Posts Tagged Chinese
Gong Hei Fat Choy by DR
Embarrassingly, I am Chinese. Don’t take me wrong. I am not embarrassed that I am Chinese. I am embarrassed that I am hardly Chinese. I have such a vested interest in other cultures but yet I forsake my own heritage and traditions. In fact, there are only two things Chinese about me. The first is bak kwa and the second is bak kut teh.
It has been a strange journey for me. I used to score full marks for Chinese spelling tests in primary school, which was followed by receiving a Speech Day award for topping the level in Chinese in my secondary school. Of course, I was offered the cheesy NIE scholarship for Chinese Language right after secondary school which meant that I would be the ‘uncool’ Chinese teacher in primary schools around Singapore.
Next like most people, I chose the slowest route to university- polytechnic. And I also became the Chief Editor of the campus newspaper for two issues (unlucky or lucky as the only male in Chinese Newswriting class.) During BMT, I was the unofficial undisputed Chinese Chess player in my platoon. But if you were to ask me any question about the Chinese heritage, I would be pretty dumbfounded.
I spent my first few days of Lunar New Year eating nasi ayam penyet and bakso campur in Batam. I am fairly surprised at 
how my grapple of the language has weakened. A good solid foundation doesn’t count for anything if you do not put in the effort to maintain it. I still think Cantonese is one of the two sexiest languages a woman can speak, the other being silence. Speaking of sexy, when you get some attention in the ghetto, it doesn’t quite equate to sexual attraction.
If someone smiles at you in the ghetto, it is probably one of the following:
-
He is drunk.
-
You are drunk.
-
She has a dick.
-
His/Her dick is exposed.
-
You look like you do dick.
I also realised sex education was introduced in schools as early as primary one to the seven year olds with raging hormones. It was subtle but the raging rocker saw through it with his sharp observant seven year old eyes, in the disguised form of composition writing. The teacher taught us that “composition writing” should be broken down into three basic segments – Introduction (Foreplay), Body (Need I say more), and Conclusion (Grand finale). From the way I see it, there is really no need for the educational board and society to worry about the lack of proper sexual education for our youngsters.
I was really bad at composition writing then but I still managed to remember that I should be concluding with a paragraph of four to five lines of my introduction rephrased in another way. So, I’m pretty much ashamed that I’m hardly Chinese. I also like bak kwa and bak kut teh.
3 comments January 30, 2009
