Had a family zoom call for mom’s birthday in early April, and I congratulated Jessica’s son, Samuel, for becoming a class monitor in his first year of primary school. Somehow mom then brought up how I was a prefect in my lower secondary school (the government school), and that I caught a boy smoking in the washroom, so I reported it. I actually forgot that part of the story, but I did remember the retaliation. The way my mom remembers it, the boy was part of a gang, and so he cornered me in school and “asked” [made] me to kow-tow to him. At the time, kow-towing to someone didn’t mean much to me, and I was actually more concerned about what would happen if I didn’t, as I remembered how my piano exam was coming up and I didn’t want him to throw me off where we were standing or hurt my fingers. This was all in school so my mom doesn’t know the corner, but it wasn’t really a corner. The place where this all took place was actually the middle of an open-air staircase between the outdoor basketball courts (below) and the school proper (above). The staircase had railings on the side so people can hold onto them, but basically it was nothing but wild grass flanking the staircase. If someone pushed you over the staircase railings, you would tumble down and the landing wasn’t exactly soft [it wouldn’t be a soft landing coz of a drain]. Anyway I kow-towed to him and that was kind of the end of that. I don’t remember feeling scared really. I just wanted this confrontation to be over with and as I said before, I was more concerned that he would push me over and I’d hurt my fingers as a result, and wouldn’t be able to do well in the piano exam that was coming soon.
When
I got home from school, I must’ve told my family about this over dinner. Now what
I didn’t remember was the fact that my mom’s dad was visiting us for a while (he
usually stays for 1-2 weeks) so he heard the story I shared as well. Apparently
my grandpa was furious and demanded my mom to go to the school the next day and
sort this thing out, because it’s very pantang [taboo?] for a Chinese to
kow-tow to anyone. And so my mom went, and this next part I remember somewhat,
because I went with my mom to a meeting with the boy. When we got to the
meeting, I think mom was a bit disappointed that I wasn’t the main victim here,
but rather I was just brought in to support an ongoing case. The boy had
bullied another skinny, bespectacled boy (who was shorter than me, I mean I was
pretty tall for my age) and I was brought in as supporting evidence. Anyway my
mom and I both remembered the fact that the boy was put on a black list and
later expelled from the school. And so that was the end of that I guess.
Memory
is a funny thing in a way. I had completely forgotten that I caught the boy (the
one who cornered me) smoking in a washroom and reported it. I did remember being
cornered, kow-towing, as I didn’t want my fingers to get injured. It’s funny
that when my mom was at that meeting with the school headmaster and senior
assistants, mom played up the fact that I was more concerned about my fingers
than my honour/ self-respect. I mean, it wasn’t a racist incident, all of us
who were involved are Chinese. (the headmaster was Chinese too, Mr. Gan I
think, but some of his senior assistants were Malay I think. The teacher in
charge of discipline was probably Malay too). But yeah this story kinda shows
you how mom and I remember different things about the same story. To give
another example, I didn’t remember my grandpa’s visit and him compelling my mom
to go to the school and sort this thing out. I just remember my mom going to
the school, the meeting with the boy and school leadership/administration, and
the boy being expelled later. I think I did well in my subsequent piano exam (I
would’ve been 14 or 15 at the time) and I continued to be a prefect in school
until I left the school at the end of form 3/ grade 9 to go to an international
school that taught the Ontario high school curriculum. Going to that new school
wasn’t because of this incident, from what I remember, it was more along the
reasons of Malaysia’s education ministry see-sawing on the teaching of Mathematics
and Science in English versus Malay (which is still an issue). When I was in
government school, it was taught in English (in a way, it was an experiment to
do so), but I think there was an announcement that it would be taught in Malay again
soon (probably when I was in form 5/ grade 11?) so my mom gave me two new
school options, this new international school called Sunway which taught this
Canadian curriculum, or Alice Smith school, which is where my 3 sisters went
(they started waaaay earlier though, as early as standard 4 or 5/ grade 4 or 5).
[chuckles] I remember thinking I didn’t want to see my eldest sister’s
(Jessica) name or picture in the school assembly hall’s wall every day (she was
best student I think) so I chose Sunway instead. I think the reason I told my
parents was the more practical one, which was the fact that Alice Smith
(British O-levels and A-levels stuff) was very far away from our house so I didn’t
want to travel that far every day. While Sunway wasn’t as far as Alice Smith,
Sunway is still relatively far but at least the drive is nice and not that congested.
By grade 11 when I got my ‘P’ license (pelajar, or learner’s), my dad would let
me drive to school, then drive the car back, then ‘pick’ me up from school by
driving the car to school, then let me drive back. For grade 12, I drove to
school all by myself, which is a happy memory for me as I could drive as fast
as I can (no accidents or tickets!) and come home at whatever time I wanted to.
P/S: reading the title after writing that last
sentence, it was totally unintentional for me to title this writing ‘memory
drive’ instead of the conventional ‘memory lane’. When I first wrote the title (then
wrote the rest of the piece), I just felt that ‘memory lane’ is said way too
often and so I substituted ‘lane’ for ‘drive’. Re-reading what I just wrote, I think
‘memory drive’ works better for what I write about at the end
(written around 7am on April 22 at sjc)
(https://www.facebook.com/smktamandesa/photos/pcb.3899160616818024/3899157413485011/ to see a recent image of my grade 7-9 school, note the basketball court/football field to the bottom left)
