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Wednesday 24 June 2009

1966 - the vi teachers


















(Click on pictures for enlarged view).

The line up of teachers in Form 1 North was:-

Class,English,Art - Mrs.Chong Hong Chong,College Trained
Maths - Mr.T.Rajaratnam,College Trained
History - Mr.Kok Hee Fatt,R.T.C. Trained
Geography - Mr.Teh Mun Hing,R.T.C. trained
National Language - Cikgu Noran,Language Inst.Trained
General Science - Mr. Loong Nyi,R.T.C Trained

None was a graduate, but they lacked in nothing for that. The system was such that you had monthly tests, as well as mid-year and final term exams. And lots of homework! Even if you were involved in official school extra-curricular activities, the teachers brooked no excuses. They were constantly on your back, to make up for whatever they lacked in making you fully understand the topics as not every teacher was an excellent communicator.

It was a system that worked well because the teachers cared and kept you on your toes. That saved you from last minute cramming for tests and exams. It also gave you more time to work on your ‘grey area’ topics and revisions before the end-of- the- year exams.

English was the medium of teaching and essay style answering for History, General Science and Geography was in force. By the time we reached Form 3, additional ‘objective question papers’ and 2HB pencils came into vogue for Maths, History and Geography. The short answering system now used ubiquitously is one of the main reasons for the decline in English language standards over the last 40 years.

I have already written about Mrs. Chong and her diligence in drilling into us the rudiments of English language, though she had her odd cranky moments too. I was reminded by A.Ramachandran about an incident involving Teoh Siang Chin (now doctor and ex-President of the MMA). While Mrs. Chong was blathering on about prepositions and conjunctions (another of those really interesting topics like the sex life of the Malayan rhinoceros beetle) Chin’s gaze was affixed in the direction of the Sports Pavilion clearly visible through the open doors of 1 North. When pounced upon by Mrs.Chong, Teoh, startled out of his reverie, blurted as he pointed with his fingers, "Two dogs fighting teacher there!”.

No,” corrected Mrs.Chong, “You mean, Teacher, I was distracted by two dogs copulating over there by the Sports Pavilion,” as she copped him a couple over the ears and thrust and ground her English Grammar Textbook in his face!

Teh taught us this cute little trick of making small cardboard cut-outs of the outlines of country maps which you could use when taking down Geography notes. This was a great help for students like me, whose magnificent free-hand drawing of the map of peninsular Malaya was once famously described by relief teacher Mrs. Lee as ‘Whoa, what have we here? Picasso? A real jambu looking bulging brinjal’! Mrs. Lee was one of those female teachers whom even the F1 boys would check out as we passed her along the school corridors! Ask Cheah and Fong, and they will fall over laughing when reminded of Teh’s peculiar pronouncing of ‘Wanganui’, ‘Taranaki’ and ‘Rotorua’ when introducing NZ geography. Teh was strict, but fair.

T. Rajaratnam was of course of the same ‘fire and brimstone’ mould as Valentine Manuel. He was also the revered School Cricket Master and coached hockey as well. But, unfortunately, by the time he came upon our batch, he had lost one leg below the knee, to cancer. So, it was a somewhat subdued Raja who taught us Euclid’s and Pythagoras’ theorems. The feather duster was his weapon, though in 1966 Raja wielded it relatively sparingly. Sadly, Raja succumbed to terminal cancer in 1967 at a very young age.

I still believe that this ‘old’ system of teaching Maths from foundation, theorems and proofs leads to a better understanding of the subject as well as to a nimbler mind. This is as opposed to the modern method of heading straight to the solution and short-cuts to solving problems. Only a month ago, my neighbour’s son who is in F2 came to seek some help from me on ‘construction methods’ with compass, protractor and all. It was clear the teacher had not shown him why the construction of the 60 degrees or 30 degrees angles from right-angles and arcs was correct. ‘In the old days’ Raja would have first talked about the equilateral triangle and then proceeded to ‘prove’ his construction as ‘100%’ correct’ QED! (Or am I the odd one out, old fashioned?).

Now, Kok Hee Fatt was a different kettle of fish. He would blow hot and he would blow cold. He eschewed the lecture style of teaching for the blackboard. You had to copy his History notes rapidly. The chalk duster in his left hand would fly in pursuit of the rapidly moving chalk in his right hand like hounds after a panting fox in bloodsport hunt. But he came prepared for his lessons as the facts were a lot more than you could get from your text-book.

