(1266)Injustice

The great injustice of my life is the fact that both my brothers were sent to English primary school but I was to go to a Chinese school at age 7.

Throughout the six years of torture I had like at least 4 times the amount of homework daily compared to them. You see, pages and pages of Chinese writing and copying had to be done every school day to place the memory into the brain via the muscular-neurological route in order for the child to recognise a character by sight and to recall how to write the character from memory.

So when my brothers went out to play, I stewed at home to complete the regular load of copying and exercises. At the same time, they would laughed at me the slow coach before walking out to have fun. Many years later, after I returned from tertiary education abroad, I found that on my first birthday, my dad told my mum that he believed that I have inherited most of his talents. That sounded most unbelievable, how could any parent know that much at such an early stage? Yet my dad was confident that I could juggle three languages simultaneously.

It was no mean feat to spend six years mastering Chinese (a very difficult language to learn). Then for the next six years to pick up enough Malay and English. One must pass Malay to clear GCE O-level. I am very fortunate that I saw the beauty of all three languages. After O-level, one has two years to improve in English to go abroad. So it seems that my father was correct in estimating my ability to adapt and qualify somehow in all three languages over the years.

Looking back, it would have been a lot easier to obey and follow the path mapped out by my dad and teachers. At birth, my brain was wired to learn Chinese. It was seemingly effortless. Why, I do not know, perhaps the brain was designed to memorise pictorial characters. Of course it helped that I have perfect recall in hearing. Yet it was extremely difficult for me to learn any language that involved the alphabet and phonetic blending. I failed English in Year Five and Malay in Year Six. I even failed the important Malay Trial Exam for GCE O-level. Thank Goodness I miraculously passed Malay in the real exam - that was another story in itself.

Now that I am writing in English, it is of course quite difficult for anyone to believe that I was quite hopeless in English in 1973. In fact I could hardly speak nor write an acceptable sentence in English when I entered Remove, a preparatory year for switching the medium of instruction. Should I decide to obey my dad, I would probably have attended a private Chinese High School on scholarship (offered to me at age 12). After the 13th year of education move onto Taiwan to study Journalism. At the tender age of 12, two of my Chinese language teachers thought I would make a creditable editor in any Chinese newspaper some day. Since I told them my family was not wealthy enough to be able to pay the high fee for private education, probably my kind Headmistress convinced a few rich and influential women to create a special scholarship for me. I declined it in politeness and set my heart to conquer English. Much later I did miraculously won enough aid and a memorial scholarship to attend a college in USA. Looking back, it was sheer stubbornness in being adamant to reinvent the wheel, after all, what is the difference between the first and the second hard fought for scholarships? Either leads to a Bachelor's degree, although in different languages in different countries.

I did not tell my dad the once-in-a-life-time generous offer. He signed my school selection form after extracting a solemn promise from me that I would score a credit in GCE O-level Chinese even though I abruptly switched the medium of instruction to Malay at age 12. That I did. I was fortunate to obtain a Credit 6 at first try. 1 and 2 are distinctions, 3,4,5 and 6 are credits. Being lazy, I just worked hard enough to fulfil my promise to my father. I was cutting things very narrow. If I had hit a 7 then it would mean retaking the single paper until I get a credit. Most of my classmates found it hard to believe that one often knows how much effort and time to put in for a certain grade.