Never Let Your Head Hit the Bed Without My Hand Behind It
All pictures dedicated to Renee
Once again, I feel oh-so reflective about myself. I can't understand why sometimes I'm such a confused individual in my viewpoints and perspectives. Its like, some of the my viewpoints are like buoys on the sea - they change direction with the tides. The few beliefs that I have that have stood me rock solid firm (like a beacon) are those that which the world critisises and laughs at. Well nevermind.
In real life I'm quite a mild person. Most people will know me to be a little "up there", as in, I'm a little bit unstable to relate with - yet still "ok enough" to talk to and to be friends with. I seem to be lost in my own little world most of the time. Nevertheless, what confuses me further is like this deep sense of disillusionment that I have with this country. Its like on one hand it looks so perfect on paper. But when probed and poked a little deeper, it seems just so superficial and so farcical. It doesn't help that I read a slanted press everyday that seems stock full of contradictory articles depinding on the day of the week its published.
And yet strangely when I put pen to paper, or in this case, keyboard to blogger. Its like I can spill out so much acidic vitriol. And while I know that it isn't exactly "healthy" in "that sense". I often do think it strange that God tells us to pray for our gahmen. No problem, just that I don't exactly support it nor feel any affinity with its agenda. Maybe its just a "coming of understanding of politics" or then again, I'm one of the few jokers out there who are bothered enough to take whatever education I have that expouses on "listening to arguments on both sides" and realising that the arguments on "the other side" seem so much more realistic, honest and convincing than the ones we ar used to hearing.
Let's be really honest. The S-Cubed seminar that every student has to sit through (with various members of the SAF in tow) is really just one big brainwashing propaganda campaign. I mean, even back in ACJC when they forced all of us to go for the talk (by making it mandatory for the teachers to take attendance in the hall). Half the time we were all either doing something else or rather, listening to fellow schoolmates ask the strangest of questions. I really wonder how successful the MOE is in educating our JC students are when people in GOOD classes go to the microphone and loudly proclaim to the the galaxy, "Does Singapore have nuclear bomb?" [sic] and everyone bursting into instantaneous laughter. Joke of the Century.
A few days ago, the press printed some front page news about the use of the Chinese Language being alive and well. Yet strangely, it just isn't apparent at all in my social circle of people that I know. Its like almost everyone speaks English or else its straight into the dialects. So that's the kind of oddity I personally feel when I read the slanted press. Its like it just doesn't apply to me at all from as far as I can see it. The closest thing that affected was probably the announcement of CL B. And really, it takes a man 40 years to realise what most ACS people already know in Primary One. So that's kind of laggy in a sense.
Ok, let's be honest. I'll share my story as well as my struggle about learning the Chinese Language. To me, it was one of the toughest subjects I encountered academically. The only other subject that truly eluded whatever academic knowledge I had was the nonsense that was ECONOMICS. For starters, I hope whoever reads this just freeze for a moment their instantaneous judgement call that "its all about attitude" and whatever subjective arguments about "attitude". We can't use the logic of "one bamboo pole to knock everything down" in my case, as I personally feel. Its not going to be easy to describe and compress 12 years of experience all the way into a single blog post. But I'll do what I can.
Well, it all starts from family. As I come from a predominantly English speaking home where both my parents speak Queen's English. I was taught the rudimentaries of grammar as well as sentence structure at a very young age by my mother. What happens is that I could easily read most of the words in the Newspaper by the time I was in Primary 2. So actually, I never needed to study for a single english test or a single english exam my life in ACS. By default, I'll always pass because I can understand most of the questions asked in the paper. Compare this with chinese. When I was in Kindergarten, I already had to have TUTION. My kindergarten teacher apparently told my parents that my Chinese is SO BAD, that she would have to come and give me some extra help - for free.
So if there's a record for having tution classes at the age of 5 for the Chinese Language. Then I would be the one who will take it easily. Chinese Language was generally easy as well as pretty much "do-able" when I was in Primary One. After all, an exam question that consists of asking you to color a few circles with the chinese equivalent of its color with my coloring pencil entailed that I can still get 90% for my primary 1 examination. I know, because I still have my report book from that era! And almost all my classmates got like 100% for chinese. Oh my goodness.
Sad to say, in Primary 2, what happens is that from then on, my language proficiency really really dropped. For most of the time, I was doing well in all my classes and really really enjoyed Maths lessons. My maths teacher in primary 2 was also my maths teacher in primary 3. She is so good and has left such an impression on me that I still visit her today whenever I go back to ACS Primary for a casual sight-seeing trip. However, my chinese teacher, who was also my form teacher always picked on me because I couldn't properly pronounce the chinese characters. I had to put in the Hanyu Pinyin myself below all those difficult words in my chinese textbook, just so that I wouldn't sound like a loser when I had to "read aloud in class". Who helped me fit in the Hanyu Pinyin? Well, it was no other than my Chinese Tution Teacher! I still remeber this teacher quite well because she retired that year in 1992 and she was always biased towards me. Hence since young, I can easily sense biasedness towards me or other people "just like that". Its like I grew up overnight to sense what I felt was "human rights violations in terms of fairness" at the tender age of 7. Catching was still fun by the way. But no one believed me when I told all the other primary 2 guys playing catching with the "big boys" (usually from primary 5) that they set all the game rules to cheat us. Maybe that also explains why I'm so cynical about so many things sometimes.