Once, he had given us some homework to be handed in the following day. Now, we have all had this experience where we would take extra, extra, extra care to pack the homework book in our satchels the night before so that we would not have to earn the wrath of the teacher. And the following day, sure enough, when the time came, the History homework book was missing from my bag (I found it later under my work table at home)??!! I panicked when Kok confronted me. I pleaded that I had actually completed the homework in class the previous day before going home. Kok not only laughed but sneered as well. He smelled a kill! Kok was famous for his stomach corkscrew twist-pinch and I stood there white-faced and zombified, not unlike a hypnotised rat waiting to be swallowed whole by a python or anaconda!!

Just when all seemed lost, my good friend Kow Yoke Wah (I don’t know what possessed him, but I would have given him the Victoria Cross were it within my powers to do so) stood up and blurted out that what I said was true (and it was). That saved my bacon! Yoke Wah’s wealthy family operated a chicken farm at the back of Imbi Road Postal and Football field. As far back as Standard 4 in PRES 1, I would walk with him from his ‘farm’ to the mamak bookshops in Jalan Imbi to buy the latest editions of Enid Blyton’s ‘Secret Seven’, ‘Five Find Outers’, ‘Famous Five’ etc, and after reading them, exchange books with him. Later, Abdul Jalil, another '66 virgin, lived in the upstairs of one of these mamak shops, as did Santhiranathan and his elder brother, Mr.Selvanathan, a BSc who taught Additional Maths in VI in 1970!

Kok Hee Fatt was also in charge of the Under 13 Football team which I captained in 1966. (You can see that gained me no favours with him). The team included one, a then relatively shy and unknown, Mokhtar Dahari! I shall devote a full posting on Mokhtar Dahari the legend, later, and about how we almost came to blows in Form 2!

Our team won all the preliminary inter-school games, some by huge margins. The matches would have been played under a Sahara sun with the mercury steaming out of the thermometer!! Just to rub it in at home matches, Kok would get us all to run a couple of times more round the 400m athletics track and up and down the hill slopes, AFTER a full 90-minutes inter-school match. This would be done in full view of the defeated opposition which would still be panting and quaffing from plastic cups the post-match iced lemonade supplied in plastic pails by Tuck Shop Boss Man, who attended most of the soccer matches played on home ground, especially the Under-20 games. (He once turned up in Kuala Kangsar to witness the annual VI-MCKK soccer showdown, such was his enthusiasm, devotion and support for VI soccer! In later years we would, during centralised Hockey Training, flirt with his friendly and giggly daughter Ivy, who helped out at the Tuck Shop and brought the iced drinks on to the field as well). There is a cricketing term and strategy invented by Alan Border, ex-Oz Test Cricket Captain (1984-94), called ‘Mental Disintegration’ meaning, to further grind into the dust and grime an opponent already facing humiliating defeat. Kok was clearly way ahead of his time!

But in the finals against St,John’s Institute, played on a somewhat wet and muddy soccer pitch at Brickfields Road School, we were unexpectedly undone 2-0 by the brilliance of SJI’s Johnny Loon Tsai, who in later years played for Selangor Schools. I had performed dismally. Our team included, besides myself as centre forward and Mokhtar Dahari as inside left, other regulars like ‘Thunderkicks’ Fong, left winger Amiruddin, Sallehuddin, Indran, Shook Keong, Liow Soo Chong as goalkeeper, Ket Chong, Balraj and Abu Bakar (who scored the winning goal for us in the U11 finals played at Merdeka Stadium between PRES1 and Prices Road Primary School in 1964). There was also Ee Beng Yew (2nd goalkeeper), who unleashed an amazing, brilliant and winning 45m drop kick goal from beyond the half-way line at the Royal Selangor Grounds to secure a famous Dr.Lewis Trophy Rugby Finals win against RMC in 1970.

