June 21 2014, Saturday
Trading
places
It was around eight in the morning. The lift stopped on the fifth floor. In came a woman and a little girl of about five. They had to be mother and daughter as they looked so alike, the same round face and sparkling eyes. As they walked in, the girl was clinging to the mother’s legs nagging her at the same time.
“Mom, I want to be you! You don’t
have to go to school.”
“Mary, I want to be YOU!”
This dialogue brought back to my
mind a movie which I used for students’ school-based assessment 11 years ago - Freaky Friday, a 2003 film based
on the novel of the same name by Mary Rodgers. It stars Lindsay Lohan as Anna
Coleman and Jamie Lee Curtis as her mother. In the film, their souls are
switched due to an enchanted Chinese fortune cookie. The whole story is about
how each copes with the new role and the problems that come along ending with
mother-daughter relationship improved and their identities switched back.
Trading places or swapping
identities has been the theme of many stories such as the popular children’s
story of The Prince and the Pauper.
It is a novel by famous American author Mark Twain first published in 1881. Set
in 1547, it tells the story of two young boys who are identical in appearance:
Tom Canty, a pauper who leads a miserable life, and Prince Edward, son of King
Henry VIII. The two boys get to know one another by chance. Fascinated by each
other's life and their strange resemblance, they decide to switch clothes
"temporarily". Edward leaves the court for Tom to be the prince. After
a series of adventures and the death of the King, Edward and Tom switch back to
their original places. Edward with first-hand knowledge about the life of the
poor is crowned as King Edward VI. He vows to be a good king and in gratitude
he bestows honour on Tom.
How many times has such thought of
swapping identities come to your mind? And if you were given such a chance,
which person would you want to trade with? The person you love most, hate most
or envy most? And how would you persuade that person to accept your offer?
I know which person’s identity I
want to assume but I am sure he would not want to be me!
