I was flipping through my autograph book today and I came across this poem dedicated by my primary school friends, written when we were all still in primary school. It explains the rather terrible rhyming and grammatical errors, but it’s very cute all the same.

In Loving (the ‘o’ here is a heart) Memory of Zhang Xuwen

Xuwen was a little pig
All she did was eat and eat
She’s so crazy, she’s so bad
She is really, really mad
(Beside this verse is a drawing of a pig’s head with a spiral above it to symbolize madness)

She would always dance all day
Sometimes she would run away
She was neither nice nor kind
As she had long since lost her mind
(Picture of pig in dancing dress to emphasize point)

And then one day a farmer came
He saw Xuwen and laughed like insane
He took a big, fat, chopper knife (drawing of big chopper knife)
And cut poor Xuwen slice by slice

Xuwen cried out, “Stop the knife!”
The farmer was shocked that she’s still alive!
She said, “Thank you for the liposuction.”
He cut in, “There’s no need for the mention.”
She cried, “But that’s not the way I want it!”
He said, “Yes, of course I must wear a mitt!
I could not bear to touch you
Even if you are coated with dew!”
(I don’t get this part either, by the way)

Xuwen bit him and ran away
All the people saw her sway
She was still alive and running about
But she couldn’t live without her butt!
(Pig without butt)

She went to hell to reincarnate
But she was told that it’s too late!
The last pig place had been taken away
She begged and cried but they said nay!

There’s only one place left for her to go
She cried as now she must stoop low
Knowing that she could shit no more
She would rather turn “ang moh”!

Then she was reborn as a child
And since an infant she had been wild
For she had been missing a lot
As a pig but now she was not

And now whenever you see a girl
Who has a habit of forming curls
That is Xuwen who lost her butt
When she tried rolling in the mud

She had wanted to conceal
What she could not reveal
The awful fact that her muddy figure
Is now growing bigger and bigger

Oh! The pleasure she’s deprived
Of all the things that she had prized
And now she could find nothing worthwhile
Except to draw pigs pile by pile!
(Another pig’s head)

Her friends began to fear that she’s insane
When she started growing a mane
They plucked off all her hair to make her sane
And behaved like very unpleasant dames

Xuwen could bear this ordeal no more
For her head had become awfully sore
Her skin had also become very red
And by the next day, she was dead!
(Illustration of pig with crosses as eyes to show a dead pig)

Somehow I find it inordinately funny. I should be honoured that they actually went to all this effort.