Kok did not attend that final U13 final as it was inexplicably played during school hours (10 a.m.) a few days before the end of 1st Term. When I returned to school and gave him the bad news, he was furious and ordered me to report the result to HM, Mr.V.Murugasu. That’s when my better instincts got a firm grip on my regimented senses. I pretended to head in the direction of the HM’s office upstairs and when Kok was out of sight, veered to my classroom. I knew better than to approach Muru with such bad news, the reward for which would have been nothing less than six of the best! For the next couple of days, Kok would look quizzically at me, wondering why I looked normal, if not cheerful, after a visit to Muru’s office!!

But for all that, to paraphrase Bill Cosby’s message to his wife, “I love him more today than I ever did back then all those 43 years ago when he ordered me to go to Muru as the sacrificial lamb’!! Ha, ha! Sometimes, when I lie awake late at night in bed, the ghost of a smile would stretch my face, and a chuckle or two would leap out, which would have my wife querying if I’d finally lost it!

Loong was good at General Science and popular with all the boys. Again, respect was given whether they were strict or not. Rarely did we go overboard with any of these teachers. Once a month we would have a double-period session when we could ask him any (reasonable) question on science and he would answer it. To my amazement he patiently explained to the class my smart-arse question about how trees became petrified (like us F1 students when Manuel or Murugasu appeared). I still don’t understand it!

Form 1 hockey also came under Loong’s portfolio, but there was no inter-school competition (only Under 15). I remember him warning me about deliberately under-cutting the ball, which, if one was not careful about, could cause serious injury to someone on the field. But, such unsporting behaviour was never in my mind. I explained to him that the grass had not been cut on the practising pitch, and so whenever I took a big swipe at the ball, it was already sitting on top of a plateau waiting to do a ‘Houston, we have lift-off’! We graduated from 'firewood' hockey sticks in PRES to zinging Indian 'Chakravarti' and Pakistani 'Karachi King Super' brands which we cherished ownership of, like Gold!

We were prepared well by Loong for the final term exams and I fancied that I was above average in science. Unfortunately, the paper was set by Valentine Manuel. To this day, I think Manuel deliberately set that question which had everyone reaching for the scoped Magnum 45 with the cyanide tipped dum-dum bullets that would make a narrow pinpoint entry in the frontal lobe of the skull, but blow everything out the back, leaving a gaping hole in the rear of the head the size of the Grand Canyon. The cyanide was added to make sure the job would be done if by some miracle the victim still survived the blast. If we had a handheld grenade launcher with heat seeking missiles attached, we would have brought that into play as well, just to be absolutely sure!

The famous exam question was “What are the two systems?” I swear that is exactly as it was framed 43 years ago. No more, no less!

This stumped me when I first read it and so I moved on to other questions. I had a spare couple of minutes towards the end, and wrack my brains as I would, I could not crack it. What 2 systems? Chain and Pulley? Eastern & Western? Science and Religion? English & Malay? 5-3-2 and 4-4-2? It eventually dawned on me that it must have something to do with Science. Feet and Inches? My desperate Genting Casino answer was Centigrade and Fahrenheit. Boing! Wrong!

Well, Manuel’s answer was CGS and FPS systems – Centimetre, Gram, Second and Foot, Pound, Second. Maybe 3 guys out of a total of 180 students got it right, and that too I would wager was by pure guesswork. It was nowhere in out textbooks or notes. You lost 1/2 mark if you did not submit the abbreviated answers or include 'systems'!! In a competitive school like VI, the difference between the prize-winner and the next 20 top scorers could be as little as two marks!

Cikgu Noran was the quieter type and spoke English well. But the rules for learning Malay were simple. You could not speak in English during his classes or use modified English words in comprehension exercises or essay-writing. Even ‘Hospital’ was disallowed. It had to be ‘Rumah Sakit’. We learnt pure, unbastardised Malay. Where now is the ‘Campaign for Pure Malay Language?’ In tatters, that’s where! Noran also stood in as cricket coach for the junior squad. He really had no real knowledge of or enthusiasm for Cricket. But he would nevertheless turn up punctually for all the practice sessions and stay till the end. That was enough for the students who were often coached by the senior players like Zainon Mat, who eventually captained the Malaysian national team.

And that was the thing about those teachers. They would turn up in numbers for the practices, inter-school games and society meetings late afternoon. I don’t know if they were paid any allowances for these after-school activities, but such dedication deserves being worshipped. These days, students could count themselves lucky if the teachers made it to the classroom during normal school hours consistently! No doubt, The HM, Muru’s, leadership was the driving force, but the commitment from the teachers then was unwavering and awe inspiring.