I still remember my score for the mid year examinations that year. I got 37 out of 100 marks for my chinese examination. What was so funny was that my Dad chartered another tution teacher to help me in my 2nd Language. And it was an ACJC girl. So that technically means that she's probably 29 years old now. She's was funny. This girl called Vivian. Often telling me that if I didn't do well in Chinese, I would not be able to "pass my PSLE" and make it "to the express stream". And yes, she was probably the first person to tell me of the existence of the nonsense college that is, of the Anglo-Chinese Junior Variety. I didn't really learn much from this tution teacher, but I definitely enjoyed pouring over her chemistry notes that didnt' make sense to me and that "Mr Wan is a good principal". I flunked my chinese again that year with 26/100. Its amazing what an ACJC girl can do in terms of a "drag coefficient".
In primary 3. I had this teacher. Very fierce and very strict. Made us do all our Zao Ju (Sentence Construction) as well as to punished anyone who failed her Ting Xie and Mo Xie. It was nonsense lah. So I grudgingly cheated in most of my tests. I had this uber-good China boy sitting next to me and he'd often so generously let me peek at his Spelling book. Presto! 100% everytime. Come to test always fail. But nevermind, I could always hide them test papers from my parents except the examination ones. And they'll go to "meet the parents sessions" and wonder why "my son is doing so badly for chinese...". In reality, I felt that this teacher was particularly biased against the EM1 potential students. She often gave them extra help as well as extra encouragement. But often disparaged and mocked at those students who weren't good in Chinese. Its quite sad that once I got the lowest in a chinese test and was made to sit in the front of the class facing everyone. It felt humiliating. But through such adversity. I pledged to be strong. To never let people laugh at me. So what happens is that I'll go and beat them up after school! And I was really violent. I would use anything from wooden rulers (that sold for 20 cents at the bookshop) or else just throw the chair. You have see me in real life at that point of time to believe how incredibly angry I can get sometimes. It didn't help that I was a really fast runner from all the catching sessions and I could whimsically chase anyone to deliver a blow.
I didn't really learn much in class. How far can I go when most of my tests are copied and I cheat in all my tests? Even that year. When we had the screening test for potential Gifted Students. I couldn't even get beyond page 1. I remember this very clearly because the exam paper was pink in color. And my chinese teacher told me that my marker gave up marking my paper on page 2. It was that bad. All this while, my english was good. My former English teacher in primary 3, who is now a vice principal often read my essays out to the class. Praising me for my use of good language and in speaking well. So that was really encouraging one one hand, and with regards to the 2nd language. Pretty much discouraging. Seems like almost all chinese teachers are made from the same mould. With the exception of two. I still remember this one incident when our chinese teacher (as well as form teacher) was really angry with the class. She asked the whole class to stand up and punished everyone by making them put that "shhh sign" at the lips. And she proceeded to let the "good boys" sit down. Invariably, they were all the kiddos who were good in Chinese! And of course I was left standing to the end of the lesson. Such biasedness! This led to a split in the "chinaman camp" and the "EnglishMen's Camp". I socialised almost exclusively with people who spoke English well and very eloquently.
I did badly for my chinese in primary three as usual. With tution. And with extra help. Ah who cares. I had science. An incredible love for science in me, so I "heck cared" all the chinese only to realise I might be dooming myself - at this "PSLE briefing session" for the Primary 6 students, which I happened to sit through. It was loudly proclaimed that "English counts 100%, Chinese Counts 100%, Maths and Science only 50% each". How unfair indeed. In an education system that gives heavy weightage to the Sciences and Mathematics. I wonder why they are only given a weighted 50% each in the tabulation of the PSLE score. So that was another even more discouraging factor.
In Primary 4. As we all know. People get streamed by that horrific branding system that the MOE uses to filter out the "talents" that they so think are worthy of a better education. Naturally, most of the people who could speak Chinese well were somehow put into two classes. And those who were poor in Chinese were predominantly in two classes. My heart was open to science at this time. I did extremely well in science. I topped pratically every single test and exam in the class. And besides the GEPSTERS, I did really well enough to be on par with most of them. But my chinese! And utter disaster! Ungraded! Below 20 Marks for my examinations? What a waste! I was good in English, Maths and Science and a good classmate of mine (who eventually made it to NJC many years later) told me that "if you weren't bad in Chinese, you'd be in the GEP stream already". And I countered, "ya.. nigel wong's class....". And we all laughed. Nigel Wong is this "common joke" shared by most of the people in the non-GEP class. It was meant to symbolise the "madness that they had become". Yes, so primary 4 students can feel biasedness in the sytem when we walk by their classes at the New Barker Road Campus and wonder why they have special tables, smaller class sizes and we have to make do with super cramped classrooms with teacher who cannot distinguish a "felt tip pen from a ball point pen". This was the Era of the Pilot G1. It seems like alot of teachers have this strange logic that if you pen creates streaks and smudges while it has yet to dry, that qualifies it automatically as a "felt tip pen".
