Broken English

 People (usually those who just came from Taiwan/China/anywhere whose native language is not English) (or those whose profession is a English As Second Language teacher. Their patience is somehow more thicker than the rest of us) who don’t know me very well would usually comment on my English as such: “Hey, your English is good!”

 Well, they were wrong.

 Don’t believe me? Ask Steven; let me assure you, he will say exactly the same thing.

 Until high school (or senior high school for those of you who’s at the US), English was my most hated subject. Any test that was in (or remotely related to) English would almost always guarantee a near (sometimes exactly) bottom mark. No matter how hard I study, how many exercise I did, the result were always the same. (There was even a period of time I wrote all my diary entry in English.). Back in those days when all test and exam papers were marked in red pen, my was covered in red when I received them from the teachers.

 How disappointing, how heartbreaking.

 The most commonly used language only returned to my good book when I entered high school. It was a vocational school—not exactly mainstream. Therefore its main focus was not on any of those academic subjects. For the first time in my life, I actually saw a chapter text finished in just one page. No fancy vocab was given, 80% of them were actually repeats from those we’ve already know. The most interesting part was, teachers taught in those academic subjects at school actually ‘leaked’ what paragraph, what pages they were going to test us. For crying out loud, you have to try really hard to get a bad grade.

 So, for the first time in my life, my marks in English language (and English Language only) were among the top three in my class. With good marks came with new interests, suddenly English and I became best buddy. I started taking extra classes outside the school, bullying my mum (not exactly ‘bullying’, she was nearly burst into tears when I asked her to pay for those lectures, arh~~ her daughter had finally come to her senses, started studying hard now! Soon she might progress to other subjects.) to enroll me to one of those language institutes—ELSI (I think they called it differently now), Global Village, even TOEFL. Throughout my three year’s high school. I no longer cried like a baby every time I heard the magic word English. By the time I was in by third year, my favorite music radio station was ICRT, I was even dared enough to talk to my teacher’s husband (who’s Austrian) when we met up at her apartment to discuss some projects. I was no longer shy away, trying my best to be invisible at one of those outings involved in non-Chinese speakers. Ms. Chatterbox was born from the ashes of burned test/exam papers.

 But.

 Well, everything had a but. Haven’t you heard a lot of people always said: “blahblahblahblah…but…”

 The damage had been done. The shabby foundation I did prior to high school affected my writing skill tremendously. While my talking continued to impress those who doesn’t speak the language, those who know English well could spot my flourished disguise—my English was bad, bad, and bad to the bone (I talked fast, and most time don’t usually stop and think about whether my grammar was correct or not). I still remembered the first time I asked Steven to check my essay after we’ve been out, the shock (and trying very hard not to laugh) on his face nearly made me stab myself out of embarrassment.

 So this time after I moved my blog to Pixnet, I decided: I will write my blog mainly in English from now on, his facial expression was entirely predicable.

 “Are you mad? Those visitor will laugh their socks off.” He said.

 “Well, I don’t care. I typed English way faster then in Chinese anyway. Do you know it took me three days straight to type one page’s of blog in Chinese. It’s a whole lot easier in English.”

 Steve stared at me for a long minute before shrugged: “…Do whatever you want, it’s your blog.”

 Just when I happily turned around and facing my computer again, fingers wide stretched, as if I was about to play some very magnificent piano recito, Steven noted thoughtfully: “But what about those reflex thing you told me when people came across a foreign language?”

 I nearly knocked my forehead on the desk. I

 Dang.

 I forgot those.

 I am not sure if I am the only one who has this problem. Even after learning English for all these years, I still have a very odd reflex when I came across any English Literature. Anything. My brain would immediately switch off and refuse to take a word in. Ended up I often stared at the same page for the whole afternoon and had no idea what that page is talking about. The more serious the book was (eg. School textbook, Shakespearian literature), the bigger the reflex. To date, only a handful of books won’t trigger the impulse.

 What happen if there are viewers like me dropping by and see my blog suddenly ‘gone English’, decide not to visit anymore?

My face nearly turned blue.

 “Again, it’s your blog.” Steven patted my back: “What was that story you told me about the shoemaker, ‘I haven’t come a cross a pair of shoes I couldn’t sell’?”

 Right.

 I looked at him for a minute, before noticed Horatio had climbed up to my knees, very expertly move the mouse about. Within minutes, my blog opened on the screen.

 I sighed.

 Well, at least Horatio will read it.