Perfettissimo

My class is a mini United Nations. Besides me, there are a few Polish (Poles?), 2 Americans, an Australian, a beautiful Serbian, 2 Japanese, a Chinese, some Germans, and a blond Dutch slut who flirted shamelessly (but without much finesse) with the café boy from day one.

The Chinese guy, Piao Yi, amuses me. He makes me feel guilty for ‘’stereotyping’’. But heck; I can’t help it. And I am not judging or being negative, just recording my amusement.

During last week’s lesson, he shouted out ‘’answers’’ like a goody-good student, loudly. He was very good at monosyllabic ‘’answers’’. He also reminded me so much of the rote learning the Chinese are so good at – memorise and recite multiplication tables with some rhyme, memorise and recite the Chinese zodiac, again with some rhyme, and memorise and recite poems and proverbs… all of which I had gone through and hated as a kid.

It also reminded me of a school I had visited in Xiamen, China, almost 10 years back – I had witnessed a bunch of kids loudly reciting some text in class. I could try and understand why they had to recite, but why the need to yell?

This morning, whenever the teacher pointed out an irregular verb for us to note its ‘’perfect tense/ past participle’’, he would be the first to shout out the perfect answer, in quick succession. (Uccidere? – ucciso! Vedere? – visto! Prendere? - preso! Farer? – fatto! Rimanere? – rimasto!) It was like a great achievement to be able to recite a whole series of irregular verbs.

Marina our teacher could not help smiling and said that he has grasped his grammar perfectly; he just needed to learn to speak and use the language. (He could hardly manage when given a text to complete earlier and neither could he express himself, nor understand the teacher when she mentioned last week about a change of time table.)

At one point Marina explained some preposition usage and asked if we knew the rule. Piao Yi knew it instantly. ‘’He has searched his computer and found the grammar file,’’ Marina joked, though very impressed by his precision and knowledge.

When Marina later asked ‘’posso cancellare?’’ (‘’may I erase the board’’) so that she could write more stuff for us, some of us nodded. Yi Piao replied, ‘’puoi’’ (‘’you may’’).

Marina made her point: ‘’puoi is perfectly correct and grammatical; it’s a perfect reply to ‘’may I’’; but language is not pure grammar; it is alive and interactive. In this case, one simply replies, ‘’si’’ (‘’yes’’) or ‘’no’’.

I could not agree more. Language is not memorisation of perfect grammar rules. It is expression, creation, improvisation, living – a conscience. Otherwise I would be speaking ‘’perfect’’ French and Spanish by now (well, almost).

Love and Revenge
No wonder they say Italy is romantic. My homework passage last week was about a love story, and this morning’s passage was about jilted love and aborted marriage (the groom changed his mind at the altar).

After working on the verbs and appropriate tenses for the passage, we had to break into small groups to write the continuation of the story, according to our imagination.

My group consists of a Polish lady and an American priest-to-be. But the latter is not very saintly – his suggestions included things like the bride’s uncle being a mafia, vowed ‘’vendetta’’ (revenge) and hunted down the runaway groom and killing him. Another group also wrote about the death of the groom – he got into an accident and died, but the bride was happy because the groom had not changed his will before abandoning her.

What a vengeful class, commented our teacher.

After three solid hours of love, revenge and grammar since 8 am, we proceeded to the language lab – for more love. We had to listen to a romantic song and then repeat the words, questions and phrases, and answer some questions. We had to record what we said into the mike and play back, listen to ourselves, let the teacher coach us, etc. We even had to sing the song at the end of the whole exercise.

I’ve always dreaded listening to my weak ‘’girly’’ voice, which gets especially bad when recorded! Maybe this dread caused me to forget to press the ‘’record’’ button and most of my playbacks registered silence – ha ha.

La Mensa
No, I have not become a genius in Italy, nor joined the genius association.

La mensa is a canteen where students could eat a substantial meal for as little as 1.80 euro.

Today, after class ended at noon, Halina, my classmate from Poland, and Kayoko, from Japan, and I waited hungrily outside the mensa. There was actually a queue waiting for it to open at 12.15 am.

The hunger made me greedy and I chose the 2.60 euro menu – bread, fruit, drink, side dish and main course. But we could hardly finish everything. I had to save the bread and fruit for another meal. Halina did the same – she saved the bread and yoghurt for tomorrow morning. Skinny Kayoko however wolfed down everything.

We ate in relative silence, punctuated by polite questions, gestures and lots of clarifications and re-phrasing in Italian. Halina could speak only some Italian and Polish, while Kayoko could speak a little English and even less Italian. I reprised my role of ‘’Japanese translator’’ for Kayoko.

Che casino!
No, I am not starting a Singaporean pontification about casino and gambling.

‘’Che casino’’ means ‘’what a mess’’. And what a hilarious, painful, hair-raising, bloody ‘’mess’’ it was this afternoon!

When I came home after lunch and downloading office emails from a friendly cyber cafe, I saw Franca soaking her feet. Her granddaughter Beatrice was there, visiting and moisturising her feet. We chatted and I made some hot chocolate for myself. And soon Beatrice left and Franca’s neighbour Adele arrived to do her pedicure.

It was the noisiest pedicure I have seen. Franca squealed in pain and at times begged her to stop. Adele ignored her and simply said, ‘’niente’’ or something similar. More shouting and squealing from both women – I hardly understood a word.

Her friend tried to cut her calluses and over-did it. She looked like she was doing a major operation! More screaming – ‘’aiya!’’ (it seems squeals in pain sound similar to those back home). Yet Franca laughed after that. I just squirmed and felt my hair stand up. I looked at another of Franca’s friend, who had just arrived for a visit, and we both shrugged helplessly. Blood oozed. Bandaid was used. It did not work. More blood. Franca actually managed to hobble to the store room to get some gauze and bandages.

‘’Che casino,’’ laughed Adele and did an equally messy bandage of Franca’s poor foot.

I could not finish my cup of chocolate, no matter how delicious it is.