I had really weird science teachers in primary 4. This pregnant lady who would insist on a piece of paper being supplied to her before every class just so that she could grasp her chalk without staining her fingers. We still had blackboards at that time in ACS because not all the classes had yet to convert over to whiteboards. And later on, she went on maternity leave and I had this even stranger Indian teacher who'd specifically target people like me. I still know the group of people which "he had marked" (Once again, biasedness). And this group is still alive and strong and full of nonsense as usual. I mean, we get into huge arguments with this teacher such that his blood pressure rose and he quit the school at the end of the year. Oh well, not before punishing the 7 of us by making us stand in front of the whole school during a flag lowering ceremony. We were SAVED by Peter Joe Chia (The GREAT Vice Principal) of ACS who rebuked this "New Indian Teacher" whom I shall not mention his name by saying something like "DO YOU KNOW THAT THIS DESTROYS THEIR SELF-ESTEEM? DO YOU KNOW? GET THEM OUT OF HERE NOW!!!!!". And this particular teacher just hides away into a little shell and lets us off. Wow. P-J-C. Legend. And we all laughed. And later made special provision to greet him nicely everytime we saw him in school.
In greater contrast. My chinese teacher was a complete disaster. She'd saunter into class. Sit down on a chair. And ask us to read the textbook. After which, she'd just complain to us about "our lousy standards" and "not knowing our culture" and "not being in touch with our roots". "Ze Mo Tiu Lian!" (So much throw face). She'd often mock at us until we just excuse ourselves from chinese class "to go to the toilet". In reality we were skiving in the Shaw Pool Canteen. We'd spend the time eating chicken wings. Only to have her breathing down my neck the next lesson by asking us where we went during our 20 minute toilet break. I didn't learn much. Chinese classes were a waste of time. I still had tution. I still had that china boy sitting next to me during spelling (specially arranged by means of monetary bribes) so I always aced my Ting Xie. The best thing was that this was right in front of the teacher! First table! First row! And the very place where she'd stand to read out loud the words to be tested! Amazing. In ACS, you can get away with alot of nonsense! And I dare say I did alot of nonsense during chinese class. So once again, on one hand. I loved my science classes with a lousy teacher. And disliked all my chinese classes. Not just me. Ask my class! We all couldn't be bothered! I always admired the class next to mine who had this super funky chinese teacher who'd show them ruler flipping tricks in class instead of reading the textbook!
And I did very very badly in Chinese that year! You could take 100, minus my grade for science and roughly you'd get my chinese marks for that year. Oh well, I got a Band 1 for Science. And I was particulary proud that I was the only guy in class who had Band 1 for science. Once again, my love for science increased. But my impression of Chinese took a nosedive. Oh it didn't matter. I got Band 4 for chinese that year and this was inspite of tution and more tution. I have had chinese tution every year of my life in ACS. If you add up all that tution money. I can easily buy down a Hasselblad H1 camera with a Phase One digital back and a Carl Zeiss APO-Makro Planar Lens. The only exposure I really had to the chinese language was listening to the Chinese radio songs in the school bus ride on the way to school. My school bus driver spoke only broken english and fluent in most of the dialects plus mandarin. So what happens is that my spoken Mandarin improved tremendously. And I can still speak relatively well today - that is, a primary 4 standard of chinese. Talk to me in Chinese, you'll roughly know it is "of primary school standard". My bus driver is such a funny person. I still see him fetching primary school kids to ACS today. And I'm very honest about the fact that my chinese is bad. But it doesn't mean I hate the language. On the contrary, I did Chinese caligraphy for a while, but was really bad with it. I went for ACS organised "Chinese Camps" where it was a little bit more fun to pick up the language. Ok, so we were all forced to go during the school holidays! But I enjoyed it! It had no stress, just soaking into the culture and listening to interesting chinese tales from generations before ours. Fascinating.
In primary 5. Very interesting! My relationship with my chinese teacher was a complete disaster. It was so bad that she went to complain bitterly to my form teacher about "my lack of attitude" and "my bad behavior during class" as well as "not doing work and passing it up on time". And the usual platter of comments that teachers can only cook up to malign a student. Please. I just was plain bad in my work. After cheating in Ting Xie for 2 straight years. How would anyone expect me to pass my Ting Xie when I couldn't even write a scratch beyond primary 2 chinese? I was really turned off by this teacher who insisted that I see her in the staff room almost every day for a scolding or a rebuke or some "advice" It was nonsense lah. My form teacher, upon hearing these comments said. "he is one of my best students in maths. and in science and his english teacher says that he is very good in his work as well". Oh well, after that, I think I voluntarily walked out of chinese class every time that teacher walked in. And guess what? I had a few other jokers who did the same as well! In particular I remember one classmate, whose dad was quite a big shot "up there" as far as ties with ACS management and board of governors was concerned. So this teacher was soon deposed of by the end of the year after we complained bitterly about her "substandard teaching". Once again, the year ended with a disaster call for my chinese grades.
