Three interviews, two days in a row. Here’s highlights from the first one.
There was a sense of anticipation as we went to meet our first interviewee – Esther Goh, a chinese teacher (and my mum’s colleague) who had spent 8 years in Canada but decided to return to Singapore to teach. I had stayed with her in Canada for almost 3 weeks while in Victoria for holiday with my parents but never really got to know her as a person too well.
So the interview was refreshing and heart warming.Coming back to Singapore and staying on was quite an accident she tells us. The plan was to only be back to attend a nephew’s wedding. While meeting up with some ex-colleagues, word came around that Singapore was in dire need of Chinese teachers. She playfully applied, not knowing that it would come to pass. So she left home in Canada, closing a cafe that she had opened earlier.
“My children knew I liked teaching, so they encouraged me to go back. They said they are big already and can take care of themselves,” Esther says. Esther has been home for almost 10 years since.Quite unlike the typical RS who’s eager to share their overseas experience, Esther says she doesn’t quite talk about her time in Canada unless being asked.”I won’t go eh my Canada how good ah, how bad…,” she says. She does inject some of her stories in her lessons to make them more lively though.
“I’ve not felt that people thought of me of hao lian. I think it’s the tone that you speak to people too,” she says. “If you go like oh, I’ve from Canda, and I’m smart then of course people will think that you are arrogant.”
