Our childhood language

Japanese food ordered in English

My classmate from primary school was ordering dinner at a Japanese restaurant. Since she frequented the place, the rest of us classmates decided to leave the ordering to her. As she was talking to the waitress, my ethnically Indian, Singapore-born and raised, and educated in the UK, friend commented, "You can tell she's a convent girl because she's ordering (food) in English."

That set off a conversation about our transition from primary to secondary school. All seven of us at dinner have been classmates and schoolmates from primary to secondary school, spanning 10 years in all. In primary school, we spoke English all the time, even at home. We laughed at those who were good at Chinese, or who came from predominantly Chinese-speaking homes. We were the despair of our Chinese teachers of every class till we left school.

When we entered secondary school, we were placed in classes with girls from another convent school. As one of my classmates put it, "We were all wondering who these girls were. They were all speaking Chinese all the time. So 'cheena'." ('Cheena' is a derogatory term for Chinese-educated people who can't speak proper English.) In reality, these girls were more comfortable speaking Teochew 潮州话 to each other because that's what they spoke at home. Somehow England and China in the same school just don't mix well. To this day, we still have a bit of a divide between us, even though we may have been in school together for four years. When trying to trace former classmates, one of the questions we ask is, "Which school was she from?" Looks like the divide will continue to stay for a long time yet.

I think I've come a long way since then. Today, I am comfortable with English, Chinese, Indonesian, Cambodian, even Thai, though I may not be as fluent in it as with the other four languages. I love being around people of different cultures, who speak different languages. They enrich my life so much. I don't think I can go back to the days of being monolingual (speaking and understanding only English) again.

Do I fit in with my classmates? Of course I do! I spent many precious growing-up years with them. We share tons of good memories that still leave us in stitches today, as we recount the fun and carefree days of childhood and teenage years together. But my life has taken on a richer flavour for all the multi-cultural friends I have made since my childhood. I would not want to trade this for anything in the world. These friends are precious treasure of a lifetime.

Enrich your life today by learning a new language and opening up a whole new world!

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