Q

in a stray conversation with a friend recently, i uncovered my ability to recite the 三字经 , 木兰诗, and a large bulk of 唐诗三百首.

in primary school we were made to memorize all these in class. rather ironically the convent school i was in had an excellent panel of mandarin teachers. by excellent i mean by the standards of us chinese: strict, passionate, demanding, unrelenting, and thoroughly intimidating. i say this in the most respectful way possible.

at that time it seemed like sadism – why would they want us to memorize things obviously beyond the scope of our syllabus, and how do they expect us to retain that much? well i’ve proven their foresight right in this regard: young minds are bloody sponges. i haven’t read an entire paragraph of chinese since 2009 and there i was spewing 孟洁然 like it was my life song.

more surprisingly was that i understood these poems. when and how they managed to cram 300 poems into our brains along with their underlying meaning i have no idea, but they did a good job. although… admittedly my memory (especially for conversations) is quite extraordinary; i used to recite commercials verbatim to entertain friends. anyway.

on hindsight, i am rather grateful they’d tortured us that way. torture may sound like a hyperbole but in truth it wasn’t so far from it. we had our ears twisted and collars pulled, had insults yelled at us in front of the class, given impossible amounts of homework. but somehow we got through because we were children from the 90s and we just take this shit.

revisiting these 唐诗 makes me appreciate how beautiful they are, really. i should read more of them.