I have given talks on drama to schoolchildren and also taught the subject in continuing education courses to schoolteachers and arts administrators. Each time, I asked audience members to raise their hands if they had ever engaged in any drama activities.
Typically, only a small number claim to have done so; and I tell them that they are being too modest, that in fact everybody has experience in playwriting - when they tell a story to their teacher, boss or date to explain why they were late. 'Remember the response?' I ask, 'You've got such an imagination! You should be a playwright.'
I am speaking from experience as a parent of three natural-born playwrights.
I used to tell bedtime stories to my children. Recalling how, as a child, I had listened to dramatised Chinese classics such as Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West serialised on the radio, I read these stories to Phoebe and Phoebus when they reached two years old, also serialised in nightly instalments.
Phoebe amazed me with her precocious talent for drama: she held toy figures in her tiny hands while sitting in the bathtub and acted out Water Margin scenes, albeit with her own interpretations, including such lines as 'This gong [tub in Cantonese] is called Soong Gong' - the hero of Water Margin. When she was once scolded, she soliloquised: 'My tears are flowing silently in my heart!' We recognised that as a direct quote from a television soap the night before.
Combining her other hobby of drawing cartoons, she started producing her own comics with storylines. With such early exposure, it was little wonder she was cast in the leading role in her primary school play, King Solomon's Judgment.
At 11, she was overall champion in a citywide storytelling competition, delivering the dialogue of a mother and daughter in different voices, and aptly receiving the trophy from contemporary performing arts veteran Chung King-fai.
