my primary school days

picture courtesy of facebook profile Playfairschool Singapore

have posted something in facebook about myself and i thought i shall reorganize some parts of it, expand them and post them here. it is also perhaps a way of capturing some fond memories about myself. so, for a start, this is about my primary school days - most of which i did not capture in my earlier postings:

1. i started my primary education in playfair school in tai seng in 1973 and continued my education in telok kurau east school from pri 2 onwards. playfair school was located at playfair road in lor tai seng area - a gangster hub in those days. i recalled walking to school once a while with my second sister (who was in pri 6 when i was in pri 1). i studied in the morning stream and would go to school very early in the morning.

2. to prepare me for class, i remembered being made to wear uniform that was starched real hard and shoes that was coated with such thick white blanko that it felt like wearing leather shoes. and to top it off, my mum would apply thick scoops of brycreem on my hair and combed a `kalipop' hairdo for me - the in-fashion in those days (`kalipop' was the hokkien people's version of `curry puff' cos to many, the way the fringe of the hair was combed - curved upwards and swept down towards the back - made it look like a curry puff).

3. i enjoyed my pri 1 classes, especially arts and craft. i was a naughty and mischievous boy and was frequently punished by my teacher/s. there was once when i was made to stand facing the wall outside my classroom. i remembered feeling superbly embarrassed by that punishment. after my class, i would play in the sand-pit while waiting for my 2nd sis's lessons to end.

4. my pri 1 form teacher was this lady called mrs kang. she has a huge frame (well, at least to a 6 year-old me) and was a very nice lady. she had also taught my second sis when she was in pri 4. i remembered i had a best friend called quek chong and we would often play catching together. that was about all i remember of my pri 1 days.

5. i was subsequently transferred to telok kurau east school in 1974 (pri 2) when my family moved to marine parade. playfair school closed down in the early-80s (i think). when i last visited the place, the building was occupied by a malay-muslim community self-help group.

6. in telok kurau east school, i was a playful kid and had been publicly punished by teachers and school principal... in pri 4, i was caned publicly by my school principal during school assembly for shooting a seed at my chinese teacher (although i swear it was an accident!)

7. i took the school bus to school daily. my usual daily routine would be to wake up at 5.45am and wash up. by that time, my mum would have made her coffee for me (kopi-o). that would be my breakfast. she would then give me 30cents before `shooing' me out of the house. i always remembered to put 10cents into the milo tin can before i leave with 20cents in my pocket :-)

8. as a primary school kid, my daily allowance was 30cents. standard affair for me - 10cents for my piggy bank, 10cents for a bowl of mee/noodles, 5cents for drinks and 5cents of calipop. this was increased to 40cents in secondary school and 60cents in junior college.

9. i was a fat kid and would always feel so jealous when my skinny classmates all got to drink free milk during recess time. i secretly wished i could have some of the milk too...

10. i was my pri 3, 4, 5 form teacher's `pet' student and would always be asked by them to buy them calipop (curry puff) during recess time. and of cos, they would always reward me with a bottle of pok-chwee. this was a hokkien colloquail term for gassy drink - the term `pok' was used literally cos of the sound produced when the cap pops out. and `chwee' means water in hokkien. for me, pok-chwee usually would be either green spot or rc cola. the `in' drinks of those days!

11. my principal in telok kurau east school was mr bernard fernandez, a short stout indian man. and my school teachers include mrs kang (pri 1, playfair school), mr teh (chinese teacher, Pr 2, form teacher pri 3[?]), ms teo (later mrs fernandez after she married my principal, form teach pr 4), ms ang lay sian (form teacher, pri 5), mrs elaine tan (form teacher, pri 6), mrs rocky (maths teacher?), mdm toh (we nicknamed her madam toad, pri 4). cannot recall others much.

12. my best friend in primary school was this boy called sim beng. we had a common enemy called vincent cheo who always brag about his dad... sim beng and i enjoyed mimicking movie and tv characters. some of the characters we mimicked include r2d2, c3po, wonder woman.

13. sim beng used to live in jalan eunos. his grandma would fetch him to school and occasionally we would visit each other's family for lunch. whenever i go to his house, we would spent our time playing in his second floor attic room. we would chat for long hours and he would tell me about his family, his brothers, etc. we would also bitch about our classmates - some of those i could remember clearly include cheong kok yew (i remember him as a fat boy who used to live in marine terrace near me), phoon seng fatt (very nice boy who lived near sim beng but i thought he was some time a bit blur - in a very nice way), stanley chua (who lives in marine crescent near me and very bengish), vincent cheo (who's the son of my vice principal) etc etc etc... those were very good memories. and thinking back, we were so childish! haha! sim beng and i lost contact after we graduated from officer cadet school. think he calls himself kelvin now.

14. sim beng and i really enjoy arts and craft and we were both very good at it. we both joined the art club. some of the things i had done before include macrame, embroidery, knitting, sewing, making pillows, cross stitch, poster colour painting, charcoal painting, decopage (is this how it's spelt?), copper tooling, la la la la la.

15. as a primary school kid, i participated in many many art competitions! i remembered when i was in primary 6, i participated in a bookmark design contest at the national library. while on the bus, i realised i had forgotten to bring my poster colours. luckily, i always had 2-3 poster colour tubes in my pencil case. io, on that day, with only yellow, black and red, i designed a bookmark, and came out champion in the competition! i also won a series of awards during the youth day arts competition!

16. i was so good in my arts that even after i went to secondary school, my art teacher called me back to design and make the stage props and backdrop for the school's production of sleeping beauty. i remembered converting the classroom table into a bed by lining it with loads and loads of yellow and red paper roses and placing a yellow skirting for the table!

17. i chose tanjong katong (technical) and siglap secondary as my choices for secondary school. (in those days, we only had 2 choices). but in the end, almost half of my whole cohort in my primary school went to tun seri lanang secondary school, or what we would call - sekolah menengah tun seri lanang.