As for Valentine Manuel, what can I say? We all had a love-hate relationship with him. At sharp 7.25 a.m. you could hear the ‘phut, phut, phut’ as his smoky Yamaha or Honda struggled up the hill to get to the parking area and to class or the Sports Pavilion (he was in charge of PE classes, Physical Exercise, as well as Athletics) before Muru spotted him. It was obvious he had splashed talcum powder on wet face in a hurry, because it caked in splotches on his cheeks. And he walked like a snorting, stalking bull which intimidated even the hard-crusted Rex Theatre 08 (Kosong Lapan) gangsters in school. Amazing that he later successfully gave up teaching for the legal profession!

The fact that he was not my General Science teacher did not mean I was spared his rod. Among my hand-me-downs was a well-thumbed copy of the Form 1 General Science textbook, which had been revised. So, before Loong’s lessons started, I would dash over to 1 East and borrow the new edition from fun loving and cheeky Michael Nettleton (ex-PRES 2) who was in the same football squad as I. Michael was poetry in motion in the 110m high hurdles. He had an elder brother, Harold Nettleton, who had some run ins with Manuel. The Nettletons had Portuguese blood. Michael was among Manuel’s ‘favoured’ students and across the length and breadth of the corridor we could hear the frequent calls of ‘Come to the front, De Melo’ followed by the thwack, thwack , thwack of feather duster on school pants. De Melo is a slang for the Portuguese, I believe.

As bad luck would have it, Manuel spotted me borrowing Michael’s book. Manuel had seen me before on the football field, but that cut no ice with him. We were both summoned to the front of 1 East and received 3 cuts from his infamous feather duster on our palms, in front of the whole class which had no idea why we were being Manuelized. I don’t recall if I said sorry to Michael, but that evening I begged my grandfather to use his Court and Police connections to have Manuel arrested under the ISA and locked up forever!!

On another occasion, it so happened that a taxi disgorged its passengers in the main porch of the school while classess were in session. I North was the 2nd class to the right of the porch and 1 West, the 2nd on the left. In between were 1 South and 1 East, with 1 South and 1 East separated by the main hall way leading to the common corridor. Just after that period was over, in stormed Manuel, and without so much as an ‘excuse me Mrs. Chong’ demanded that all those sitting in the row immediate to the porch side step out. Nine were each given 3 strokes of the best for failing to inform the taxi driver that it was against school rules to drop off passengers at the main porch, followed by Manuel’s ringing ‘Damn swine, now you will learn!’ All students seated in similar rows in the others 3 Form 1’s also received the same punishment. Fortunately, I was in the second row! But for the rest of the year, we all kept one ear and one eye in the direction of the main porch whatever lessons were on. We were terrorised and half stressed out by Manuel’s unpredictable mood swings.

But perhaps it is that incident over ‘Manual Labour’ headlines in the NST that takes the cake.

The school field tended to get waterlogged after even a moderate downpour and so plans were drawn up to lay pipes to improve the drainage system. Presumably some Engineers had been engaged to carry out the survey and draw up the master plans. One fine day, all those in F1 – 5 were told we would have combined PE classes the following week. Other lessons were re-scheduled to accommodate it. When we assembled on the field that Tuesday morning, there stood Manuel, with engineering plans in hand, and directed us to assist the school ‘Mandors’ to gather changkuls, dig, fill up coconut-fibre baskets and deposit mud and earth by the land at the edge of the field! The grass was marked over with turpentine and chunam (limestone) for the drainage lines. This went on for a few days with different batches of students, before someone leaked it to the Press (I swear it wasn’t me or my brother). 'Breaking News' screamed the NST and Malay Mail with pictures and all. The School denied it, but as sure as the sun rises in the East, it happened!

I noted some years later that Manuel reserved this ogre pose for the fresh batch of Form 1 students. It got much easier and relaxed with Manuel in Forms 2 and 3.

The other new thing we encountered in Form 1 was swimming lessons. VI was the only secondary school in Selangor, probably in the whole of Malaysia too, with a 25m enclosed swimming pool within the school compound. Some years later, we would climb on to the flat open roof-top of the pool to watch for free Malaysia Cup Soccer matches being played at night in Merdeka Stadium as we had a clear view from atop over the school side of the fence and walls that separated the stadium from the school.

