Confessions of a Cat-holic (43)

But having a biased mind and, at the same time, thinking that they were the world could be a deadly mistake. Looking at the way they bragged about themselves and put the whole world down, I saw the Jackson 5 no different from a pack of clowns. They obviously had not seen the outside world enough to come to a conclusion that the universe simply wouldn't revolve around them. Actually, our planet would not revolve around anybody. I did not know how they came to draw a conclusion that the Jackson 5 could outnumber me and my friends just because they always hang out together like siblings of pseudo-kinship found their second home in school while I was the only child in my family. All so warm and fuzzy.

I figured that if I couldn't possibly convince the Jackson 5 to see the truth, I might as well just confuse them. If they liked to see me as the succession of Luminous Cheung, why not for once pull up a face that they hoped to see? I knew what they were thinking. They thought that my English was excellent, my singing was awesome, and that I came from a westernized school with an international background as a Chinese-Japanese half blood princess. Coincidentally, I loved drama just so very much. I loved acting and pretending to be someone I was not. I saw this new school as a stage to showcase my theatrical talents.

I needed to give my thanks to Miss R. Lee back in St Francis for teaching me theatre arts. Apart from her coaching in the drama club, she was also my teacher in English. She was the one who taught me to act, and to act while speaking English. Prior to her lessons, I was a hardcore localist to the bone, meaning that I disliked English speaking or any sort of communications in any languages other than Cantonese. No, I didn't even speak Mandarin at all at home. I always made fun of Jennifer Lee's pretentious American accent and her signature tongue rolling way of expressions. But that didn't mean I couldn't speak English. I just preferred to speak Cantonese.

I didn't intend to appear "international", after spending some 10 years in a local environment. But I somehow saw a crack in the system of the new school and I might as well take the chance and act upon their wishes. I started to articulate when I spoke English, with a subtly exaggerated Canadian accent. I still couldn't spell very well though. But I tried to make it up by faking the way I pronounced certain words when I communicated.

Speaking of the English proficiency level among my new friends, I actually was quite surprised to find out that all the communication channels in school were in Cantonese. Back in the days, our girls were not allowed to convey in Chinese when speaking on stage, among teachers and Sisters, and in class. All of our notices, letters, announcements, instructions, teachings, students' response, and all official channels of communications had to be conducted in English, no excuse. I was inclined to speak Cantonese with my friends. Actually, we all were, except Jennifer of course. But naturally, we were still very comfortable speaking and texting each other on ICQ, MSN and on the phone in English.

The fact that my new friends never used English when texting or writing messages kind of took me by surprise. Especially among the Jackson 5, speaking or communicating and writing in English was a no-no to them. If I had to comment on the overall English proficiency level of my new friends, I would say it was quite terrible. The fact that the school was heavy on STEM education certainly did not help. Out of a class of 240 students, more than five and a half classes were science streamed and only half a class of them ended up taking humanities. And many of the humanities students were loser-repeaters, pushing the majority rest even further towards the science classes. There was evidently a focus too much on the mathematical skills and a lack of concern over language abilities among the students. Not only was their English horrible, their Chinese was also quite unsatisfactory. They just sucked at languages and the humanities subjects, period.