extremely lost in translation

last year i sent in my application to join my secondary school alumnae association. i'd meant to do so for years but kept putting it off owing to my hectic work schedule. then i realised that xian's growing up fast and i'd have to register her for primary school by 2008 and as an alumni member, my chances of getting her into the school would be much easier. so i filled in the form, enclosed a $300 cheque for the lifetime membership and sent it off.

coincidentally i bumped into dor during the new year. i'd lost contact with her after my wedding and it was good to see her at thomson plaza, which was a popular secondary school haunt since it's not too far from our school and home. we were on the prefectorial board together - she was our vice-head prefect and i was an exco member.

dor sent me an email and sms 3 weeks back and asked if i wanted to attend the alumni AGM with her. our ex-vp had invited her and she decided to pull me along for company's sake. i hadn't been back since 1993 when we were both there for a 6 month relief teaching stint before entering the university.

so yesterday afternoon i attended my first ever school alumni AGM...and suddenly i remembered how i struggled to cope in school during my formative years. i was late as the kids were fussing and i couldn't leave until sum stepped in to distract them while i hurried out. the AGM had already started when i stepped in the old language lab room (now converted to "the living room" for the alumni members).

and then it hit me. the AGM was conducted in mandarin.

*ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*

did i ever mention i'm effectively monolingual???? i can't speak proper chinese to save my skin! although i cleared my chinese papers in my 'O' and 'A' level exams, i had to sit for the exams twice for each level because i failed them the first time each. and i failed the oral exam component in my 'A' level exams because i couldn't read 95% of reading passage!

i had conveniently forgotten that my secondary school is a predominantly chinese-ed, SAP school although 99.9% of my peers are bilingual, with both english and chinese as their 1st language. (of course i took chinese as a 2nd language). chinese was the main medium for communication and the school song, morning prayers, and assembly periods were delivered in mandarin. honestly don't know how on earth i survived such an environment with my lousy chinese...but i somehow pulled through.

here's the school song, in chinese of course:

钟声悠扬絃歌讽诵
圣铎化雨泽被春风
发扬华夏优良传统
提倡女教美德坤成
发扬, 发扬华夏优良传统
提倡女教美德坤成

徳纯义坚校训是宗
学贯中西文化交融
尼各拉光芒万丈
吾国文化绵延无穷
尼各拉, 圣尼各拉光芒万丈
吾国文化绵延无穷

heh. i can only recognise the words 圣尼各拉 (st. nicholas)...and i can't translate the words. only know it's full of positive vibes.

anyway, i had no clue what was going on at first in the meeting since i was: 1) late 2) lost in translation. dor was sitting in front of me and she turned her head a few times and giggled when i shrugged my shoulders and gave blank stares. she whispered that she'd a bit of a culture shock as well and needed a couple of minutes to adjust to the sudden switch in language - by the way, dor's a literature and GP teacher at National Junior College (NJC) but she's definitely more fluent in chinese than i am, any day.

somehow i managed to piece together bits of information and with my limited vocabulary, vaguely understood what the main issues were. later during the self-introduction, i hesitated in my halting chinese but dor kept nodding as a form of encouragement. it *really* was back to school where i was handicapped by my language disabilities - but as i looked around, realised that there were also a few others like me who obviously preferred to use english as our lingua franca.

and sitting behind me was my old neighbour, karen. her parents lived 2 doors away from my folks. she too has 2 daughters and i'm willing to bet my last dollar that she's in the alumni for the same reason why i'm weathering this chinese verbal hail storm. but i think this would be good for xian - she's equally monolingual since i seldom communicate to her in chinese. immersing her in an all-chinese environment might help improve her language.

it's a pity i didn't have the time to roam around the campus to take shots of the buildings as i had to rush home to the girls. but i'm quite sure i'll be back soon for some sub-committee meeting or other. better brush up on my chinese now. :P