School Enrolment Fund & My Bahasa Melayu Lessons
There was a registration letter for Christopher this morning. Never mind that the letter was written in Bahasa Melayu and that I had to flip through a Collins Malay-English Dictionary to fill up the form. A particular column annoyed me.
Occupation of father
Monthly Salary
Occupation of mother
Monthly Salary
Occupation of guardian
Monthly Salary
Total Salary
Salary Per Capita
Why do I feel like I'm filling up an Income Tax Declaration form?
On another attachment, a reminder list was drawn up among which was school donation. The donation request was diplomatic and despite asserting that a donation is not compulsory, the adminstrator has kindly requested the parent to bring along a donation. I would rather they call it the School Enrolment Fund.
It is a common local practice to extort donation from parents to secure a position in school. All of us did though my case was more extreme. I arrived the first day in school without a table and a chair. I had to share with another classmate until a set of table and chair (which the school kindly rang up my parents to pay for) was delivered the following day. The absurdity of the situation is senseless and laughable. Mum and I had fun filling up the form bearing in mind that a Mum's friend was requested to install a new air-conditioning system for the school after a careless remark.
My command of the Malay Language is embarrassingly primitive. Initially we used to call our cousins for help with my pre-school brother's homework. My cousins taught us enough Malay over the line to survive the day's homework. This went on till Mum bought a Malay-Chinese Dictionary. Things improved in that I could spend twenty minutes to decipher the instructions on the worksheet without anyone knowing. However, monsters called essays and sentence making came in Year Two. Matching words to pictures was one thing but essays?!
Dad took over as Cikgu. When he goes abroad, we managed the essays over the phone and sms. It was sheer nightmare. After a work trip, Dad bought me the Collins Dictionary. Armed with two Dictionaries and a modest knowledge of the Language, I became somewhat independent. The success I had is decent. I drilled my brother to a 95% in his Mid-Year Exams. It was absolutely stunning. Unfortunately he didn't pass his oral examinations. But his good written paper mark made up for the dismal oral examination mark.
As I marked down the calender yesterday, three more months and I could be free from Malay homework! Yay! I can save up on that Oxford English-Malay Essay book too. :) Now, I've to get through a pile of Comprehension and fill-in-the-blank exercises.
Back to Collins.
posted by Michelle at
4:30 PM
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