Over the course of a few months, I was acquainted with a good friend who studied in Raffles Institution. Coming from a well-to-do family background, she probably has everything in the world to be happy for. Getting to travel to so many countries, including Europe and Japan before she turned 18, living in a lovely house, having the smarts and the looks, speaking in proper English (hardly in Mandarin), having supportive parents, achieving an almost perfect score for her A's, getting a scholarship, planning to get a Master's and a Degree in just 4.5 years, knowing full well what she wants to do in the future.
Wow.
Despite having known this friend of mine for some time, we didn't really make the effort to talk to each other for well, quite a fair bit of weeks, or rather, months. Perhaps because us average kids on the block don't feel comfy talking to "elitists" or people who were just too perfect to be talked to Well, at least until she stopped me one day and asked if I could accompany her somewhere. That was when we started talking. It was probably the longest convo I have ever had in my lifetime thus far.
We chatted a great deal and had many laughs over certain topics but I remember one of the more interesting views that she shared with me was one regarding languages. I first casually commented on how I like to speak to others in Mandarin because of the "qin qie gan" and how I can easily relate to others and vice versa. On further elaboration, I told her that whenever I explain things in Mandarin, people naturally will gather around me and listen in on what I have to say.
"It's like I am trying to sell 'gang wo'," so I mentioned. The sense of satisfaction of people gathering around you and knowing each and every word you said is an intangible gift on its own. She mentioned how "cute" it is when people speak in a mixture of English and Mandarin.
One other friend heard us and joined into the conversation awkwardly with,"I agree!". Somehow, the convo drifted and we talked about Chinese schools and English schools. I asked her if she will have made the choice to go RI again if she could do that all over again. I couldn't really remember what we said but she did mention that she will prefer Hwa Chong because people from Chinese Schools are more humble, funny, less arrogant and the like.
We did discuss some other stuff but I guess I shall leave out the details because it's not nice to type out opinions which are stereotypical... so I shall keep those details to myself.
What really prompted me to make this entry that doesn't seem to have a "proper" conclusion is that I have never had such a thought-provoking, funny and long conversation in such a long time and it's a convo that was rather meaningful considering that it contains opinions from "the other side of the field".
Probably one of the funniest and wittiest convos I've ever had and will like to retain in my memory, lol.
