Truth is, I neglected the Chinese language intentionally in my primary and secondary school days. It was not considered cool in my books. And not cool to my school friends either (so I thought).
I began to appreciate the language at a much older age. I wanted to speak to my parents in proper Chinese. To write letters to them. And maybe even send text messages. I wanted to be able to communicate to my parents without struggling for words or replacing them with English words. I wanted to build a deeper relationship with them, to learn from them, to listen to their stories and understand them better.
So after about 5-6 years of saying that I wanted learn Chinese, I finally signed myself up for a Chinese course at TAFE. Little did I know how much I was going to learn. It was a true challenge. I had to stop myself from using my mispronunciations. It took a lot of self-discipline to not skip classes and to pick up Chinese sentence structures.
My biggest handicap was writing in Chinese. The strokes are so difficult to master and I spent hours writing and erasing and rewriting characters so they mirrored (as much as possible) those from the textbooks. I have been told that my writing is similar to that of a child. It is a working progression and it takes a lot of practice and patience.But I love the art of Chinese calligraphy. It is beautiful and I am so happy that I am now able to recognise some characters.
During my recent trip back to Brunei, I spoke more to my parents and family members in Chinese. I was not shy to use words and I even wrote a card to my parents in Chinese.
And today, I took my test and passed! I have made some really good friends in my Chinese class and we are all planning to continue with the second semester. It has been a very rewarding 104.
Huang Ying Zai Lai
No comments:
Post a Comment