An everyday conversation between two Standard One girls:
A: Teacher says if you get 5 As in exam you will get a sijil (certificate).
B: Huh? What's that?
A: It's a piece of paper and it's got your name on it.
B: I'll just throw the paper away lah! *giggle*
A: (agitated) It's like a prize lah. Teacher will give you a prize for getting 5 A's in exam.
B: The prize is a piece of paper? Then I can just take a piece of paper and write my name on it and it's a prize!
From then on the conversation inevitably veered off into prolonged bursts of giggles and the blurting out of cutesie-sounding syllables.
And then there's this guy in my class who infamously replied when asked to take part in some school activity or other, "Do I get I cert? If I do, then I'm in. If not, I'm out."
Somewhere along the line, a child inadvertantly stops treating a certificate as merely a piece of paper. As the years go by the certificate slowly gains more and more respect and appreciation - if it survives the first few years, that is. I have friends who actually threw away their certs when they were young. Of course it's something they totally regret now. I remember my sister ordering telling me most firmly to keep them in a safe place and to never lose them, though I suspect her reasons for doing so might have been motivated by more than a twinge of sentimentality *wink*.
Ironically though, a certificate for getting (or having gotten) 5 A's in Standard One is perhaps even more useless and meaningless to a 7-year-old than it is to a 17-year-old, albeit for different reasons. In any case, ten years is more than enough to bring about a total 'change of heart'.
Literally though, it is just a piece of paper, you know.
Comments (2)
your sister told--erm ordered--you to keep your certs safe? got such thing?
Don't you remember? I do. I remember leaving them lying around and you and Mom would scold me and tell me to keep it away properly in the file.