My Kiasu Teenage Life in Singapore (5 page)

She has a line running down the back of each leg and other funny things. She told us all this, and said how creative God is to make her like this. My God, she's full of admiration for God!

A misconception about Singaporeans is that they're SO clever. Of course, their education system makes them a lot cleverer than us, but it's 'coz of the way they learn from young. They're not super geniuses or anything. What I like here is the education system. But I haven't been studying alot or reading much or becoming cleverer and cleverer. I realized that I haven't read any wholesome books in my life before. I mean, all I read are silly kids' books, romance novels and a lot of
Archie comics.
I'm now reading
The Barretts of Wimpole
Street which is a play the Sec 2s read last year for Literature. Tell me 'bout everything. How's your life back in BM and at school? Are you taking tuition? Reply soon PLEASE. I'm always waiting for your letter.

Love, Pei Yi

Thursday 16 January

Dearest Mei Yee

It's late at night now. Your birthday is in half an hour's time. I've just finished rereading your old letters. When I read your letters, I giggle. This morning Nicole and I woke up so late—at 6.30 am—so I skippedbreakfast. I've changed partner. Here's the sitting arrangement in my class:

My former partner, Siyan, gave the excuse that the OHP (overhead projector) needs more space so I'm now sitting at “
” and Siyan at “X”. Siyan doesn't want to sit with me. I feel so disliked in school 'coz I have no close friends.

Swimming lessons tomorrow—I've paid S$15 for a course but I can't go 'coz period is here! Damn period. Sanitary pads here are more expensive. The only thing that's cheaper is highlighter. Only 80 cents each.

Alisa's former school in Malaysia has pupils that are rich, famous, extremely beautiful or talented. That's the impression I get but she says they're all very normal and not like what I think. One of her classmates represents Malaysia for sailing and another one of her classmates is the Sultan's grandson. Alisa is a class prefect.

She's the kind of girl that's popular and has many admirers. She eats very little and exercises a lot.

What have you been doing in BM? HAPPY BIRTHDAY! You're now SWEET SIXTEEN. Any admirers already? How's Jackson? Still so disgusting? I better go to sleep now.

Love, Pei Yi

Friday 17 January

Dearest Mei Yee

Today is your birthday. School was quite nice today. We had a class party today and I took some photos. The photos are being developed at Coronation Plaza. I'm glad I'm now sitting with Huiwee and near Yoonphaik, Serena and Lingling. They're quite nice and friendly. My classmates have this stereotypical impression of me being a goody-goody, extremely clever and a bookworm. One of them was reading a trashy novel and when I asked her, “What book are you reading?”, she replied, “You don't read this kind of book.” And during some class activity, when we had to say what our favourite activity is, a girl said to me, “Reading”.

Saturday 18 January

Hi Mei Yee

It's now 2.30 am, Saturday morning!! Jen Nee, Elizabeth, Pau Leen, Alisa, Nancy and I have been talking all night. Elizabeth's quite OK, I guess. I told you that everyone thinks she's a flirt 'coz she talks to all the guys. She can be quite friendly to girls when there are no guys around.

Today I borrowed a Judy Blume book,
Just as Long as We're Together.
I simply love Judy Blume!! She makes the characters in the stories SO cute and real!

I have 63 signatures now—good improvement.

For the English essay test, “Recollections of 1991”, I got 27/40. Quite good. Average is 20. Most of my classmates got lower than I. Sometimes I don't feel comfortable being cleverer than them 'coz some of them don't like ASEAN scholars. I guess these are the problems many scholars face at the beginning.

God, do I love weekends!!! I hope my being quieter here than in BM ('coz you're not here) won't make me eventually a quieter person. It's 3.05 am now. Better sleep.

Love, Pei Yi

Saturday 18 January
(Later at night)

Dear Mei Yee

Gosh! I've so (100x) many things to tell you.

Games were REALLY fun and funny today! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! I was in Red Team—the best team at cheating. Our leader is a spastic guy called Ekan. We played a game where we have to pass water down the line:

And Gaik Teong, a VERY funny guy in my Red Team, took the pail of the team next to ours and poured the water into our pail. And the other team didn't even know!!! We were all laughing like crazy. We didn't pass the water properly—we just poured it into the pail and cheated a lot. When the team next to ours poured it even slightly wrongly, Gaik Teong would shout, “Cheating! Cheating! No sportsmanship! Cheating, like little kids!” He's SO funny—I can't explain, but if you were there, you'd have died laughing!!!

