as Flixtrain), RDC Germany, the Thalys and Train4you (as "UrlaubsExpress - UEX").

By the end of September 2012, the Vogtlandbahn with the Vogtland Express (Plauen (Vogtland) -Zwickau-Chemnitz-Riesa-Berlin) had a long-distance transport offer. The connection was converted meanwhile on bus traffic. Until December 2014, there was also the Interconnex, which, however, now also no longer wrong.

From the end of 2016, there was also the "Locomore" on the route between Stuttgart and Berlin funded by crowdfunding, which, however, had to file for bankruptcy in the spring of 2017. In November 2017, however, the operation was resumed with the help of the two companies Leo Express (operation) and Flixmobility (marketing). Since then, the train has been operating under the brand name "Flixtrain" again from Stuttgart to Berlin and back.

Also marketed by Flixmobility, but operated in cooperation with Bahntouristikexpress (BTE), is the former Hamburg-Cologne Express (HKX). According to Flixtrain managing director André Schwämmlein, the company wants to expand its offer in cooperation with its partners and establish itself as an alternative to the ICE of Deutsche Bahn.

History
The company emerged as DB Reise & Touristik AG on January 1, 1999 in the context of the second stage of the railway reform from the division of long-distance transport of Deutsche Bahn. It traded under this name until 2003.

Instead of the expected five, only 2.2 million passengers used the long-distance trains in traffic to the Expo 2000. Instead of the expected DM 400 million, only DM 125 million was generated. 2001, it was decided to externally adapt all long-distance passenger coaches to the color of the ICE trains (light gray with red stripes). The repainting had cost according to an insider report around 300 million DM.

In mid-January 2001, the company announced plans to create a standard of comfort and quality at the ICE level with investments amounting to DM 2 billion. Among other things, 28 additional ICE Ts (around 800 million DM) and 13 more ICE 3s (around 500 million DM) were procured and the modernization of 117 locomotive-bound IC kits (500 million DM) was promised.

From 2009 to 2012, the company reduced its seating capacity by 4 percent. In mid-2012, the average load factor of the trains was 48.1 percent, three percentage points higher than in the previous year. In the first half of 2012, the number of passengers increased year-on-year by more than 5 percent to 63.3 million.

In 2012, the company carried 131.3 million travelers, generating 37,357 billion passenger-kilometers of traffic at 145.1 million train-kilometers. The utilization of the trains was 50.3 percent. In mid-2013, the company claimed 75 percent of its energy needs from renewable energy sources.

During the 2013 flood, many routes, including the high-speed line between Hanover and Berlin, were not or only partially accessible for weeks. The company suffered heavy losses and also lost significantly in its punctuality statistics.

With a half-million travelers in one day, the company recorded a new passenger record on December 23, 2016.

Between January and April 2017, a new record was set with around 45 million travelers. The year 2018 was expected with 143 million passengers and a record profit of 400 million euros expected. The occupancy rate is 55 percent (as of 2017).

In the spring of 2018 failed an operating attempt begun in 2017, in which train drivers were instructed to drive as fast as possible. The driving style, which led in part to arrivals ahead of schedule, had no positive impact on punctuality.

Miscellaneous
DB Fernverkehr also includes the DB Lounges in the larger railway stations.

title: DB Fernverkehr