Two Fish In A Bottle Chapter 6

Eh…. I wasn’t able to finish translating the whole chapter, so let's just count this as one chapter aye? Sorry >.

I started sweating from my palm. Even though my chinese tests results are the best in the cla.s.s, the chances of me answering wrongly low, but there was a time when I got two questions wrong in a row, I still remember that that day was the 30th , I was punished to 60 squats. On my way home that day, I felt like I was walking on clouds, even almost falling down the stairs. From then on, I was especially afraid of getting punished.

The second round is over too, leaving me and the students on the right side.

This time, only five to six students was punished.

“Faster! Don’t waste all of our time in cla.s.s!” Ms Chou actually said that to them. Just on earth who is wasting time in cla.s.s to physically punish student?

The feeling of waiting is terrible, my heart was pumping like mad and you could hear it go “Pu-tong, Pu-tong”

Ms Chou is actually quite a beauty, she dresses fas.h.i.+onably, different from the other female teachers. But her att.i.tude and the way she does things, made us feel that she is extremely terrifying.

“Ok, now it’s the turn for the last batch of students. Let’s discuss about the third part.”

I looked around me, everybody’s face was pale like paper, sweating from their foreheads.Why is it that attending lessons turned as scary as dying?

The third part is about rhetorics, the area which I have more confidence in.

Rhetorics: The art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques.

The first student reads out the question:

[Mother watched us four siblings growing taller everyday, faces changing every year, and could not help to sigh about how fast time flies.]

[In the sentence above, what kind of rhetoric method was used?]

“The answer is?? Ms Chou asked.

“Metaphor?”

”Wrong! Next!”

“Comparison?”

“Wrong!”

I was feeling nervous, there is still two more students before me. Honestly, I don’t know the answer too.

“Repet.i.tion?”

The teacher shook her head. The student in front of me stood up, I prayed that she answers correctly, if not, I will be doomed.

“Metonymy?”   

Metonymy : The subst.i.tution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for example suit for business executive, or the turf for horse racing.

“Wrong, wrong, wrong! Answers are getting more ridiculous by the second!” Ms Chou look at me, “it’s your turn Ping Shuang, don’t tell me that you don’t know.”

I stood up and took a wild bet: “Is it parallelism?”

Parallelism : The use of successive verbal constructions in poetry or prose which correspond in grammatical structure, sound, metre, meaning, etc.

“Wrong! Rhetorics is your best area! How can you get this wrong?”

Ms Chou looked at me, I suddenly felt that her expression looked like Wen Qiang, it is filled with mockery and sarcasm.

She dosen’t like me, because her favourite student is Annie. Annie’s chinese is very good, the teacher wants her to get the highest in the cla.s.s, but she always loses to me. The teacher thinks that I’m a stumbling block to Annie! That’s why she treats m so unfriendly.

I once unintentionally heard about how Annie was delightfully telling her friends about how  Ms Chou called her to the staff room the day before the release of our examination results to show her MY score.

If what Annie said was real, I have no idea why Ms Chou did what she did. After coming to light about this, I felt very uncomfortable.

“Teacher! I want to try!” Annie raised her hands.

“Alright, Annie, give it a shot.” Ms Chou smiled at her. Only when speaking to Annie, will she have this kind of expression.

“Is it duality?”

Duality : an instance of opposition or contrast between two concepts or two aspects of something; a dualism.

Duality? Sounds foreign.

“That’s right! Duality! Annie pays attention in cla.s.s!” Ms Chou took the chance to compliment Annie,

“What about you guys? What have I been teaching you all these time? Did you guys even bring your ears to attend  your lessons?” She turned her head to reprimand us, wearing a completely different face and voice.

I did not listen to her reprimanding. I kept thinking: What is “Duality” ? When did teacher taught us about it? Did I read it somewhere before?

Ah! I remember now!

Once I borrowed a chinese SPM revision book from the library, even though it is not of my level yet, but I saw that I had in depth descriptions and explanations about rhetorics, so I took it home to take down notes.

SPM : The Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM), or the Malaysian Certificate of Education, is a national examination taken by all fifth-year secondary school students in Malaysia, equivalent to eleventh grade in America's K–12

There are many types of rhetorics, “Duality” is one of them that I saw in the book, it belongs to the secondary 4 syllabus. Why did Ms Chou ask about this question? How were we supposed to answer?

“Alright! Time for those that answered wrongly to do their punishment.”

A few boys that were quick were already on the floor and started doing push ups.

I did not want to give in, we are not in the wrong!

“Hold on!” I said loudly, the whole cla.s.sed looked at me, those receiving punishments also stopped.

Ms Chou got scared, not expecting anyone to be daring enough to “rebel”.

I took a deep breath then said: “Teacher, “duality” is a secondary four syllabus, we have yet to learn about it, not knowing it is only natural.”

Ms Chou stared at me with her big blue eyes, he wore blue contact lenses, looking more like a witch.

“I’ve taught you all, how dare you say that I didn’t!” Ms Chou said righteously.

I can confirm that she did not teach us about it, I memorised the chinese notebook to my fingertips, there was never any “Duality” .

“You never did!” This time, I said it without fear.

“Students! You say, have I taught you about it?” Ms Chou said to  the whole cla.s.s.

“No……” Some of the students replied.

“No?!” The teacher raised her voice.

“Maybe yes……..” They immediately changed what they said.

“Cla.s.s-rep, show me your notebook!”

The cla.s.s monitor gave her notebook to Ms Chou, she instantly opened it up and flipped through it.

I already know the results. It is not as if I want her to be in awkward position, I just want to be fair to the others.

“I checked the notebook, is is not in there…...but, I am sure that I taught you all before, just that I didn’t made you take down the notes.” A secondary two cla.s.s being taught a secondary four syllabus? We are indeed “Geniuses” !

“Don’t say that I am not democratic, I’ll let you take a vote. Say, should this people be punished?” She pointed at us.

“Those who thinks that they should not be punished raise their hands!”