Let's not even talk about the primary 6 chinese teacher. He was a body double for a PE teacher as well! First time I had a "Man Chinese Teacher". And in ACS, all Man Chinese Teachers funky! We'd use a spray meant to disperse water on our whiteboards before cleaning and shoot it at him to arouse his anger! And we'd all get chased away for an early recess! It was so funny! He'd come to class. Read through the nonsense textbook. Tell us to do some work. And then he'd check our "work in progress". Realise we had done nothing. Fly into a rage. Take the wooden one meter long ruler and bang it all around the place till it smashed into bits. It didn't help that I was the class monitor! Once he told the whole class (in English): "You are class monitor! You should be setting example! [sic] And you never even do you work at all! How to pass your chinese?" And then he threw my workbook on the floor and stamped on it. It is so funny now that I think about it. It was nonsense. I picked up my book. Dusted it off. And went for recess at the SHAW POOL once again. I seem to be skiving at the Shaw Pool almost everytime some nonsense problem crops up.
Oh, I could once again cheat during Ting Xie. And Mo Xie too! I usually prepared this small piece of paper with the passage that we had to memorise and write from memory. And it'll be nicely sitting on the 2nd tier of my desk. It was nonsense lah. 100% of Chinese again during the weekly tests. But always fail the examinations. I had tution too. And I worked hard during tution. Ok, so I was forced to. But I managed to secure a C grade pass for my chinese during the PSLE. My Indian classmate came up to me after results day and said. "C for you chinese! That's really bad for a chinese guy like you! I even got a B leh!" I thought that a C was a clear pass. But I didn't count on the fact that friends whose mother tongue wasn't Mandarin could do much better than me in it! So nonsense! I conceed. My first 6 years of learning the 2nd language in a great institution that derided it. With an environment as well as social cliche that expoused on the essentials of Queen's English. Enjoying english classes and often enjoying to cook up English essays only naturally pushed me to lean towards the side of mastery in English. And a complete disaster in the Chinese language. My social studies teacher once told me, "Ah don't worry about your chinese lah, China won't rise up in your generation one lah. Just focus on America can already..."
I'll be honest with everyone. Maybe its true that I didn't have a heart to study my chinese language in primary school. Then again, I did enjoy it whenever it was out of the school context. I enjoy speaking whatever mandarin I can to my chinese speaking relatives, I enjoy listening to chinese radio songs (Wo Lai Chang Yi So Ge, Zu Ni Shen Ri Kuai Le!) Even up till today. I do enjoy listening to chinese radio station, even though I can't even understand more than 20% of the content there. I realise how sad Jay Chou's songs can be (End of the World, Black Humour and Silence?). I've been to China twice and I love the place as well as the culture (Let's be more honest - the chinese gahmen's one big international bully, but we'll reserve that for discussions on international politics and relations...). And for the fact that I once went on take on Chinese Caligraphy to a much higher level. Only to be very discouraged when my teacher sent my caligraph back all dabbed in red chinese caligraphy ink showing the proper way in which the characters should have been written. I still write many of my chinese character in the wrong order. I often put the "boat" before the "wen" in the word "Ze". Well I do conceed that I had "bad and lousy attitude" towards the language in primary school. But I honestly get turned off more throughout the years of my primary school when I increasingly cannot understand more chinese classes. And more chinese teacher who don't like my face. And that sometimes I'd look at the comprehension and I can barely read the passage. Much less the questions and answer them.
I won't write beyond my primary school experiences with Chinese. I'll reserve my secondary and JC experiences with the language, which are entirely different for another post. Yet I enjoy thinking back and reflecting. That really, Chinese is not an easy language for myself to learn and pick up. Besides, I seldom have much opportunity to practise, use it. Or even to learn it in a conducive environment. You can't learn much after an argument with narrow minded, ultra-conservative teachers who still live in the imaginary classroom realm of the 60s. I had my fair share of lousy teachers. Or teachers that couldn't be bothered to teach. Not only am I responsible in a large percentage for my lack of interest in the language as well as my lackadasical attitude. Yet, there are alot of external contributing factors as well! In the end, I gravitated towards English, since I loved it, and I had so many supportive teachers who never scolded me but praised me constantly and gave me lots of encouragement. I had a great passion and love for science for which I would read through the entire textbook for a year within a few hours and extend my knowledge by gobbling up encyclopaedias. And I enjoyed mathematics, because it was fun, I understood the lessons and so on. But not chinese.
Chinese was a freaking disaster! Really, it doesn't take much to realise that it was a nonsense waste of time learning the language. I spent half my free time learning the language via tution. And the other half of the time on three subjects. And I still did far better for those 3 subjects and could not even pass that one subject. At home, my parents forced me to take tution that I never enjoyed, to learn and memorise countless phrases and idioms to no end that I have no idea what they mean or even how to write them today. My textbook. All the pictures were creatively doddled upon to create master pieces of "Art". And yes, doddling on our chinese textbooks was a great way to kill time during super-boring chinese lessons. So now whomever reads this will understand a little bit more about the wherabours of my weak foundation in the language came from. I'm just being plain honest here. Whether its an attitude problem or whether other people did have some extent of fault or it was a contributing amount of factors. I hope I do shed some light on why I am bad in chinese. Personally I feel that its not that I didn't study. Its just that my interest in the language was never really kindled. And whatever interest I had was killed off when I was rather young. I know that this isn't really a lucid post. But that's where rambling has taken me to.