Before that I would occasionally head to the Weld Road Public Swimming Pools (at the back of the now defunct Edam Seafood Restaurant) where the Pavilion Mall now stands, for a dip with friends for 20 cents entrance charge. I took to chlorinated water like the Apache Red Indian to soap bath. I would immediately get into sneezing fits.

Swimming lessons as the 1st or 2nd period in the morning sure was a bitch!

We had to don proper swimming trunks AND approved rubber swimming caps in the changing rooms, wet ourselves in the freezing common showers, dip our feet in the chemical bath and then line up by the pool side by which time Sawn Off Broomstick Handle (SOBH – refer to posting on 8/6/09) would be waiting for us. If it was a particularly windy or chilly morning, that, as SOBH said ‘is your bloody problem, I’m not your fairy godmother’.


Many made the fatal mistake of turning up for the first ever lesson without swimming caps.

SOBH’s punishment for that oversight was two full-swing resounding thwacks on the meaty part of the buttocks with a sawn off broomstick handle. Thus another legend was born. Among the legendees who wore the painful welts and bruises for a week or more were TA Mohan (now consultant surgeon), Teh Kim Hock and Mac Kean Boon.

They were culled like poor, innocent baby seals in a Norwegian slaughter fest frenzy! I and others like Fong and Cheah escaped the massacre as we had borrowed approved rubber swimming caps from elder brothers in VI!!

Scoreline: SOBH 2, PRES 0 !!

- to be continued.
AKAN DATANG - what's the connection between Awang Goneng and Judo? And what has the great Eusabio to do with Ramasamy? Ramasamy who? you say? TUNE IN 1st JULY 2009

18 comments:

  1. Teoh

    I stand corrected. MMA it is and your memory of events is noted as are Rama's (perhaps he misheard). Some journalistic licence for sure.

    Great to hear from you!

    Dpp

    ReplyDelete
  2. From: HUMAN RESOURCE
    Date: Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 1:25 PM
    Subject: Let us now with thankfulness
    To: Dpp & Rama

    Dear Dpp & Rama,

    Thanks Dppfor the 3rd episode. I still think that Rama was in 1 East with me. I can picture him in English class together with our English teacher, Mr Loong. Later on I think he went over to the best or second best class. Unfortunately I don't have the class photographs (I don't know whether it's in my brother's house (late parents) house which I have to check up)

    So if its true Rama maybe you could confirm our list of class teachers in 1 East:

    Form Teacher / Maths - Mr Tan Teck Seng
    History - Mr Kok Hee Fatt
    English - Mr Loong Nyi
    BM - En Noran
    Art - Mrs Chong
    Gen Science - V. Manuel
    Geography - Mr Bernard Kuay?

    Who was our geog teacher? Was it Bernard Kuay or was that in Form 2? The trouble is I was in the same classroom in 1 East and 2 West (and I think 3 North too). The pictures (and videos) in my mind don't come with dates.

    And there's one more thing I realised. Batu Road School and VI was quite similar in architecture, complete with tower, same headmaster's room and school office room location, porch, position of staircases, verendahs and even the cross of the verendah stone fences. The difference was VI was E-shaped while BRS was C-shaped. Isn't that right Rama?

    Dpp I'll try to get as many VI form mates as possible. Hamid Yusof's (1 West) Lee Kong Voon (1East): Prem Sagar (1West,

    I'll see if I can contribute some narration or anecdotes of Form 1 - the first impressions and memories are always lasting ones. But do give me some time.

    Thanks
    Jalil

    ReplyDelete
  3. The issue of vernacular primary schools has little to do with national integration. The medium of instruction doesn't matter. The biggest issue of vernacular primary schools is simply that the quality clearly points to the failure of Umno-led BN government, the legitimacy of the very philosophies and policies particularly its hegemonistic malay agenda.

    If the vernacular primary schools are allowed to expand, clearly the percentage of malays in these Chinese primary schools would expand striking at the heart of the malay agenda. It would increase integration but not the malay agenda.

