Chinese, only on the inside.

I grew up in an English speaking family all my life. I can say that my Mandarin speaking and writing skills were close to… zilch until I reached Secondary school. Here’s a little background information for you. I started Chinese tuition early in Primary school, and I cannot tell you how much I loathed having to speak Mandarin or even dragging myself to the tuition centre. I hated when the people around me spoke Mandarin, and I always saw them as different. As I was from St. Hilda’s Primary School, a co-ed, multi-racial school, it seemed only normal that everyone conversed in English.

However, one would not understand the culture shock I got upon entering Secondary school. Having not fared too well in my PSLE, I ended up in Chung Cheng High (Branch). This school was actually a neighbourhood school with a nicer sounding name located at Guiliemard Road. The first person I spoke to while lining up before class, said “Hi, my name is Sylvia”, to me in Mandarin. On top of that, our uniform was white with metal studded buttons. All the boys regardless of age wore short pants and all the girls kept short hair. Our entire school attire practically screamed COMMUNIST! I could not help but feel that my entire being was placed in the wrong school, in fact, the wrong Cheena[1] school.  An Ah Lian[2], also spoke to me in Hokkien[3] on the first day of school saying “Diao si mi diao”, which literally translates to “Stare what Stare” in a bid to question why I was staring at her. This actually left me stumped, without a reply for the girl because I did not understand what she had said until a friend pointed it out to me.

So after settling into class, I tried to make some other new friends, while trying to get by in my poor Mandarin. At that point in time, I was at my wits end, and had decided to use the “When in France, be like the French” method to assimilate my way in until I met person A. Upon hearing how broken and incoherent my Mandarin was, person A exclaimed, “Eh, your Chinese is horrible, stop trying to speak Chinese when you can’t!” It was then that I thanked my lucky stars that I had finally found someone who was willing to converse in English, and up till today, is still a close friend of mine.

I did continue to speak English, but at the same time, I also tried my best to converse in Mandarin whenever possible. This “bilingual-ness”, proved to be useful throughout my entire time in Chung Cheng as it allowed me to get to know others from different family backgrounds, and also help me improve my Mandarin. It also taught me to interact with others different from me and at the same time, allowed me to enjoy my Secondary School education as I slowly caught on to their jokes and learnt to appreciate their nuances.

Thinking back, I would probably not have made many friends or had as much fun if I had chosen to just continue speaking in English while the majority spoke in Chinese. This really shows the importance of being willing to understand and learn a culture of any kind, even if its School culture. Without a good understanding of the norms of a culture which one wants to fit into, he or she would actually stick out more instead and have even more difficulty fitting in. Therefore, I am proud to say that, I survived the culture shock, but don’t expect me to rattle on in Mandarin after having left my Secondary School for so long. (:

 

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[1]  A local slang word meaning “Very Chinese”

[2]  A local slang for a female delinquent

[3] A Chinese Dialect