All pictures dedicated to Renee
Once again, I feel oh-so reflective about myself. I can't understand why sometimes I'm such a confused individual in my viewpoints and perspectives. Its like, some of the my viewpoints are like buoys on the sea - they change direction with the tides. The few beliefs that I have that have stood me rock solid firm (like a beacon) are those that which the world critisises and laughs at. Well nevermind.
In real life I'm quite a mild person. Most people will know me to be a little "up there", as in, I'm a little bit unstable to relate with - yet still "ok enough" to talk to and to be friends with. I seem to be lost in my own little world most of the time. Nevertheless, what confuses me further is like this deep sense of disillusionment that I have with this country. Its like on one hand it looks so perfect on paper. But when probed and poked a little deeper, it seems just so superficial and so farcical. It doesn't help that I read a slanted press everyday that seems stock full of contradictory articles depinding on the day of the week its published.
And yet strangely when I put pen to paper, or in this case, keyboard to blogger. Its like I can spill out so much acidic vitriol. And while I know that it isn't exactly "healthy" in "that sense". I often do think it strange that God tells us to pray for our gahmen. No problem, just that I don't exactly support it nor feel any affinity with its agenda. Maybe its just a "coming of understanding of politics" or then again, I'm one of the few jokers out there who are bothered enough to take whatever education I have that expouses on "listening to arguments on both sides" and realising that the arguments on "the other side" seem so much more realistic, honest and convincing than the ones we ar used to hearing.
Let's be really honest. The S-Cubed seminar that every student has to sit through (with various members of the SAF in tow) is really just one big brainwashing propaganda campaign. I mean, even back in ACJC when they forced all of us to go for the talk (by making it mandatory for the teachers to take attendance in the hall). Half the time we were all either doing something else or rather, listening to fellow schoolmates ask the strangest of questions. I really wonder how successful the MOE is in educating our JC students are when people in GOOD classes go to the microphone and loudly proclaim to the the galaxy, "Does Singapore have nuclear bomb?" [sic] and everyone bursting into instantaneous laughter. Joke of the Century.
A few days ago, the press printed some front page news about the use of the Chinese Language being alive and well. Yet strangely, it just isn't apparent at all in my social circle of people that I know. Its like almost everyone speaks English or else its straight into the dialects. So that's the kind of oddity I personally feel when I read the slanted press. Its like it just doesn't apply to me at all from as far as I can see it. The closest thing that affected was probably the announcement of CL B. And really, it takes a man 40 years to realise what most ACS people already know in Primary One. So that's kind of laggy in a sense.
Ok, let's be honest. I'll share my story as well as my struggle about learning the Chinese Language. To me, it was one of the toughest subjects I encountered academically. The only other subject that truly eluded whatever academic knowledge I had was the nonsense that was ECONOMICS. For starters, I hope whoever reads this just freeze for a moment their instantaneous judgement call that "its all about attitude" and whatever subjective arguments about "attitude". We can't use the logic of "one bamboo pole to knock everything down" in my case, as I personally feel. Its not going to be easy to describe and compress 12 years of experience all the way into a single blog post. But I'll do what I can.
Well, it all starts from family. As I come from a predominantly English speaking home where both my parents speak Queen's English. I was taught the rudimentaries of grammar as well as sentence structure at a very young age by my mother. What happens is that I could easily read most of the words in the Newspaper by the time I was in Primary 2. So actually, I never needed to study for a single english test or a single english exam my life in ACS. By default, I'll always pass because I can understand most of the questions asked in the paper. Compare this with chinese. When I was in Kindergarten, I already had to have TUTION. My kindergarten teacher apparently told my parents that my Chinese is SO BAD, that she would have to come and give me some extra help - for free.
So if there's a record for having tution classes at the age of 5 for the Chinese Language. Then I would be the one who will take it easily. Chinese Language was generally easy as well as pretty much "do-able" when I was in Primary One. After all, an exam question that consists of asking you to color a few circles with the chinese equivalent of its color with my coloring pencil entailed that I can still get 90% for my primary 1 examination. I know, because I still have my report book from that era! And almost all my classmates got like 100% for chinese. Oh my goodness.
Sad to say, in Primary 2, what happens is that from then on, my language proficiency really really dropped. For most of the time, I was doing well in all my classes and really really enjoyed Maths lessons. My maths teacher in primary 2 was also my maths teacher in primary 3. She is so good and has left such an impression on me that I still visit her today whenever I go back to ACS Primary for a casual sight-seeing trip. However, my chinese teacher, who was also my form teacher always picked on me because I couldn't properly pronounce the chinese characters. I had to put in the Hanyu Pinyin myself below all those difficult words in my chinese textbook, just so that I wouldn't sound like a loser when I had to "read aloud in class". Who helped me fit in the Hanyu Pinyin? Well, it was no other than my Chinese Tution Teacher! I still remeber this teacher quite well because she retired that year in 1992 and she was always biased towards me. Hence since young, I can easily sense biasedness towards me or other people "just like that". Its like I grew up overnight to sense what I felt was "human rights violations in terms of fairness" at the tender age of 7. Catching was still fun by the way. But no one believed me when I told all the other primary 2 guys playing catching with the "big boys" (usually from primary 5) that they set all the game rules to cheat us. Maybe that also explains why I'm so cynical about so many things sometimes.
