Recently my childhood buddies and I made a trip to visit our old schools where some of us first met as classmates in 1969 ... forty nine years ago!!!
The visit brought back a lot of memories … we walked through the old classrooms, canteen, the various sections of the school building, reminiscing the days when we were all carefree school kids fooling around in school. Yes, fooling around … really, we were not the studious type. OK, to be fair … not all were fooling around … most of us were.
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| At the main corridor of our old secondary school ... SMK Sri Pantai |
As we walked around the school, we reminisced where our classrooms were, the IA (Industrial Art) workshops where we dirtied our shirts, the science labs where we let go a rat to scare the girls, the discipline master’s room where we were caned and the boy’s toilet where cigarettes were passed around during recess.
Yes, we were a mischievous bunch … the good thing is, back in those days, there were no mobile phones and cameras … those naughty things we did were not recorded. They now exist only in our memories. As we talk, many stories were brought alive again in our conversations.
Let me relive some of the memories and tell you a few funny and naughty stories.
The three ghosts
I remember
when I was in Standard Three, there was this rich boy called Lee Chee Wai (there
is always a rich boy in old school stories) … everyone knows he comes from a
rich family. Every day we see him arriving at school in a big car and every
time during school events like children’s day, teacher’s day or year end school
party … he will bring fried chicken wings, curry puffs, cakes … all the
expensive stuffs. Most kids will just bring half a kati of biscuits or some cheap
multi-colored sweets … yes, kati (and tahil) … if you are old enough, you know
what those are.
And Chee
Wai speaks perfect English … we were all quite jealous of him. Having said
that, there were no bad feelings among all of us … we play and talk to each other all the time. Most
of us were from Chinese speaking villages … our parents put us in an English
school hoping that we can learn the language and have a better working future.
Like many Chinese boys in the school, my English vocabulary was nothing to be
proud of. At Standard Three, I have less than a hundred basic English words
that I can remember.
One day during
recess Chee Wai asked me … “eh, do you believe in ghost?”. I said … “what?” He
said …”you know, ghost?” Really, at that time I have absolutely no idea what a
ghost is. But I was not going to lose face to a rich boy admitting that I don’t
know what he is talking about. And so, I said to him … “oh yessss … I believe
in ghost, I have three ghosts at home!!!”
From that
day onwards, somehow I got a feeling that Lee Chee Wai was avoiding me … I did
not ask him why. It must have been months later when I found out what a ghost
is … maybe Lee Chee Wai avoids me because “I bluffed him” (the term we always
used when we were kids) but I believe that more likely it is because he really thinks
that I lived with three ghosts.
A well
At lower
secondary, my English was still not as good as my teachers had hoped … I was
encouraged to go for tuition. My father could not afford a paid tuition so I
found myself cycling to the YMCA twice a week … YMCA offered free English
tuition to students from various schools.
As bad as
my English were, I was never afraid to write … so I got myself writing to pen
pals. Yes, pen pals … rings a bell? Those were the days of aerograms and
handwritten letters … where we were excited to see the postman. I even wrote an
aerogram to Rowena Cortes (google the name … check her out) … a famous Hongkong
singer back then.
I wrote
many letters … learned to use flowery phrase like “hope you are in the pink
of health” instead of saying “hope you are in good health”. But after a
while, I just wanted to write something simple and so I thought … “pink of
health” means “well” … right? So very simple, just replace “pink of health”
with “well” … easy, no sweat (as we used to say).
And replace
it I did … so, “I hope you are in the pink of health” became “I hope you
are in the well”. Yes … that was what I wrote to a relative in Singapore
and he wrote back and asked me why I had hoped that he was inside a well. And
you know what? We still talk and laugh about this today.
Some nuts and screws
At the
beginning of secondary school, we can choose to attend Commerce or Industrial
Art (IA) classes … I chose a spanner over an abacus. The first thing they
taught us in IA class was to make ashtray … yes, ashtray. Why the hell were we
making ashtrays? Aren’t we suppose to discourage people from smoking? Not sure about
the IA syllabus … anyway we made ashtrays, did some simple carpentry, learned
copper tooling and other so called industrial art skills.
After two
years of making small things, finally in Form Three, we moved into more exciting things
… 2 strokes and 4 strokes combustion engine … wow, that was a big thing for us.
We were all very excited … looking forward to “work” on a real engine in the
workshop. It was long boring theory in the beginning and we couldn’t wait to
finish the theory so we can get our hands on the engine.
At last the
IA practical assignment came … a small group of us were given an assignment to
dismantle the engine totally … which we did quite EASILY … no sweat! Then we
have to assemble it back accordingly. And put it back we did. But after putting
the engine back together, there were still some nuts and screws on the bench … where
did those come from?
So how? We were not going to let anyone see those nuts and
screws … so, we opened the fuel cap and dumped everything into the fuel tank. No one saw
anything, nobody knew … until now that is.
And you know what? We passed our
assignment.
The prized parrot
Brickfields
was a popular place in the 70s … there were several schools there, an old
theater called Lido Cinema (remember?) and it was centrally located in the then
Kuala Lumpur township. If you have studied in one of those schools in Brickfields in the
70s, then you will know that there was a pet shop, the corner shop just
opposite where Anthonian Bookstore used to be … a shop that sells all kinds of
pets … birds mostly.
There was this beautiful white parrot which was always displayed in front of the shop ... the prized possession of the shop owner. Not only the parrot is
beautiful, it can “talk” too … “hello”, “I love you”,“good morning”, “how
are you” , “kor kor” (brother) and also croon out some funny whistles and
tunes. The people passing by just love this parrot … it was the darling of the
shop.
Like most
school kids after school, my friends and I will hang around the pet shop … looking
at the parrot, teasing it and try to get it to “talk”… so much so that the bird
gets irritated and behave strangely. And the shop owner don't like us teasing the bird …
“don’t disturb my bird … do you know how much this bird cost?”… he scolded us and
chased us out of the shop.
We were
little rascals who don’t like to be shouted at and chased away … we were not
going to let it go that easy. From that day onwards, every time when we pass
by the shop and when the owner is not looking, we will whisper to the parrot …
“f**k you”, “go to hell”, “die faster”, “stupid fool” and a mouthful of foul
*%$#@ Chinese words. That went on for weeks and very soon the chatty parrot was
happily letting out those newly learned words at the disbelief of the customers
visiting the shop. Suddenly, it was no longer the darling of the shop … the
once prized parrot is now worth a lot less. Not just that … really, who would
want to buy a foul-mouthed parrot?
Poor shop
owner … he didn’t know what hit him. And the bird? Not sure what happened but
it was no longer in front of the shop.
OK … to the
shop owner and the poor parrot … really, I am sorry. Maybe it is a bit too late
to apologize but better late than never. Look, we were young naughty boys … we
didn’t really think about the consequences of our actions … please forgive us.
There are so
many naughty and funny stories from my younger days … maybe I will tell you more
some other times.
I must say
I have a good past … so many good memories … the cheerful childhood, the
naughty schooldays, the playful young days and the carefree growing years. Every
time when I think or talk about them … it brings a smile. I have said it before
and I will say it again … at my age now, I don’t want dreams … I want memories.
