Watched two other films over the weekend: 千里走单骑 'Qian Li Zou Dan Ji' (Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles) and 霸王别姬 'Ba Wang Bie Ji' (Farewell My Concubine).

[1 li equals to 0.31 mile]



To be honest, I am not into art films. I don't usually spend my time watching slow-moving and rather quiet motion pictures. I love action pack and comedies. The fact that I could sit down and watch them till the end is truly an amazing feat.

Last Saturday, I followed through the whole story of 千里走单骑. This film is half Japanese and half Mandarin. I struggled a bit in order to understand what the people are saying even when they speak Mandarin due to unfamiliar accent. Now imagine half the time I have to read the subtitles... Those who know me, knows that I can't read Chinese. Truth be told, I WAS illiterate in Chinese. None of my friends would have thought I'd sit through the night. However, I discovered something which I never knew. I realized I could read most of what they were saying!

I found out my reading speed had improve tremendously. Or more likely, the story flow is too slow? It doesn't matter! This was the part I enjoyed the most. I can recognize many 'zhongwen' characters. And I can catch up with the changing speed of the subtitles. It was thrilling! It could also be that the words they use in most of their conversations are simple.

Anyway, I was Malay-educated.

Many people thought that, coming from missionary schools like St. Anne, St. Andrew and St. Anthony, I must be English-educated. That is incorrect. By the time I entered school, English syllabus and the use of English language as medium of instruction no longer exist. The Malay language had taken over. It was called Bahasa Malaysia back then and was later renamed to Bahasa Melayu.

I mix with Malays when I was a kid. Especially so when I studied in a Malay school Temenggong Abdul Rahman, in my final two primary years. I spoke fluent Malay. Even the Malays themselves could not detect any flaws in my diction. As I was also very tanned as a boy, I was easily and warmly regarded as a Malay by my Malay friends. It is a stark contrast to my current complexion - very fair skinned. Inadvertently, I come in touch with Islam. I learned about the religion and Arabic from my friends and had earned an Islamic or maybe a Malay name - Iskandar.

But I am not a Muslim.

As we speak Mandarin at home, my mother thought that it is essential for me to know how to read and write in 'zhongwen'. So, she taught me zhongwen. I also learn from my siblings who goes to Chinese schools. Alas... I return almost all that I learnt back to them. But, as you can see, my life evolves around non-Chinese materials. I read English newspapers and books. My homeworks are in Malay. How can I not keep forgetting zhongwen?

Learning zhongwen is not like learning A B C where one can piece the sound of the letters together. In Chinese, you have to MEMORIZE the ideograms. And there are thousands of it. So, if you don't use it often, you'd cleanly forgotten them and will have to check from the dictionary. Fortunately, I still manage to keep my proficiency in 'hanyu pinyin' - the romanized spelling of Chinese characters.

As I grow older and comes into contact with more friends from Chinese education background, I begin to feel left out. I find that I can hardly participate well in their conversations which require Chinese knowledge. I can't experience the joy of reading comic books. I can't get to know more in-depth details about Chinese history without reading its original texts. I can't benefit from the wealth of information in Chinese newspapers. I can't enjoy critically acclaimed Chinese novels. And Chinese is becoming more important and relevant in this era. I even lost a chance to work in China due to my insufficiency in Chinese literacy. It was so exasperating!!

ROARRRRRR!!!!

So, I decided to change my life. To accelerate the mastery of zhongwen, I seize every opportunities that comes to me. I read simple comic books like Doraemon and Old Master Q (Laofuzi). It uses simple Chinese so I can make better guesses at unfamiliar or unknown characters in quotes or sentences which contain characters I can recognize. I join people to karaoke. Here, I can learn how to pronounce them. I learn the hardway as I feel 'paiseh' to keep bothering other people to teach me. Of course, I do ask people but not often.

Though I have reached quite some level, it's still a long way to go. I made a series of discoveries in the Chinese Film Festival. At the end of the day, I can say I really appreciate the films. It's nice being able to be part of the things most people do.