I still remember my score for the mid year examinations that year. I got 37 out of 100 marks for my chinese examination. What was so funny was that my Dad chartered another tution teacher to help me in my 2nd Language. And it was an ACJC girl. So that technically means that she's probably 29 years old now. She's was funny. This girl called Vivian. Often telling me that if I didn't do well in Chinese, I would not be able to "pass my PSLE" and make it "to the express stream". And yes, she was probably the first person to tell me of the existence of the nonsense college that is, of the Anglo-Chinese Junior Variety. I didn't really learn much from this tution teacher, but I definitely enjoyed pouring over her chemistry notes that didnt' make sense to me and that "Mr Wan is a good principal". I flunked my chinese again that year with 26/100. Its amazing what an ACJC girl can do in terms of a "drag coefficient".
In primary 3. I had this teacher. Very fierce and very strict. Made us do all our Zao Ju (Sentence Construction) as well as to punished anyone who failed her Ting Xie and Mo Xie. It was nonsense lah. So I grudgingly cheated in most of my tests. I had this uber-good China boy sitting next to me and he'd often so generously let me peek at his Spelling book. Presto! 100% everytime. Come to test always fail. But nevermind, I could always hide them test papers from my parents except the examination ones. And they'll go to "meet the parents sessions" and wonder why "my son is doing so badly for chinese...". In reality, I felt that this teacher was particularly biased against the EM1 potential students. She often gave them extra help as well as extra encouragement. But often disparaged and mocked at those students who weren't good in Chinese. Its quite sad that once I got the lowest in a chinese test and was made to sit in the front of the class facing everyone. It felt humiliating. But through such adversity. I pledged to be strong. To never let people laugh at me. So what happens is that I'll go and beat them up after school! And I was really violent. I would use anything from wooden rulers (that sold for 20 cents at the bookshop) or else just throw the chair. You have see me in real life at that point of time to believe how incredibly angry I can get sometimes. It didn't help that I was a really fast runner from all the catching sessions and I could whimsically chase anyone to deliver a blow.
I didn't really learn much in class. How far can I go when most of my tests are copied and I cheat in all my tests? Even that year. When we had the screening test for potential Gifted Students. I couldn't even get beyond page 1. I remember this very clearly because the exam paper was pink in color. And my chinese teacher told me that my marker gave up marking my paper on page 2. It was that bad. All this while, my english was good. My former English teacher in primary 3, who is now a vice principal often read my essays out to the class. Praising me for my use of good language and in speaking well. So that was really encouraging one one hand, and with regards to the 2nd language. Pretty much discouraging. Seems like almost all chinese teachers are made from the same mould. With the exception of two. I still remember this one incident when our chinese teacher (as well as form teacher) was really angry with the class. She asked the whole class to stand up and punished everyone by making them put that "shhh sign" at the lips. And she proceeded to let the "good boys" sit down. Invariably, they were all the kiddos who were good in Chinese! And of course I was left standing to the end of the lesson. Such biasedness! This led to a split in the "chinaman camp" and the "EnglishMen's Camp". I socialised almost exclusively with people who spoke English well and very eloquently.
I did badly for my chinese in primary three as usual. With tution. And with extra help. Ah who cares. I had science. An incredible love for science in me, so I "heck cared" all the chinese only to realise I might be dooming myself - at this "PSLE briefing session" for the Primary 6 students, which I happened to sit through. It was loudly proclaimed that "English counts 100%, Chinese Counts 100%, Maths and Science only 50% each". How unfair indeed. In an education system that gives heavy weightage to the Sciences and Mathematics. I wonder why they are only given a weighted 50% each in the tabulation of the PSLE score. So that was another even more discouraging factor.
In Primary 4. As we all know. People get streamed by that horrific branding system that the MOE uses to filter out the "talents" that they so think are worthy of a better education. Naturally, most of the people who could speak Chinese well were somehow put into two classes. And those who were poor in Chinese were predominantly in two classes. My heart was open to science at this time. I did extremely well in science. I topped pratically every single test and exam in the class. And besides the GEPSTERS, I did really well enough to be on par with most of them. But my chinese! And utter disaster! Ungraded! Below 20 Marks for my examinations? What a waste! I was good in English, Maths and Science and a good classmate of mine (who eventually made it to NJC many years later) told me that "if you weren't bad in Chinese, you'd be in the GEP stream already". And I countered, "ya.. nigel wong's class....". And we all laughed. Nigel Wong is this "common joke" shared by most of the people in the non-GEP class. It was meant to symbolise the "madness that they had become". Yes, so primary 4 students can feel biasedness in the sytem when we walk by their classes at the New Barker Road Campus and wonder why they have special tables, smaller class sizes and we have to make do with super cramped classrooms with teacher who cannot distinguish a "felt tip pen from a ball point pen". This was the Era of the Pilot G1. It seems like alot of teachers have this strange logic that if you pen creates streaks and smudges while it has yet to dry, that qualifies it automatically as a "felt tip pen".
