Sea Park Secondary School, Form One, 1975

Form One, 1975

I have always enjoyed my school life, whether to study, play, or sleep.

My secondary school years were so full of these three activities, especially the last one, that nothing in my later years could match it. Some people may call me a sentimental fool or even lifeless because the best enjoyments I have are already encapsulated in twilight zone. Call me what you want, but can you in your adult life find a place to enjoy these three activities, simultaneously. “At work, can you study, play, or sleep?” 

So, let me lead you on a time travel into the year 1975, when the best of times began. Hope you’ll enjoy it as much as me.

According to a renowned sociologist, the life of a secondary school student between ages 13 to 17 is at the most vulnerable point of his life. Just like an innocent lamb that had left her herd and began to roam the lush fields ahead, it’s the most critical period of in-betweens. In leaving the comfort zone to explore the wild, either you’ll be mauled or grow up fat.

A bunch of us who lived in the vicinity of Sea Park housing estate had registered at the Sea Park Secondary school, but it was still under construction. As a temporary solution, all of us were diverted to La Salle Secondary school for one year of squatting. Forced upon us, we started our mid school life in the most regimented place.

For me, my secondary school life started one fuzzy day in 1975, when I stepped into La Salle in Petaling Jaya. There, three classes at one end above the smoky canteen were allocated for 120 Sea Park School’s Form One boys, whose voices were on the verge of cracking with stubs of hair peeking out of their chins and below. Dressed in white socks, white shoes, white short pants, white shirts, and who knows maybe even white underwear, they all looked like sacrificial white lambs on parade. Quietly, they managed to blend in with their landlords, almost 3,000 La Salleans all older and bigger. It’s a miracle that none of the 120 lambs (a 4% minority) were slaughtered, here in the land of no man’s land. Baaa…ah.

Life here was very army-like. Every afternoon before class, we assembled in rows and stood in attention, in front of the main block. Then, the head honcho, a short and horn-rimmed man with a very round belly, stepped up to a tall platform in the center. He looked like the Statue of Liberty, but without the crown and fattened by New York’s hot dogs. Carrying a bazooka looking megaphone, he bellowed out his instructions. I never understood what he said, but every time it sounded like this, “You punks! Go ahead…make my day!”.

Have you ever seen a plump Statue of Liberty holding a Magnum .45 like Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry? That would be him. After the melee of the assembly was over, however, he turned soft. Almost like the gracious Lady of Liberty, he’ll wave his hand to the left and gently flick his fingers to direct the bored lambs to move to class, and ditto for his right. And, so begins a day of fenced monotony. Baaa…ah.

Being an all boys’ school, except for some pretty Form Six girls, and with its roots as a missionary school, discipline is the main course here. You do the slightest wrong, and then the rattan cane will definitely meet your hide. No doubt about it. Once, some of us lambs played a game of grabbing the other’s testicles. I don’t know who started this gaily game, but every lamb still with tender testicles, will be walking with both spread palms in front protecting down there. Someone must have injured someone’s manhood, for soon, a complaint was lodged.  Then randomly, a few lambs including myself, were rounded up to the principal’s office. The huge cold room looked exactly like a slaughter house, as we were each lambasted with three whacking strokes that hot-stamped our butts with “Thou shall not grab again”.

With school life being so harsh, escapism was the norm.

One popular activity during recess was to sneak away into an underground drain at the far end of the school field. Then, we crawled for a few meters like Rambo before alighting at the building across the road. The owners welcomed anyone, allowing them to enter and play the ping pong games underneath the main hall. We did nothing but ping ponging with fellow lambs and sometimes shoot some caroms. And, we were in the land of the free. However, sometimes someone gets caught and is hot-stamped.

Then again, some of us found other ways to release our sperm, err, I mean steam. Usually after we got down from our bas sekolah and before classes start, we grouped together and hike up the nearby Gasing hills. There is an old path that follows along a tiny stream for about a quarter of a mile deep into the jungle; passing by an old mini graveyard and ends at the smallest of all waterfalls that I have seen. This was before Hollywood invented Indiana Jones. But, we lambs were already scampering through the jungle, being scared shit by the cemetery (especially if you are the last in line) and jumping over the waterfalls. We screamed all the way and the echoes make it more terrifying.