    There is no proof that different medium of instruction decrease national unity. What would decrease national integration would be if they thought different philosophy - and for example - religion based schools. Even military schools have been shown to breed disintegration of its students from the larger population.

    The idea of teaching Mandarin and Tamil to attract non-malays to national schools is a non-starter. Firstly, again the medium of instruction is a low low issue compared to the quality of education, secondly, there is already a severe shortage of Mandarin and Tamil teachers that national schools would never be able to do even a half-past-six job of it.

    Thirdly, so long as Islamization of national schools is not stopped in its tracks, non-malays would always avoid it, simply because learning is just harder in a marginalized uncomfortable environment.

    Vernacular schools are allowed to continue as it is simply because removing it would be perceived and rightly so, as eroding the citizen rights of non-malays, i.e. the very right of education - the only upward mobility tool the non-malays has. Non-malays second class citizenship will become third class with things like further Islamization of this country.

    The issue of vernacular schools is not about national integration, it is about hegemonistic malay agenda. The fact it is an issue points to heart of our national problem.

    ReplyDelete
  4. My school in the 50s and 60s when terms like bumis and non-bumis did not exist.

    Back then, there was a kind of kindred among school children then that does not exist today. We were racially different but we were all equal in every other way. Nobody was - special.

    Today when a non-malay student goes to school, he has already been told over and over again by his parents that, "You will have to do superlatively in order to get into a local university."

    The child comes back having done creditably well, and doesn't get the university course of his choice. But his malay classmate, with worse marks than him, gets more than he asked for.

    All these double standards and retrogressive policies were put in place by our selfish politicians whose aim, rather than uplifting the malays, was to perpetually stay in power for their own good.

    The end result is a new generation of Malaysians who are not united in the least.

    The first thing to be done towards a real Bangsa Malaysia is to pull down all divisions that categorise us along racial and religious lines.

    All, irrespective of race and religion, must be subjected to a truly merit based system in every sphere of Malaysian life.

    All political parties that exploit any form of religion should be banned.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I just wish to sort out whether English medium schools will guarantee the success of Malaysia.

    According to the some writing, the '"killing off of English medium schools" laid the foundation for the current deteriorating racial relations. I find this point of view very naive, superficial and unconvincing. Do people discriminate and hate against other races simply because they don't speak the same language?

    Ethnic French, German and Italians speak their own languages in Switzerland with three official languages but has anyone heard of racial riots in Switzerland? I suppose the current deteriorating racial relations here is due to the institutionalised racism and racial inequality rather than the language people speak.

    Does a good English proficiency guarantee employment upon graduation? Is the English proficiency of our graduates being over-emphasised with regards to the unemployment problem?

    Malaysia and Philippines general populations have a better English proficiency than Korea and Taiwan, but the former two can in no way compete (whether in competitiveness, GDP or technology) with the two newly industrialised countries although we actually started better off than them after our independence.

    Korea and Taiwan never had English medium schools and yet their high school students always top the list for the world mathematics and physics Olympiad.

    The success of Hong Kong and Singapore as regional financial and trade hubs rests entirely on their competitive business environment, good governance and highly efficient administration. English is just an added advantage, not the sole sufficient condition for their success.

    The so-called globalised world is always misunderstood in that everything has to be in English in order to succeed. Again, I find that naive, simple-minded and superficial. Globalisation demands for a broader worldview, critical thought and understanding of more cultures and languages rather than a monotonic all English mantra.

    Shortsighted policies such as not having vernacular schools will eventually kill off Malaysia rich diversity of culture that is supposed to be a strong advantage amid the rise of China and India as the world cultural and economic superpowers.

    If one ever notices, upon gaining power after independence, elites of Third World Countries (including Malaysia) trained by the colonial education system usually tend to look to their former colonial masters, rather than global models as their reference in running a country.

    Summing up my point of view, thinking that English medium schools will solve all our problems and help us succeed is simply too naive and simple minded.

    ReplyDelete
  6. What a brilliant post, DPP! I am amazed you can remember so much with such detail and how you have the pics.

    Well done and keep it up!

    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  7. mws

    there's not a time when my day has not been brightened by your encouraging words.

    I've, by a minor miracle, manged to preserve my school mags from 1960-72, from which I scan & upload pics, plus I do have an old album of school pics.

    Tq.

