Why I Don't Speak Mandarin Today

I was one of those who had to "suffer" in school when Mandarin was introduced as a compulsory second language. I think in the 2 years I took it in school, you could count the number of marks I got on the fingers of your hands!! Thank God at that time we were allowed to opt for another language and being Peranakan the obvious choice was Malay. Why children of Peranakan families were subsequently never given that choice was something I never understood but that’s another point of contention. I think my Chinese teacher breathed a sigh of relief when he was told the news because I was no longer going to pull the class average down anymore. Hearing the MM speak about how Mandarin was taught the wrong way brings back all kinds of bad memories about the classes and teachers who taught them. The Chinese language teachers were the most sadistic lot and would freely use corporal punishment in their classes. Yes, that was allowed in those days. If you came back and told your parents you were caned or slapped by the teacher, your parents would probably tell you you deserved it and you would get another round of punishment from them! Yes, corporal punishment for not being able to recite a passage or getting your spelling wrong. I remember being hit on the hand with the sharp side of the ruler numerous times and being made to stoop next to the teacher. He would make us put our hands in the drawer and hold the drawer shut with his foot while he carried on teaching seated at his desk. I was all of 8 years old. Tell me that that was the way you'd motivate someone to learn a language. So, 40 years later we're told that was a mistake......thank you for the revelation because today I don;t and can't speak the language even if my life depended on it. I guess my Chinese teacher really killed my motivation to learn the language because even though my father insisted that my brother and I continue to learn conversational Mandarin at home with a private tutor we never picked it up. I remember we used to write a romanized form of the word next to the chinese character ( our version of Hanyu Pinyin ) and would read that instead of the actual word so our intonation was always wrong. We had no idea what we were reading so for all that time we just uttered sounds that meant nothing. After 10 years of home tuition , my brother and I could hardly write our names BUT our teacher spoke excellent English. My father always said, the tutor should have paid him instead!
There are times when I wish I had been more motivated to learn Mandarin but after 40 years........I don’t think so.

Want to know when you'll die?

Would you rather know or not know the exact day you'll die? Its a tough question to answer. Many think that if they know exactly when they'll die, then they could plan and do everything before that day arrives. I'm not sure if knowing when I'm going to die would make any difference to the way I live my life. I could plan for the inevitable; put everything in order so to speak. Just imagine if say you found out you were terminally ill and the doctor gave you 3 months to live. Isn;t that like knowing exactly how long you have left on this earth? What would you do then ? Would life be any different for you? What would you do which you would not have otherwise done? Go on that trip of a lifetime? Spend more time with family and friends ? Say "I love you" a lot more? So if God had given us that knowledge of our death or rather when that will be , how much of a better person would that have made all of us? I just got the news that my mother's cancer had spread from her breast to her bones and possibly her liver. She's 90 and treatment options are few given her age and health history ( a stroke and 2 heart attacks in the last 2 years). The doctors give her 6-12 months. We decided she should not know about this new"development". She knows about her breast cancer. So from now they will give her a monthly injection which is no more than a placebo. She is not in any pain at the moment and lives life one day at a time. Ignorance is bliss. So in her case , not knowing the time she has left will probably mean she will be able to live out that timeline to the maximum. I am almost certain that if we told her that the cancer had spread and that the doctors give her 6-12 months , she will "deteriorate' even quicker than that.


So if I were given the choice to know or not ; I'd choose not to know. I would like the Big Man up there to surprise me.......its a whole lot easier.