So it's back to the basics. It's starting again at the very beginning. When you learn to read, you start with A, B, C. When you learn to sing, you start with Do, Re, Mi. But somehow, each time i start to learn how to speak mandarin, i start with 1, 2, 3. Or to be more precise, yi, er, san.
Yes, this is another attempt of mine to learn the language of me ancestors. I've lost count how many attempts i have made - either on me own or by lessons. There was the few times when i tried to learn using cassettes and even CDs. No discipline. Then i started having lessons. One was in church. The teacher stopped after a few classes. Were we that bad?
The most recent attempt was taking lessons from a Chinese girl studying in London. But it should not be a surprise to many of you that taking mandarin lessons inevitably brings back memories of being in the UK.
Hui Guo was her name. I found her on the net. After a few exchanges of e-mails, i decided to give her a try. It was quite a nice experience. Being a student at SOAS, UOL, she used the classrooms there to conduct her classes. so i had the opportunity to enter the campus of SOAS and used the classrooms there. It wasn't anything great, tho. Pretty drab and ordinary. But still, it was SOAS!
So memories of those dark, cold wintry nites when i would exit the tube at Russel Square and meet her at SOAS would accompany the memories of studying mandarin.
Hui was really nice too. And patient! In additioinal to the lessons, i enjoyed just chatting with her after the lessons. Being all alone in London, it was nice to have someone to chat with and meet up on a regular basis.
Unfortunately, our frenship din last long. It was cut short due to the theft of the money in me bank account. Having no money, i could not carry on with the classes. Being desperate, i returned to Colchester and got a job there instead. Shortly after that, i was called to return home due to the health of me dad.
I dun know wat happened to her. Altho i did try to contact her when i went back for a visit during the summer of 2007, we could never find a suitable time to meet up. When i was in London, she was away. We did chat a while on the phone...
Another thing which brought back memories of me stay in the UK is my fellow student now. There are only 2 of us. Altho she has never been to the UK, the interesting thing is that i got to know her when i was sudying at Essex!!! Thanks to Jon, i started reading her blog and then from there, we got to know each other. We were 'e-frens', i guess! It was during the summer of 2006 and it was a most wonderful time back then. World Cup, Wimbledon, Food-on-3... and her!
Anyways, i really hope that this time round, i will actually benefit from the lessons. I'm not too ambitious - all i want is to be able to have simple everyday conversations in mandarin. And if i were to backpack around China, i would be able to survive - and understand if a local is saying bad things about me! :-)
Ultimately, this may have an important bearing on where i may spend the rest of me life... and what i may be doing during that period of time.
Still, it was fun and i'm looking forward to more lessons. I oso need to practice! Can't wait for the day when i'm able to really post a post in mandarin - not copy and paste some chinese words online and pass it off as a post here!
*One of their hits in the late 80s.
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