No more languages for me!

I’m a Malaysian, and of Chinese descendant.

You see, in terms of fluency, my first language is Cantonese (and Mandarin), second language is English and third language is, Malay (national language of Malaysia).

I admit as a Malaysian, my command of Malay sucks and whenever situation requires me to speak or write in the language, I fail miserably. It’s an irony that I only got to mix with my fellow Malay friends in my working adult life.

You see, as Chinese descendants, my parents decided that I should preserve our roots by giving me a Chinese education (Malay and English is compulsory on top of Chinese). And yes, 99.9% of the time you’ll speak Mandarin, except the 0.01% of the time you’ll speak your Malay and English in the respective classes.

Chinese primary school was OK but the Chinese secondary school (i.e. Chinese Independent High School) was hell.

Why? B’coz you basically got to learn your Maths, Biology, Physics, Chemistry etc. in two different languages (Malay and Chinese) in two separate class, of two different syllabus, conducted by two teachers and two exams (Yes, we got to sit for both the government exam and our Chinese Independent Schools’ exams).

I don’t know about my ex classmates, but for me, I almost went cuckoo after that.

The leap from a Chinese medium environment to an English one for my tertiary education was a matter of life and death, I remembered. Half of the time I was struggling on my English rather than on my Management courses.

Now that I need to deal with the civil servants which is in the Malay domain, I wonder how ‘exciting’ it will be?