My family started 2008 off with a New Year's service at The Masland Methodist Church - a profoundly meaningful devotion to God at the kick-off of the year, reminding us to prioritise God's words throughout the year.The pastor shared with us Proverbs 3:5-6, saying, "You have to put all your trust in the Lord and do not rely on your understanding."
The New Year's message challenged the congregation to trust God wholeheartedly without fail. I was much enlightened spiritually!
What a wonderful start of a year.
Bata Shop at High Street - it was doing brisk business this morning.
After service, I took Yian to back-to-school shopping for Allen. Allen is in Form 4 Science this year. This is posing a new challenge for him as he goes on to a more senior form.
Back-to-school shopping spree kicked off as early as in the beginning of December. We noted that most of the student accessory shops were crowded with shoppers for last-minute shopping this morning.
Yian was an early bird in accessory shopping for Sidney, Allen and Pauline. However, that day she was shocked to notice that Allen's old shoes had been worn out with two holes. As such, we reckoned that the shoes are not fit for use anymore.
When we arrived at Bata Shop along Jalan Lebuh Tinggi, the shop was bustling with brisk business. The tawkey was so swamped by shoppers at the cashiering counter that he could only give a brief greeting. We made a quick selection. Thereafter, we almost had to force our way out.
This frolic back-to-school shopping reflected human inclination to last-minute rush!
Jun Rong Economy Market at Workshop Road - a busy back-to-school scene.
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11 comments:
Ur children taking Chinese, Tony? I read in the papers that some YB said schools discourage students from taking Chinese and provided statistics to show that they do better than in BM or English. Gosh! He does not know that only the better ones are encouraged to take the subject, at SPM level, maybe 40 out of over 200. For one thing, if the students do not get straight As, they may not get some of the scholarships, be it Chinese or any other subject (not even the money from Yayasan Sarawak!)...and the standard is VERY high as only the better students are taking Chinese. I think schools will allow the students to take if they insist as some are not hoping for any scholarship. I do wish people will get the facts correct before making any press statements.
新年蒙恩！
John 16: 13 Howbeit when he, the SPIRIT of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
I was in Delta Mall. Went up and down, not come to an hour and went to Sing Kwong.
Children learn fast because their brains are developing. Give them whatever languages and they will be able to master them. Of course they have to practise often. In Sibu alone, one knows at least Foochow, Mandarin and Bahasa Malaysia. This is already three languages. So if the school is teaching English, that will be four languages already. The government SHOULD NOT stop anyone from mastering any language or any subject. If they create a policy stopping a certain language from being used, it is actually going against basic human rights to learn. It is known that to achieve a government's agenda, an oppression of some sort is used and that is not right. God creates human beings with such a capable brain to be used and not to be wasted away. So may be that Yang Berhormat does not know that people who are not Yang Berhormat can think better than he does. If this is so, then why should he be allowed to continue behaving like he knows it all when he does not ?
Sibu
I believe the YB is correct. I asked some friends of mine and they confirmed it to be a general guideline in certain schools.
Frank
For one thing, there are not enough Chinese teachers (and that is a backlash from parents who want their children to becomedoctors, engineers, accountants...). One teacher can take just about so many periods in a week, so to open up more classes would mean he/she will have to teach more than 24 hours a day. A director (principal, as they are called now) of a teacher training institute said they planned to open TWO Chinese classes and THREE Tamil classes but in the end, they only opened ONE because there were very few applicants...and even the few that applied were not suitable teacher-material. I've also heard of students from Chinese primary schools who got D or E for English and BM in the UPSR, and they are not good at Chinese either. They claim that the teachers teach them everything in Foochow.
Oldie but goodie, anonymous,
Chinese community at large have to give support to Chinese language education not just morally and financially, but also in manpower. As pointed out pertinently, we need both good teachers and students in order for our language to flourish in this part of the world. Both schools and parents should work together to give moral support to students who wish to pursue Chinese language at SPM level. Certain disciplines of studies are already overcrowded. Give thought to go in to Chinese language education where demand far exceeds supply, as manifested by anonymous, for the sake of our mother tongue.
Political parties may have a role to play in moderating internally in the administration of our government, but the important part of it lies with schools and parents.
Rights to mother tongue education are spelt out clearly in our Malaysian Constitution. These rights are beyond question presently.
新年蒙恩！
我认为，不管教育制度演变成怎样，不管是一种语言，还是一百种语言，不管YB说什么，。。。。。做父母的，偶尔也听听孩子们的想法。让他们快乐的学习，更为重要。
vjloh, you also have a valid point here.
Singapore had a Speak Mandarin campaign in the 80s to unite the Chinese. Even the favourite Cantonese shows from HK were dubbed.
However, they found that the standard of English dropped (They changed the syllabus from PETS to PEP) and worse still, the Chinese culture was disappearing. Mandarin is just a language - the Chinese culture is made up of the Foochow culture, the Hokkein culture etc.
So if the parents speak Mandarin at home, the children will grow up speaking Mandarin and then they go to Mandarin schools where everybody speaks Mandarin, the dialects will die out eventually. (I've noticed that most young people today cannot speak Hokkein though Foochow is still going strong in Sibu, praise the Lord!)
The last straw was when the opposition was winning seats by campaigning in Hokkein, so they scrapped the whole Speak Mandarin campaign (It wasn't much of a problem actually for the ruling PAP party will just slap the opposition with a lawsuit which the latter would always lose...and become illegible to be MPs!)
Personally, I am of the opinion that the more languages you can speak the better - like this lady Indian teacher who speaks fluent Indian, English, Malay, Iban, Melanau, Hokkein and Foochow (Dunno whether she can speak Mandarin or not. She probably does!). I really salute her!
擠一擠應該很有氣氛，哈
Merci mille fois, J'aime cette information fort utile.
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