Diary of an Asian Kid

This is a series of my diary entries; whenever I feel a day is interesting enough (or when I have enough time), I'll type it up and post it on here.

Expect random stuff from time to time; I'm writing this to express my distaste for the Taiwanese education system.

A bit of background information: I'm in the ninth grade, which, over here, is the last year of junior high, and, as a result, all we're supposed to do is study all day long to get into a good high school (Basic Competence Test for Junior High School Students, known as BC, are what you might call 'High School entrance tests'. Our whole society is education-driven; if you haven't graduated from a good enough school, it would be next to impossible to get a halfway-decent job). Just wait and see, this is going to drive someone to bits.

Oh, and of course I've changed all the names of the people mentioned. Chinese names are awfully hard for foreigners to pronounce properly.

Constructive criticism and comments would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. Taiwan is a Chinese-Speaking country. So most dialogue, unless otherwise marked, should really be in Chinese. My English is ridiculously good (I got full 990 points on the TOEIC test, for example) for a Taiwanese because I lived in Singapore for five years, until Primary Four. I started Primary Five here. Oh, and I absolutely love reading in English. That alone makes me a bit of a weirdo in my class because, to them, the only place 'abroad' is the US. As in, whenever I tell people that I lived abroad, they automatically assume it to be America. They look down on Singaporeans' English (let's face it, people: even Singlish is much better than the thing you speak that you call English). Because of this, my English is better than my Chinese (which is actually all right), especially at writing. Okay, time to stop the gibberish; start the story!

November 20, Saturday

You will not believe what happened to me today. And, technically, tomorrow morning. I still don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

***

Why was I doing this again? Oh, yes. My dad had signed me on for the GEPT (General English Proficiency Test) Advanced test. As if that wasn’t enough, this was the writing/oral test. The good thing was that my mom came along as well. She hates writing even more than I do, though her oral is quite good.

Well, as I was saying, I didn’t particularly relish the thought of taking either of those tests. I’ve had a bad experience with the intermediate test before.

Even worse, the test took my whole afternoon. When I got home, my younger brother, Victor, informed me that two of my friends, Alice and Yvonne, had called me. I was surprised; they don’t call me often (actually, not at all). I tried calling both of them in the evening, but no one answered. I put the matter out of my mind. If they really wanted to contact me, it stood to reason that I would get a phone call sooner or later.

***

        Even though no one answered, I still tried calling Alice a few times. No one ever picked up the phone. Finally, at about half past nine, Yvonne called.

        “Did Alice call you?” she asked. She sounded quite worried.

        “Yes, but I wasn’t home,” I answered, intrigued. What happened? “My brother took the call. What happened?”

        “She called me in the morning and said something about meeting her in front of our school at two a.m. tomorrow, and she said she was already prepared. She asked me if I wanted to go with her.”

        I think I let out some sort of strangled gasp. “What? God. What did you say?”

        “I said I don’t know. Oh, she also said that this world wasn’t for her or something like that. She sounded quite serious. And when I called her back later, no one ever answered.”