    ReplyDelete
  8. After clarity sets in and the mist of Carlsberg lifts, my exact recollection is "What are you looking at?" Reply "Dog fighting teacher". Ms Chong looked out the door and in full view by the Pavillion was a dog and a bitch in the age old position that nature intended them to be to proliferate. The next scene was Ms. Chong looking away red faced. That was my lord the truth as I remember. Anything else is the figment of imaginations of prolific writers and sensitive readers. I rest my case.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Rama

    Glad you cleared that one up.

    I was sitting towards the back of the class, 2nd row from Pavilion side door. Mac Kean Boon was behind me and Send Tee and Yoke Wah to my left and back. I vaguely recall someone (not Siang Chin) saying softly 'Bitch!' Whether he was referring to the dog or the teacher, I'm not sure. No one then would have been under the influence of Carlsberg.

    Also, can you look thro yr old records and confirm you were in F1 North? Jalil insists you were with him in 1 East, though I'd throw caution to the wind and stake a jug of Carlsberg Shandy (straws included) on my being right. I'm not certain you were in 2 North with me, but we were 100% together in 3 East with Mrs. Elizabeth Vaz as Class/English Teacher. We were seated right in front, 1st row, with you No.1 & me No.2.

    Got a call from Indran last night. He confirms being arse whacked by Sawn Off Broomstick Handle for wearing beach shorts instead of swimming trunks!

    Seng Tee and Foo Kok Fee recall that T.Rajaratnam took a particular 'liking' to Raja Nong Chik which probably explains why he hates Cricket!

    C'mon all you guys out there! Own up if you were vandalised by SOBH or Manuel! Don't try and hide it. Truth will out! Lol.

    Dpp (donplaypuks, not deputy public prosecutor)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Dpp,

    As with MWS, I am amazed at your recollections, down to the row and seat number.

    Were you an elephant in a previous life ?

    Some of the teachers mentioned were also mine as well and I can always remember Teh Mun Hing's highly unhygienic use of his fingers in class.

    Keep on writing.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Reproduced from email by kind consent of
    Dr. Yong Siew Onn

    Dpp, Thank you for your very kind words. I am glad The Victorian remained in capable hands.

    Gosh, 1967 ! I remembered those "teaching" days ! I really enjoyed myself, and to this day I still enjoy teaching. After my graduation in Medicine from the University of Singapore, I became a Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Malaya for 3 years before I left for Private Practice. And as a Rotarian I used to conduct training seminars for in-coming Presidents, and Club as well as District Office Bearers for Rotarians, Rotaractors and Interactors. 3 generations of medical students have passed through (survived) my teaching, and many of them are specialists in various fields here in KL. Sometimes when I refer patients to hospital I am surprised by phone calls and reply letters from my former students !

    I remembered an occasion many years ago when I was in London, walking down Oxford Street, when I passed a (scruffy looking) fellow, who turned round and called me Mr Yong. I could not recognise him (long hair and all) but he told me he recognised me. He said he was in Form 2 North, where I taught him, and I also played table tennis with him ! I am going to dig up the old photos (I remembered we had a class photo taken of the 2 classes I taught - Form 1 South and Form 2 North. (Let's see if I can see you there !).

    I look forward to our meeting up again, when we certainly have a lot to catch up.
    Until then, regards

    ReplyDelete
  12. Reproduced from email by kind consent of
    Dr. Yong Siew Onn

    I came from PRES 2 where I, like you, was the School Vice-Captain, and we had to sit for the exam, in which the first 160 or so boys in Selangor got places. I shared most of your experiences in the new environment in the VI when I went in in 1960, including Valentine Manuel !

    He was the school sports secretary, and the late Rajaratnam was in charge of the school Under-14 rugby team, where I first got the feel of the funny-shaped ball (prior to that I thought balls were always round !). When I finally retired from the sport after 25 years, in 1984, I was President of the Selangor Rugby Union. Not bad, I think, from humble beginnings of first playing the game as U-14 in 1960.

    I got Murugasu 5 years later, in 1964, when he became HM, and I was in Form 5, and I was among the first batch of (3) prefects he installed in September 64. Tan Kee Kwong and I were the only Form 5 prefects then. For the first time in VI's history (I think) he interviewed all of us - there were 4 nominees by the VIPB, and Muru rejected one. This one was subsequently admitted the following year, when he was in U6.

