Snippets of my Asian Education - Part I, the Voiceless

She wasn’t very tall. She had a sturdy built. Hair up to the shoulders. A pair of round, gold glasses sat on the bridge of her nose. She always wore a conservative dress.

I haven’t spoken much to her before. After all, I was considered a quiet child. One who spoke little to others, what more to authorities.

You are lying, she said sternly to me. You know what they do to kids who lie, she asked me? I lowered my gaze and stared at my pristine white Velcro shoes. My mum always made sure my shoes were spotless. She continued, there’s a machine in the teacher’s staff room. They put lying kids in the chair and put the machine on their heads. We use that machine to tell whether you are lying or not.

I swallowed my saliva and tried to blink back tears. I said nothing. I didn’t know how to explain myself, aside from repeating the words, “I’m not lying.”

We took a class test a few days before. It was an easy test where we had to name parts of a snail in the Malay language. There were the eyes, the tail, the shell and the tentacles. Sesunggut it was called. Tentacles = sesunggut. With a double “g”. But back in the old days, like illustrated on the chart pasted at the back of the classroom wall, it was spelled with a single “g”.

Class, you may start the test. Remember not to cheat and not to look at the chart.

I scored almost a perfect score, except there was a problem. I spelled sesunggut with a single “g”, like in the chart.

She called me up front and called me a cheat. Why did you look at the chart? I didn’t, I said timidly. So why did you spell it similarly to the chart. I don’t know, I mumbled. So you cheated, she accused me.

I thought about it for a long time. Why did I spell it the similar way? It’s because I’m always at the back of the classroom where the chart is located when I drink my water or sharpen my pencils. I stare at the chart while doing it. I have somewhat a photographic memory. I must have memorized the chart.

But I couldn’t voice my thoughts. The words couldn’t and wouldn’t form in my mouth. I didn’t know how to form a rationale argumentative statement to state my case. Before her existence in my life, I’ve never been accused of anything I’ve never done before.

For the first time, the 7 year old me, with tears quietly streaming down my face, sat alone in the cafeteria and cried out to God.