Recently someone in my class has taken delight in rubbing salt into others’ wounds. I would never do that. No beings perfect, it is quite natural for you and me to own a weakness.

Was there ever a case where you could not articulate a sound as a child? When I was starting to learn pinyin, I had trouble distinguishing some sounds in the system. Yes, I could hear the differences, but I simply was not able to enunciate them distinctly.

Since a lot of kids in my hometown had the same trouble, my parents did not make a mountain out of it. Besides, they knew that the kids would outgrow the problem in time. By adolescence, most of them were able to get the sounds right. Therefore, I did not become aware of my weakness at all until after I became a first grader.

In a Chinese lesson, the teacher was instructing us to enunciate three sounds in the Chinese pinyin system, G, K, H. After the mistress modelled them, I tried time and again, but I found I was doing all the three as H, H, H. Noticing most kids around pronouncing them more or less correctly, I panicked. I started to practise quietly lest I be heard. However, my voice becoming lower did not divert my teacher’s attention from me; instead, she perceived the change. Singling me out, the teacher ordered me to read the three sounds to the class. Instantly I was cast under the spotlight, my speech flaw thus exposed to every ear around.

After that lesson, I became a laughingstock. Some of my classmates even aped me. In retrospect, I do not think my faulty pronunciation was something shameful, but as a kid, I suffered beyond measure from their tease. Before I read anything, I would look out for the G, K, H, sounds. When I was going with a sentence with any of them in, I took great care to pronounce but I still stumbled over it invariably. Therefore, laughter was a constant companion when I was reading in my primary school classroom.

Then came a day when suddenly I found I was able to do the three sounds perfectly. I was 10 that year. Meanwhile the kids had stopped playing jokes on me before I knew it.

When I was 13, my younger brother started primary school. He, like me, had the same difficulty with the three sounds. At home after school, I showed him with great patience how to pronounce them. I would not like to see the same pathetic scenario befall my brother.

To be honest, I do not hate my former classmates at all. I just think that at the time childish and silly, they were callous to how I felt. The only legacy that has lingered from my childhood pronunciation trauma is that whenever I come upon the three sounds, G, K, H, these days, I have an odd feeling in the guts.

This experience of mine has underlined the fact that everyone is equal and that we should respect all around us whatever weaknesses they might have. Before I comment on anyone’s shortcomings, I will bite my tongue and think twice.