Translated…
After lunch, I was on my way to the restrooms, I’d caught a glimpse of a child, running out of the first classroom in the fifth grade, I’d focused, hey, isn’t that, Snow? She had her face covered up, started to cry, as she ran toward the front gates of the school. I was a bit confused, it wasn’t time to go home yet, why is she headed home now? And so, I’d, followed closely behind her, wanted to find out what was wrong.
She’d started wailing very loudly on the way, the moment she’d reached her front doors, the cries became even louder, Mrs. Lee came outside, asked her, “Snow, what’s the matter?”, after a long while, she’d finally told, through her uneven breaths, that during lunch, her primary instructor told her, that the results are out, for the morning gathering speech contests, she’d received the first place trophy.
“This is something wonderful, why are you crying? And you’d run, all the way home too?”, Mrs. Lee said in synchrony with me, inquiring. Turns out, Snow was, crying out of joy.
Snow’s dad a little over a decade ago went to Vietnam for business, married Mrs. Lee who’s Vietnamese, had the cute daughter, Snow. Before Snow moved with her family back to Taiwan, her dad spoke Taiwanese in Vietnam, and her mother, Vietnamese; and so, she’d become fluent in both, but, she’d not know a word in Mandarin at all.
When her parents took her back to Taiwan, Snow went into the elementary years, and because all the teachers in the schools spoke Chinese, plus she’d gotten along with her classmates every single day, her Chinese speaking skills improved quickly, but because she had a stutter, she’d become the butt of her classmates’ jokes, and they’d even laughed at her in Taiwanese, it’d made her cry.
At the start of this school semester, the office announced that there would be a speech contest in Chinese this month, Snow Lee was, the very first who’d signed up, it’d stunned, ALL of her classmates. Mrs. Lee told me, since Snow signed up for the contest, she’d not only gotten up early every single day, stood outside of her house, and spoke to the fields of grains as audiences, and in the evenings, she’d asked her family members to become the judges, to practice speaking in front of the masses.
This morning at the gathering, as Snow came onto the podium and spoke, she’d carried herself steady, articulate, not only did she not stuttered, she’d not become stumped on the pronunciations, it’d amazed the teacher as well as all the students in her class, and after she’d made her speech, everybody applauded her. As I was there, listening, I’d thought, that she will do well, and, naturally, she’d gotten that first place certificate of the entire school.
“I don’t get it, child, you got first place, you should be laughing aloud, why are you crying instead?”, Mrs. Lee became confused. “I just want, to wail aloud!”, Snow said to her mother. And all of a sudden, it’d, hit me, Snow, because of her stutter, had been laughed at by her classmates constantly, and now, she’d gotten first place in the speech contests, and, all of the kept-in bitterness finally came out, on the one hand, they were, tears of her joy, on the other, I suppose, she’s crying out, ALL the troubles she’d kept locked in!
This made me really impressed, at how this newly migrated young girl’s process, of conquering her own stutter, Snow, you really ARE an amazing student!
And so, this, is the child’s tears of joy, she’d gone through the trials, of not being able to pronounce the Chinese words correctly, to having practiced very much, and sounded perfect, and that just shows, how if you put your mind to something, then, you will be able to, conquer whatever standing in your way.