THE BREAKING OF A WAVE CANNOT EXPLAIN THE WHOLE SEA.
Friday, December 11, 2009
I just had my last Chinese tuition earlier today, and I’ve been studying all my ming ju jing hua. I’m going through Chinese essays and all the formats for formal letters, and useful phrases.
Despite everything I said, I AM studying for my Chinese exam.
Even though I bitch about having to take Chinese for SPM all day long, at the end of the day, the only reason I’m not good at Chinese is that I never had the Chinese-speaking background, and I never worked hard enough for it. I certainly could have done better at Chinese if I worked hard enough at it. My Chinese tuition teacher keeps saying that my grasp of the language is there, but I’m too lazy to work for it and make it better.
I confess. I don’t hate Chinese. But there are only two ways to be good at languages: you can be born knowing it, hearing it and speaking it every day of your life. Or you can work really hard. And for the latter course, it makes it easier if you have a grasp of languages. As in, you easily understand languages.
Me? I had the grasp. Even though I wasn’t born speaking Chinese, I had the resources at my fingertips. I obtained As for Chinese in the UPSR and the PMR. It was easy enough to study for those exams.
It’s just that it became harder and harder to excel in Chinese as secondary school went on. People could tell that I was an English-speaker the moment I said anything in Chinese, and even until now, people still give me odd looks when I speak Chinese. (“Louise ar. Don’t speak Chinese lah. You sound damn weird man. Stick to English.”) And for someone as kiasu as me, it was hard not being good at Chinese, especially since CHS is a Chinese school, with a predominantly Chinese student population.
I didn’t really want to spend time working on it and making it better, especially since it was only one subject. Besides, I had started hanging around friends who were English-speaking, just like me.
I didn’t swallow my pride and start working hard. Honestly, I just didn’t like being lousy at something that I couldn’t really be good at unless I worked really hard, while other people breezed by without too much hard work. That’s the thing about most stuff we have to learn: it’s either you’re a natural, or it’s effort.
And you know how some things just aren’t worth the effort? Like fitting in, or trying to collect a string of straight As? I decided to include Chinese among those things. I thought, why try if I’m not good at it? Besides my English and BM are good enough. So I didn’t work hard for Chinese, the way I did for other subjects I wasn’t good at initially, like Chemistry and Add Maths.
Instead, I just started saying I didn’t like Chinese, and I just gave up. Like that. It was my excuse for not doing well in it.
In case you’re wondering, nope, I do not regret not putting in my 110% for Chinese, not really. How can I regret all the extra free time? :D
I only regret telling all of you that I hated Chinese and I don’t give a shit about it, when actually I find that the best Chinese essays have a kind of poignancy that sound dull and boring when expressed in English. It’s hard to write an essay that’s as thought-provoking in English as it is in Chinese. It’s not that Chinese is more melodic and poetic than English, and that English is like sandpaper. It’s just that both have different ways of being beautiful. All languages have different ways of being beautiful.
So to kind of make up for bitching about it all these years, here I am, cramming for my Chinese exam. That, and I really like my fat Chinese tuition teacher, who is ever-so-patient with me (x And that even a lousy B- is going to look wayyyy better than a C or D on my results slip.
Besides, kiasu Lou doesn’t feel like just giving up like that. It’s ONLY SPM but it’s still the SPM, and it’s also the last Chinese exam I’m going to have. Unless i get really unlucky and get sent to China to study sometime in the future. In which case, God help me. =_______=
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P.S.: I think this post requires a disclaimer: whatever I’ve just said, it’s not going to stop making me heave a SIGH of relief once Chinese is over.
NO MORE CHINESE HOMEWORK! :D
Oh wait, I haven’t done Chinese homework for two years already.
NO MORE FEELING GUILTY ABOUT NOT DOING CHINESE HOMEWORK! :D
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P.P.S.: I just realized how much this post sounds like a public apology to Chinese for defacing it for 5 years. I have a feeling that I’m going to reeeeeally regret posting this up. You all are going to go HAH I TOLD YOU SO. But whatever. By 12.45pm Monday 14th December 2009, it’ll mean nuts!!! :D
