Growing up in the 70s, I wonder how many kids receive home tuition outside of school curriculum. It wasn’t common to have home tuition during those days. In fact, it would consider a luxury to have ‘outside-of-school’ lessons and materials where school is the primary place where you get your education.

I was exposed to an entirely Chinese environment at my paternal grandmother home (where my primary school is about 3 minutes walk away) in my childhood days; from the news and entertainment  from the “Rediffusion” (a public wired-radio) to daily Chinese newspaper 星洲日报 and listening to my uncles and aunties speaking in fluent dialects and mandarin. I was even dubbed the ‘future singing star’ entertaining the adults with many Chinese songs that I learned by listening and reading the lyrics from my third-uncle proud collection of Mandarin pop records of the 60s and 70s.

I moved back to my family home at Marine Parade when I enter secondary school. Unknown to my parents and I, my weakness in the English subject began to tell when I struggled even to conjured up three decent paragraphs of composition titled “My Dream” – I was thirteen then. With my poor command of the English language, other subjects took its toll except for Chinese where I continued to excel; even representing my class for the school “汉语拼音” competition which I remembered came in 3rd overall. As I continued to be a favorite student of my Chinese teacher; the opposite holds truth for all my English teachers, they somehow given up hope on me as the school system then would have their attention focus on the better students…but not for an angel God sent.

My family of six lives in a single bed-room rented flat with 1.5 meter wide common corridor lining 20 units in a row. At that time, neighbors were closely knitted and keeping each other house-door key was a common practice in case of emergency. Two units away to our right was an Eurasian family of Catholic faith – the Rodrigues family. Their youngest son Paul who at that time was serving the Armed Forces; used to challenge me to a game of ‘carom’ which I apparently am pretty good at it. One day after one such game, as I was still smarting away from loosing three sets in a row, he took notice of my agitation and asked:

“You seem troubled…What happen?”

“No lah…I am ok. Today I not so good…one more game ok?” with my halting spoken English my eyes were wondering and trying to rearrange the “carom pieces” for a new game.

“Are you free tomorrow evening from 7-8pm” he asked gently.

“Ummm…free…why?”

“Every evening 7-8pm?” he probed further.

“Depending lah…what is it?” I began to worry what he has in mind…

“I would like to spend an hour every evening tutor you on English language, sharing with you what I know. Are you keen?”

“Tuition…You mean you want to teach me English huh…wow…but…I can’t pay you…” I replied, embarrassed of my family poverty.

“When I was young like you, I was given tuition by my uncle. He said I should pay for it someday by giving tuition to others in need.” he shared compassionately and I still remembered his keen eyes through his thinly-framed glasses.

He continued: “So you see, the tuition fees were paid long time ago!”

As I was still wondering how he knows I need English language tuition, and more importantly how I can repay his kindness…

He said: ”Someday you will share what you know with others…”

He saw me as a giver. He made me responsible and believed that I might have something to offer to someone in future…

Today, I realized that I was not a recipient of charity, but as a trusted courier.

Are you a Receiver today? Or a Giver tomorrow?