The guys were all so damn funny. They caught one guy and dumped him into a mud puddle in the field. Then they caught another guy and he too got sabo (sabotaged). Nearly all the guys were dragged into the mud. So stupid and so funny! The other teams were cheering and our Red team wasn't. Then Ekan said, “Our team is special. No team spirit. No need to cheer!” So funny! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! They had some really nice cheers. The guys were really crazy. We had to count like this:

Ekan couldn't get us to count 'coz we'd all shout “One!” and someone else would also say “One!” then “Five!” then go backwards and all. So funny. Our team members were real cheaters. Once we had to throw water bombs to see which team collected the most. Red Team collected so many before the game even started but the organizers found out and gave our water bombs to another group. Purple came in first, and us cheaters were second!

In the morning, Alisa and I went for a walk around the expensive, beautiful houses beside Hua Zhong Hostel. The designs are so unique—unlike any I've seen before in BM. I passed the house of Mr Goh something, the Prime Minister of Singapore.

Later, Betty, Jen Nee and I went to Coronation Plaza. There are two bookstores there where you can buy books and sell them back if you want (at a lower price), and they have shelves and shelves of disgusting books!!!!!!!! Imagine so many of them! I bought one.

I've got the photos already. A bit blur 'coz of my lousy camera. Cost S$9 for 35 prints. They gave a proper photo album, though, not like the lousy ones in Malaysia.

A Sec 4 girl whom most people don't like asked Jen Nee and I to do chores for her to get her signature. Like cleaning her bag and going down to take water for her. I didn't want to do that so she asked me to get a written approval from a guy saying he wants to marry me. So I asked Leo. Of course he agreed—he agrees to do anything. He's very sporting—he does everything people ask him to do to get their signatures. He looks like a pixie with sharp ears:

And his hair is so funny. He's from Sabah or Sarawak (can't remember which) and he reminds me of those tribes like Iban or Kadazan. Sometimes he's SO funny, and I'll laugh and laugh at his antics.

Bye, love

Pei Yi

Sunday 19 January

Dear Mei Yee

I've caught a cold.

Elizabeth and I went to buy textbooks. I bought Physics, Chem and E. Maths for you. Add. Maths is out of stock. And guess what? I bought ten CDs for only S$59!! So damn cheap—cheaper than tapes. All classical music. There are 40 volumes but I bought the first ten only. Now all I need is a hi-fi to play them on! Elizabeth said me buying CDs is like a blind man buying colour cards. But I just keep thinking how worth it it is to buy a CD for only S$5.90. We spent a few hours browsing the shops at the shopping complexes on Orchard Road. I love the humorous Valentine cards. I wonder what'll happen to you on Valentine's Day. There was a fashion show at Isetan with beautiful models. If you were there, you'd keep saying how tall and slim they were.

I made you a card this morning again!

I'm now listening to La Mer. Some of Debussy's music is scary. I've told you before but I feel like telling you again—the composers are so marvelous!! To compose music out of nothing and for every instrument, and to know how it sounds when all the instruments play together! I'm not good at recognizing pieces.Nancy recognized a Mozart piece on the radio and I didn't. Nancy is funny, sometimes, 'coz she isn't shy to sing out LOUD and then ask you, “Nice, isn't it?” or read out her essays or some poems aloud with so much expression and then say, “Nice, isn't it?”

I love weekends!! The weekdays are so long. I keep waiting for weekends and when they're here, they're gone in the blink of an eye.

Monday 20 January

Dear Mei Yee

It's now prep time. School was OK. I usually have recess with ASEAN scholars but today I had recess with Huiwee, the girl who sits beside me.

Alisa was saying her lips are cracking and I said, kiss more to moisten them. And she said she's bored in the afternoon so I said, “Since your window faces the boys' block, why don't you send some eye messages to them.”She said she's beginning to know the kind of person I am. Ha! Ha!Ha!