    And yes, I remember Chung Chee Min, who, I believe, lives in Canada now. He was still teaching in the VI when I was there. Did you know his brother-in-law Lim Meng Kian was also VIPB ?

    BTW, who is this "Broom Handle..." fellow ?

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  13. Reproduced from email by kind consent of Dr. Yong Siew Onn

    Thank you Dpp. Yes, you may edit my mail as appropriate, and publish. If I think very hard, and remember (quite difficult nowadays with advancing age - they say, two things definitely happen as one ages - one, he loses his memory, the other.... errrr...errr.., sorry, I can't remember.) more interesting happenings during my VI years, I will write again.

    You got all the guys right, except for those you didn't know, but then, that's excusable, as they were before your time. If you really stretch your memory back, you may remember at least one occasion when you would have seen Leong Wee Chuen. As Form 1-ers in 1966, you would have been standing (and then sitting) somewhere near the front of the hall for the first assembly. Leong Wee Chuen was the outgoing Vice Captain (Wong Mun Fui was the out-going School captain) who would stand at the left (as you face the stage) in front of you. They would attend the first assembly before the new School captain is installed.

    Yes, Zainal Abidin was with Hanafiah Raslan, which became Arthur Andersen-HRM, of which he was Country Manager and Senior Partner. And then Enron happened. He is now retired, and serves on the board of several companies, including Tenaga Nasional and CIMB. Sakinah (his late wife) passed away several years ago from cancer, and he has since re-married. His present wife, Datin Jasmine Abdullah Heng, is the General Manager of the Sheraton Subang Hotel in Subang Jaya. I see them very often, as he plays golf with me in the evenings whenever he is free from meetings/social programmes, etc., and Jasmine calls me over for meals with them or social events at the hotel quite often. I am surprised to learn that Sakinah was in the VI (1971-1972).

    Siew Onn

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  14. Hi Purple Haze

    That's a new one for me on Teh Mun Heng! Hope others will produce some nuggets of revealing comments, Thanks.

    I wish this elephantine memory was there when I was struggling in F6 and professional courses.

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  15. Dear dpp

    Will mention 2 V Manuel stories.

    1) I was in Form 1 and he was relief teacher. He came in, sniffed around and made a beeline towards my classmate who had brought durians to class. He ate one, flung the seed out of the door (this was in the days of Dr Lewis) and said "Very good. Bring some more tomorrow!"

    2) Later on, he became the General Science master of our class and asked what the fundamental difference between plants and animals was. Needless to say, no one knew. So the whole class had to write out the following para 100 times and I still know that "The fundamental difference between plants and animals is that green plants, in sunlight, can manufacture food from water and carbon dioxide absorbed from the surroundings, whereas animals cannot." Who says rote learning does not work.

    And to quote the 2nd verse:

    "That is the land of lost content
    I see it shining plain;
    The happy highways that I went
    And cannot come again.

    Chong Siew Meng

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  16. Dear Siew Meng

    That 1 about Manuel and the durian is a killer. Deserves an award!! Ha, ha! Thanks a zillion,

    And Alfred Edward Housman's poem about nostalgia is 1 of my all-time favourites, Anyone interested can check out about him at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.E._Housman.

    The poem opens with that immortal line "Into my heart an air that kills..."

    Thanks for dropping by again.

    dpp

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  17. Dpp.This is Michael Nettleton,delighted to read your script.Chong Ket Choy here in England was also amazed to read it.Just tell Jalil that he was a crap monitor.
    Must make contact via email.

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  18. Michael

    Only the other day Yoong Fong was telling us what you used to do at U15 Centralised Football Training in 1968 when Tan Kim Chuan was our coach and we all slept on the study tables in the new refectory!

    Great days weren't it though. Remember we beat La Salle PJ (Mickey Yap & raymond De Silva) twice at Imbi Postals Ground to claim the U15 Championship Trophy and they claimed they were the better team. Mickey stiil can't live it down! Lol! Besides Fong, there were you, me, Indran and Mokhtar Dahari, Shook Keong and Ee Beng Yew in that team.

    Well, send me an email at za@donplaypuks.com so we can keep you in the loop.

    Really great hearing from you.

    dpp

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