中文 & i

in recent times, i occasionally faced the challenge of using the chinese language at work. but i could brush it off quite easily as the business dealings in my previous company with mainland chinese were quite limited, at least in my domain of work. nonetheless, i think i should improve myself in this aspect. i cannot assume i will not need to use it in future. for a start, i now try to increase using chinese when i interact with my friends via whatsapp. and lately, there were quite a few occasions where i felt using chinese characters could better bring across my messages. and interestingly, i also find myself pausing very regularly when composing my messages as i was unsure of quite a few (actually, quite a lot of) characters. i mean, i could speak off-the-cuff quite easily, especially when i am relax and at home with the person i interact with, but it is a whole new thing altogether when it comes to composing a sentence in chinese! haha. so, in this entry titled "中文 & i", i shall share about my experiences with the chinese language. incidentally, the character "中" or "center/ central" used in the context of "central asia" reminds me of middle earth of lotr! lol! ok, ok, i have digressed...

in my life, i had this love-hate relationship with the chinese language and culture. i learned to dislike it when i was a kid in part due to my bad experiences with the language, as well as my dislike for my dad (due to the horror stories my mum shared with me about my paternal grandmother... but that would be another story). and by the time i learned to appreciate the chinese culture and wanted to learn more, i found myself being handicapped by my poor foundation in the language. afterall, an important avenue to appreciate the richness of a 5000-year culture is through understanding the language itself. so here's my story.

when i was in primary school, specifically lower primary, i was rather neutral to the chinese language. i was not strong in it, and neither was i weak in it. it was just another subject to me, a subject that needed a lot more efforts for me cos afterall, we do not speak the mandarin language at home. in fact, i was more at home with malay, given that my mum is peranakan and she would use the malay language when she spoke with my uncles and aunties. well, i was a playful kid and when i was in primary 4, the "in" game to play was with the seed of a local kampong shrub (which i did not know the name). the seed has a pointed-end and was shaped like a small bullet and it was not easy to find. and after class while waiting for our transport to send us home, my classmates and i would use a rubber band to shoot the seed at each other. being shot was one helluva painful but it was fun. one fine day, i chanced upon a seed before class and decided to keep it to play after school. it so happened that we had chinese lessons that day. the teacher was this lady called madam toh (we called her madam toad). she had all the characteristics of a teacher that we as students dislike. she was bossy. she was middle aged. she would scold us whenever she felt we were not listening to her. and top of it all, she seemed to enjoy punishing us. we were constantly fearful of her terrorizing us. added to that, her lessons were always superbly dry. she would simply open the textbook and read character after character. and she would force us to narrate after her... yawns... so, that morning, to keep myself from falling asleep, i took out the seed and started playing with it. next thing i knew, the seed flew and of all places, hit madam toad's middle finger. she gave out a loud scream and demanded for whoever who shot her to own up. there was a sudden silence in the class. she then went on to call out the names of the few students that she felt were the most suspicious. i was not one of them... whew...

of cos everyone denied. and madam toad continued issuing threats to us. i was scared. nonetheless, i decided to own up. that was the right thing to do i told myself. i gingerly stood up, and i apologized. but madam toad was not a forgiving person. next thing i knew she stormed towards me, pulled my ear, dragged me to the front of the class and demanded an explanation. i told her it was an accident and i was really sorry. she wouldn't accept my explanation and insisted i had done it becos i disliked her. and with that, she held on tightly to my ears and dragged to the principal's office. i was given a dressing down. the next day, i was told to report to the principal's office at 7.15am, 15 minutes before the school assembled for our morning assembly. after the national anthem was sung, i was marched up onto the stage and in front of the whole school, i was given a public caning. that incident scarred me. it killed my interest (or whatever little i had) in the chinese language. i hated madam toad. she had maligned me. she had caused me to be publicly embarrassed. i started to avoid her class, or even when i was in class, my mind would wonder off. and with that, i started failing all my chinese tests, and exams. from then on, i struggled with my chinese language. and my dislike for the subject increased with time and ultimately screwed up my foundation in it.

the resultant poor foundation led me to continuously fail my chinese exams all the way up to my secondary school and even my junior college days. when i was in secondary school, my form teacher suggested for me to switch from chinese to malay as a second language given that i had performed very well for my bahasa kebangsaan (at that time, we had to take english as a first language, chinese [or tamil] as a second language and malay as the national language). she rationalized that it would be easier for me to pass malay given the fact that i spoke malay too at home. but i decided to continue with chinese as my second language. when i was in secondary 4, i had 2 chances for my chinese papers during my "o" levels. for both, i obtained a "d7" or "subsidiary pass" grade. nonetheless, i was not too bothered for that was the minimum grade needed for entry into the junior college.

in junior college, i told myself i should try minimally to get a "c6" for my "ao" levels exams. and so, i joined the chinese orchestra in my efforts to learn the language better. i rationalized that since my chinese was really bad, a good start would be to be able to speak it. this was given a push was i failed the audition for the college choir group. i screwed up during the audition and sang out of tune. for that matter, i was not prepared for it and when asked to sing a song, i totally went blank and the song that came to me was majulah singapura, the singapore national anthem. and even then, i sang out of tune! it was so embarrassing! haha! anyway, my joining of the chinese orchestra was one of the best thing that happened to me. the initial discomforts of being immersed in an environment that was so "cheena" eventually led to the start of my discovery process and the appreciation of the chinese culture. and becos of the fact that people in the chinese orchestra were mainly chinese-ed people, i was thus forced to converse in mandarin. as for the exams, i was allowed 3 tries for the chinese at the "ao" level. for all 3 tries, i obtained "d7". i used to joke to people that getting a d7 at "ao" level after getting the same grade for the "o" levels could be considered an improvement... and to top it all off, despite being more comfortable with speaking chinese, i also failed my oral exams! haha! it was a little disappointing but well, i was able to gain entry into the university as "d7" was the minimal grade needed.

after my junior college days, i do speak chinese pretty often. in fact, i use the chinese language almost all the time with bee. other than that, there was never the need to use the chinese language officially. and despite the push by the government to use the chinese language in view of the rising red tide, i was never really motivated to read or write it. but looking ahead, i think i should try harder to do it. it is a useful language to pick up (again).

heh heh...

post-script: lesson learnt, in life, kids need to be respected too. they are individuals who have pride. guide them well, encourage them positively and listen to them. mistakes made can become important teaching moments. you will do them great disjustice if you belittle them, embarrass them and punish them unreasonably...

picture from http://www.easy604.com/i