This is the Case I found in the store-room several days ago and the wonderful contents will make for several revealing postings.In a file I re-discovered my collection of my Primary Six examination papers. Don't ask me why I kept them. Is it the magpie in me or the karung guni man? I cannot tell. Some of the stuff is sweet and poignant, while others are hilarious - at my expense of course.
Here comes the first.
My first big boo boo is my failure to give the right title for the composition topic 'Yourself'. I should have conjugated it to 'Myself'. Mr Tan Sin Ho was quite strict. 'Pr.' as a short form for 'Primary' is unacceptable. The roman numeral for V needs a stroke at the top and the bottom. My name is spelled without the additional 'o' and that remained uncorrected until I got to secondary school.All in all, what a yucky piece with a sentence like 'My hair is black, my eyes are brown, and my skin is also brown'. How unimaginative. I would have given myself 20/50
instead of 35.
Anyway 2 generations later, our great-niece Sarah Hana wrote this version of 'herself' in a little 555 notebook that I had given her . By the way, in the 21st century, you write down your 'biodata', not 'Myself'.
Here's the data input.
I would mark her 7 out of 10 - after all she's only 7 years old. She has a broader sense of family and nature than I had and for that I have to give her 8 marks. And for those who are unfamiliar with the KL jargon, 'Giant' is a supermarket. In my time all we had was Kedai Seng Teow and Kedai Ah Chwee.And because she did not describe herself, here's the data-maker. Hmm, should I reduce her marks for this omission - but then I was 13 when I wrote that howler? Maybe nowadays these hi-tech kids resort to mobile cameras, ipods and drongles and do not depend on words. Still, it's a shame for words require more thinking and imagination.
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And this song is for Nadia, Bella, Adam, Ariff, Tasha, Sarah Hana, Anis, Ilyas, Emir and Sofia from tok ngah and tok kacang aka tok iain.
4 comments:
this is precious, AsH!
p.s. and "tok kacang" just cracks me up. what's the story there, if i may ask. :D
Mekyam,
You and I have a sense of history and time. Thank you for your thoughts.
When my sister's 'cucu' were much younger - about 5(?) - they asked Iain 2 questions. Firstly why are you white and why are you so tall?His typically cheeky answer was :
(1) he fell into a bag of flour when he was a baby and (2)he ate a lot of 'kacang panjang'.
They were nonplussed for a while and then their faces lit up and realised they were being taken for a ride. Their revenge was to call him 'tok kacang' and that stuck despite their tok wan's admonitions. I could have given them better nouns like SOG (silly ole git) or MOG (miserable ole git) but then their tok wan would give me a right telling off!
gosshhhhh........
sooooo long u keep that paper.. and i do proud tosarah, even still 7 but alread can write in english.. during my time, so funny.. i only know "yes" and "no".. and all my english i will start wit the word.. "once upon time" hehehe
Thank you Helas. You know , that paper is over 53 years old, older than your parents!!
And Sarah Hana thank you too.
When I was 7, my English was also limited to 'yes' and 'no'.
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