解铃还需系铃人

华文华语教学最近在报章上谈的热，同事也各自分享自己 '读' ，不, 应该是被 '教' 华文的痛苦经历。

真的，俗话说得好，解铃还需系铃人，当年的政策还得当年的决策者自己推翻，多少曾经心灵受苦受难，今已成年的学者，心里终于好受释放了。

其实，也没有真的错与对，没有当年的试探，没有今天的发现。历史本来就有许多的牺牲者，一个人在哪里生，哪一年生，难免左右着他的命运。

我自己小学和中学的华文老师，我都没话说，因为他们都是很好的老师，我对汉语拼音很好的了解全都因为在小学扎的好基础。

但从高中高级华文我就也有苦水吐了。我爱老师教的红楼梦，现代散文，唐诗宋词。 但一直让我不理解的是为什么我得背人物分析之类的标准答案。 我自己的理解和标准的不合，那便是错！我考得很辛苦。

但是考试已经是很久以前的事了，心也不再痛了。 剩下的，也是最珍贵的，是丰富我炎黄子孙文学的精髓和色彩。

Hiatus

Since coming back from holidays, I have been finding it difficult to find motivation to blog. It may be because of the sheer discontinuation of momentum or due to a dearth of events to contemplate on.

It could be also due to my reading less since I have been spending my evenings re-watching the excellent DVD series 《雍正皇朝》.

Eventful Week

This week, full of events, finally ended. For the first five days, it was liaison officer duties for a ministerial meeting held in Singapore. And yesterday, it was a performance item with some colleagues for our organisation's dinner and dance.

Liaison Officer

The week started off on a somewhat bad note unexpectedly. The delegates lost but recovered a huge sum of cash. I had to spend the rest of the week facilitating between the delegates and the hotel for the investigations whilst performing my liaison officer duties for the minister. Despite this distraction, I enjoyed introducing some of our local attractions to the minister although this came at the expense of shut-eye time. They enjoyed a one-hour plus stop at the Night Safari followed by chicken rice and pork satay at a coffee shop along Syed Alwi Road. I also brought them to try some local hawker fare at Chinatown. The minister quipped that he will be bringing his family along for a visit when his schedule permits.

(A group photo with the minister and delegation before his departure at Terminal 1)

D&D Performance

Our preparation for our performance item was not smooth sailing as well. We abandoned our initial plan involving the use of instruments. Our final item had us singing and dancing to Michael Buble's Sway. We were let down by a poor sound system and not so professional sound engineers. I was particularly dissapointed when my wireless head-mic failed just at the start of our performance. This has taught me a valuable lesson in performance -- never use a head-mic unless it really is meant for singing. And I should have insisted a on sound check before the item.
Still, I enjoyed the week immensely having had the opportunity to make new acquaintances and to work together on a project with a team of young people.