Chinese in Singapore

Well, it's an isolated case but while I was on the way home, I saw this Chinese teacher (as in person who teaches chinese) marking this primary 5 student's ting xie book. It was the first ting xie for the year I'm guessing (it was dated 2/1/2009).

And well, lets just say this kid's chinese is as good as mine when I was in Primary 5. Out of 10 words, this kid got about 3 correct. And then there's the dictation where the student only managed to write about 10 to 15 characters.

And guess what the lao shi marked him? 15/120. That mark is pretty depressing to see for an 11 year old. I mean, she was dedcuting marks for any errors. Poor kid, probably will give up on chinese or already did I'm guessing

Anyways, I guess that's what happened to me. In the end from Sec 1 onwards, I cheated in all my ting xie onwards by using cheatsheets (in order of use over 4 years) on:

• my calf
• the underside of my arm
• my cast during the time i fractured/ sprained my ankle
• my wallet (my personal favourite)
• my pencil box
• plainly putting the cheatsheet on the table by inscribing the table (using blue ink on blue table)

Well, it's safe to say it didnt do any good to my chinese nor did it help to improve it. By the time I abandoned "regular" chinese to Chinese syllabus 'B', I completely stopped learning chinese. It's sad, knowing that the Chinese (foreign) Talents are coming in. Ratio 2 to every 1 singasporean but what's a guy to do. Probably hope that a revolution will occur in China and they all start speaking Tamil. That way, everyone else in the world (besides India) will be on an even playing field. Haha.

Moral of the story? Chinese teachers from China suck. They are strict and ... well, they usually don't look very good just like Beijing Ya from my secondary 2 days. Sigh. I wish I was Indian.