I had really weird science teachers in primary 4. This pregnant lady who would insist on a piece of paper being supplied to her before every class just so that she could grasp her chalk without staining her fingers. We still had blackboards at that time in ACS because not all the classes had yet to convert over to whiteboards. And later on, she went on maternity leave and I had this even stranger Indian teacher who'd specifically target people like me. I still know the group of people which "he had marked" (Once again, biasedness). And this group is still alive and strong and full of nonsense as usual. I mean, we get into huge arguments with this teacher such that his blood pressure rose and he quit the school at the end of the year. Oh well, not before punishing the 7 of us by making us stand in front of the whole school during a flag lowering ceremony. We were SAVED by Peter Joe Chia (The GREAT Vice Principal) of ACS who rebuked this "New Indian Teacher" whom I shall not mention his name by saying something like "DO YOU KNOW THAT THIS DESTROYS THEIR SELF-ESTEEM? DO YOU KNOW? GET THEM OUT OF HERE NOW!!!!!". And this particular teacher just hides away into a little shell and lets us off. Wow. P-J-C. Legend. And we all laughed. And later made special provision to greet him nicely everytime we saw him in school.
In greater contrast. My chinese teacher was a complete disaster. She'd saunter into class. Sit down on a chair. And ask us to read the textbook. After which, she'd just complain to us about "our lousy standards" and "not knowing our culture" and "not being in touch with our roots". "Ze Mo Tiu Lian!" (So much throw face). She'd often mock at us until we just excuse ourselves from chinese class "to go to the toilet". In reality we were skiving in the Shaw Pool Canteen. We'd spend the time eating chicken wings. Only to have her breathing down my neck the next lesson by asking us where we went during our 20 minute toilet break. I didn't learn much. Chinese classes were a waste of time. I still had tution. I still had that china boy sitting next to me during spelling (specially arranged by means of monetary bribes) so I always aced my Ting Xie. The best thing was that this was right in front of the teacher! First table! First row! And the very place where she'd stand to read out loud the words to be tested! Amazing. In ACS, you can get away with alot of nonsense! And I dare say I did alot of nonsense during chinese class. So once again, on one hand. I loved my science classes with a lousy teacher. And disliked all my chinese classes. Not just me. Ask my class! We all couldn't be bothered! I always admired the class next to mine who had this super funky chinese teacher who'd show them ruler flipping tricks in class instead of reading the textbook!
And I did very very badly in Chinese that year! You could take 100, minus my grade for science and roughly you'd get my chinese marks for that year. Oh well, I got a Band 1 for Science. And I was particulary proud that I was the only guy in class who had Band 1 for science. Once again, my love for science increased. But my impression of Chinese took a nosedive. Oh it didn't matter. I got Band 4 for chinese that year and this was inspite of tution and more tution. I have had chinese tution every year of my life in ACS. If you add up all that tution money. I can easily buy down a Hasselblad H1 camera with a Phase One digital back and a Carl Zeiss APO-Makro Planar Lens. The only exposure I really had to the chinese language was listening to the Chinese radio songs in the school bus ride on the way to school. My school bus driver spoke only broken english and fluent in most of the dialects plus mandarin. So what happens is that my spoken Mandarin improved tremendously. And I can still speak relatively well today - that is, a primary 4 standard of chinese. Talk to me in Chinese, you'll roughly know it is "of primary school standard". My bus driver is such a funny person. I still see him fetching primary school kids to ACS today. And I'm very honest about the fact that my chinese is bad. But it doesn't mean I hate the language. On the contrary, I did Chinese caligraphy for a while, but was really bad with it. I went for ACS organised "Chinese Camps" where it was a little bit more fun to pick up the language. Ok, so we were all forced to go during the school holidays! But I enjoyed it! It had no stress, just soaking into the culture and listening to interesting chinese tales from generations before ours. Fascinating.
In primary 5. Very interesting! My relationship with my chinese teacher was a complete disaster. It was so bad that she went to complain bitterly to my form teacher about "my lack of attitude" and "my bad behavior during class" as well as "not doing work and passing it up on time". And the usual platter of comments that teachers can only cook up to malign a student. Please. I just was plain bad in my work. After cheating in Ting Xie for 2 straight years. How would anyone expect me to pass my Ting Xie when I couldn't even write a scratch beyond primary 2 chinese? I was really turned off by this teacher who insisted that I see her in the staff room almost every day for a scolding or a rebuke or some "advice" It was nonsense lah. My form teacher, upon hearing these comments said. "he is one of my best students in maths. and in science and his english teacher says that he is very good in his work as well". Oh well, after that, I think I voluntarily walked out of chinese class every time that teacher walked in. And guess what? I had a few other jokers who did the same as well! In particular I remember one classmate, whose dad was quite a big shot "up there" as far as ties with ACS management and board of governors was concerned. So this teacher was soon deposed of by the end of the year after we complained bitterly about her "substandard teaching". Once again, the year ended with a disaster call for my chinese grades.