It was at the waterfalls where we had our fun. All lambs discarded their fleece and fur and whatever that covered their bodies, and jumped into the waters in their birthday suit. We imitated the Tarzan scream we saw on TV, “Oorr…eee…oorr…hacks”. They say some guys have all the luck, while some have all the bucks, sparks, and jocks. Deep in the jungle on that day, we saw who had the biggest and we all shouted together, “Oorr…eee…oorr…hacks”.  We grabbed it and swing through the jungle. I meant we grabbed the low lying branches. Another highlight at the waterfall was to compare who has the longest hair; I mean those that sprout down there when you reach a certain age. I remember who won – one burly guy whose length was 0.2 of a centimeter. There were even more Tarzan screams in his honor, especially by those who were hairless.

Academically, I did well – attaining sixth position in the exams grading. In fifth position was a comrade, who went on to pass Form 5 science stream with a big bang and is probably now a professor in gerontology. As for me, I drowned in arts stream. Look at it this way – in Form One, my results were not too bad, on par with a future academician.

Actually, I didn’t put in much effort into my studies. This was because I found out I was supposed to do so. Before I entered Form One, I looked up in Oxford dictionary for the meaning of secondary – the first definition I came across was “secondary is of less importance than primary”. Embracing this new found fact, I reviewed the level of efforts I had expanded in primary school, and benchmarking against it, I made sure I took my foot off the pedal throughout secondary school. My new mantra became ‘Thou shall relax further’, which I followed diligently.

So, if I slowed down my studies, how did I score sixth place? After a few decades of soul-searching, I found the answer – it’s the char kway teow, something similiar to fried noodles. As our class is above the canteen, when Mr. Guyfrompenang did his frying, the aroma drifted up to our class and opened up my senses. Somehow, what the teacher said must have tagged along with the aroma of the char kway teow, and together entered my brain to totally electrifry my neurons. Albert Einstein called this newclear fusion, a very powerful form of clearing your mind to learn new stuffs.  By the way, our class came out tops.

This made me realized that I had, for the past decades, subconsciously been fusing (or maybe confusing) myself. No wonder whenever I did my strategic planning in my office, I would often gobble down a few plates of kway teow. And, no wonder, I just got fatter and fatter when there is more and more work to do. Shit! Too much lard had fused my belly. I think I will suggest to the education ministry to let our students eat char kway teow all day long in class to fuse their minds with studies. I’ll share with you another secret – ever wonder why all public-listed directors have fat bellies like mine? We all practice fusion. “Ah Pek, one more round”.

Do you remember what happened in 1975, which changed the nation, forever? We achieved something so great, that, we have not been able to match it ever since. It had such a profound effect on everyone, including all the lambs in my school. A clue?

Poon Fook Loke & Sri Shan . . . Yes! The 1975 World Hockey Cup! Dated names like Chin Aun and Mokhtar were set aside while we idolized our happening hockey heroes. We caught the fever! So many of us including me, who can’t differentiate hockey from hookey, bought a stick and proudly chased after the solid ball during recess time. We just whacked and whacked, whether hitting the ball, grass, air or the other guy’s shin, it doesn’t matter. And, I was at Merdeka Stadium to cheer live. “Ole! Ole! Malaysia boleh!” we shouted, and drank the free Milo. We scored fourth placing, our highest achievement thus far. Sadly, when the tourney was over, most of the sticks were used to scratch somebody’s back, or better, hammer the teacher’s car. Somehow, if most of us had carried on the game, Malaysia may have produced finer players. It still haunts me; I may have let my country down.

Finally in mid November, when school ended, we were glad to leave with our testicles and stamped butts intact. No love was lost here – it felt like we had been mauled. We jumped the fence and ran for our lives. Baaa…ah.

1975 had been a complicated year – full of uncertainties, disciplines, and challenges but, luckily tempered with lots of discoveries, enjoyments, and friendships. They say the beginnings of adolescent are like that but no teacher in school told us. On hindsight, I knew what compounded our situation – there were no girls around. Raging with new hormones that not only killed our cute voices, it also played havoc on our bodies. It’s like we were given silver-tipped bullets to match our shotguns, but with no live targets to aim for. The more creative ones would shoot at their imagery posters on the wall or aimlessly in the bathroom. I heard of one lamb that accidentally shot himself in the mouth; boy, he said food tasted weird after that.

Looking forward to our new school next year, we heard that some pretty girls would be joining us there. Rumor was they were also squatting somewhere, and like us, were kicked around like puppies. And, the best part we heard was they’re looking forward to heal their psychological and physical wounds with our help next year.

During the holidays, I tried my best to kill my pimples and followed my distant cousin, Swazernager to the gym. “One more…two more…no more.”

. . . to be continued.