Let's not even talk about the primary 6 chinese teacher. He was a body double for a PE teacher as well! First time I had a "Man Chinese Teacher". And in ACS, all Man Chinese Teachers funky! We'd use a spray meant to disperse water on our whiteboards before cleaning and shoot it at him to arouse his anger! And we'd all get chased away for an early recess! It was so funny! He'd come to class. Read through the nonsense textbook. Tell us to do some work. And then he'd check our "work in progress". Realise we had done nothing. Fly into a rage. Take the wooden one meter long ruler and bang it all around the place till it smashed into bits. It didn't help that I was the class monitor! Once he told the whole class (in English): "You are class monitor! You should be setting example! [sic] And you never even do you work at all! How to pass your chinese?" And then he threw my workbook on the floor and stamped on it. It is so funny now that I think about it. It was nonsense. I picked up my book. Dusted it off. And went for recess at the SHAW POOL once again. I seem to be skiving at the Shaw Pool almost everytime some nonsense problem crops up.
Oh, I could once again cheat during Ting Xie. And Mo Xie too! I usually prepared this small piece of paper with the passage that we had to memorise and write from memory. And it'll be nicely sitting on the 2nd tier of my desk. It was nonsense lah. 100% of Chinese again during the weekly tests. But always fail the examinations. I had tution too. And I worked hard during tution. Ok, so I was forced to. But I managed to secure a C grade pass for my chinese during the PSLE. My Indian classmate came up to me after results day and said. "C for you chinese! That's really bad for a chinese guy like you! I even got a B leh!" I thought that a C was a clear pass. But I didn't count on the fact that friends whose mother tongue wasn't Mandarin could do much better than me in it! So nonsense! I conceed. My first 6 years of learning the 2nd language in a great institution that derided it. With an environment as well as social cliche that expoused on the essentials of Queen's English. Enjoying english classes and often enjoying to cook up English essays only naturally pushed me to lean towards the side of mastery in English. And a complete disaster in the Chinese language. My social studies teacher once told me, "Ah don't worry about your chinese lah, China won't rise up in your generation one lah. Just focus on America can already..."
I'll be honest with everyone. Maybe its true that I didn't have a heart to study my chinese language in primary school. Then again, I did enjoy it whenever it was out of the school context. I enjoy speaking whatever mandarin I can to my chinese speaking relatives, I enjoy listening to chinese radio songs (Wo Lai Chang Yi So Ge, Zu Ni Shen Ri Kuai Le!) Even up till today. I do enjoy listening to chinese radio station, even though I can't even understand more than 20% of the content there. I realise how sad Jay Chou's songs can be (End of the World, Black Humour and Silence?). I've been to China twice and I love the place as well as the culture (Let's be more honest - the chinese gahmen's one big international bully, but we'll reserve that for discussions on international politics and relations...). And for the fact that I once went on take on Chinese Caligraphy to a much higher level. Only to be very discouraged when my teacher sent my caligraph back all dabbed in red chinese caligraphy ink showing the proper way in which the characters should have been written. I still write many of my chinese character in the wrong order. I often put the "boat" before the "wen" in the word "Ze". Well I do conceed that I had "bad and lousy attitude" towards the language in primary school. But I honestly get turned off more throughout the years of my primary school when I increasingly cannot understand more chinese classes. And more chinese teacher who don't like my face. And that sometimes I'd look at the comprehension and I can barely read the passage. Much less the questions and answer them.
I won't write beyond my primary school experiences with Chinese. I'll reserve my secondary and JC experiences with the language, which are entirely different for another post. Yet I enjoy thinking back and reflecting. That really, Chinese is not an easy language for myself to learn and pick up. Besides, I seldom have much opportunity to practise, use it. Or even to learn it in a conducive environment. You can't learn much after an argument with narrow minded, ultra-conservative teachers who still live in the imaginary classroom realm of the 60s. I had my fair share of lousy teachers. Or teachers that couldn't be bothered to teach. Not only am I responsible in a large percentage for my lack of interest in the language as well as my lackadasical attitude. Yet, there are alot of external contributing factors as well! In the end, I gravitated towards English, since I loved it, and I had so many supportive teachers who never scolded me but praised me constantly and gave me lots of encouragement. I had a great passion and love for science for which I would read through the entire textbook for a year within a few hours and extend my knowledge by gobbling up encyclopaedias. And I enjoyed mathematics, because it was fun, I understood the lessons and so on. But not chinese.
Chinese was a freaking disaster! Really, it doesn't take much to realise that it was a nonsense waste of time learning the language. I spent half my free time learning the language via tution. And the other half of the time on three subjects. And I still did far better for those 3 subjects and could not even pass that one subject. At home, my parents forced me to take tution that I never enjoyed, to learn and memorise countless phrases and idioms to no end that I have no idea what they mean or even how to write them today. My textbook. All the pictures were creatively doddled upon to create master pieces of "Art". And yes, doddling on our chinese textbooks was a great way to kill time during super-boring chinese lessons. So now whomever reads this will understand a little bit more about the wherabours of my weak foundation in the language came from. I'm just being plain honest here. Whether its an attitude problem or whether other people did have some extent of fault or it was a contributing amount of factors. I hope I do shed some light on why I am bad in chinese. Personally I feel that its not that I didn't study. Its just that my interest in the language was never really kindled. And whatever interest I had was killed off when I was rather young. I know that this isn't really a lucid post. But that's where rambling has taken me to.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home