Down Memory Lane - Re-Visiting St Paul's Sec. School

10 July 2008 is another memorable day in my diary.   My wife and I, together with my youngest son,  flew to Kota Kinabalu (KK) for a visit, after leaving the town for 36 years.    It was a trip down memory lane.

After landing at KK, we joined a local tour group to Mt. Kinabalu Park.   It was an eye opener for us, as we went up the mountain trails to check out its array of fauna and flora.   

Kinabalu Park is a UNESCO heritage site.  Development of any sort is restricted to a minimum so that its original state is preserved for posterity.

 

 


 

 

In the 36 years since I departed Beaufort, two of my colleagues had left us, for good.   They are Low Shau Kee (Chinese language teacher) and Lela Nair (domestic science teacher).  May God bless their souls.  The where about of Cikgu Wan Sam and Cikgu Saffian Hamzah were not known.   Jenny Bell had initially followed her family to the UK, but then came back and got married to a local Sabahan.   She is now happily settled down in KK with her own family.

Within the 36 years, many things indeed had taken place.   For one, Beaufort is no longer the one street town, but with a few more streets of shops.  The wet market is longer it used to be and has been converted into a restaurant.  Also gone was the Padas Hotel.  But one thing remains to remind its residents, the pertinent yearly flood.   I heard that the authority, not being able to contain the flood, has given up trying, and is building a satelite town on the higher part of the land.   This is yet to be verified.

When I went to St Paul's Sec. School in 1970 to teach, many of my students were of my age, so I expect those in the higher forms then to be in retirement or nearing retirement by now.   Needless to say, the Principal of that time, Mr Goh Chit Yong, had also retired.

On the third day of my visit this time, I rented a car to drive to Beaufort with my family, with Gerald Voon as my guide.   The journey was to take slightly over an hour.   Before that Voon suggested we get some seafood from the famous but disused Tanjung Aru railaway station.   We bought 2 striped groupa, which Voon said were very good for steaming. 

We informed the vendor that we were buying these fishes to bring home to Kuala Lumpur later in the evening.  So the lady boss helped us packed nicely in several layers of wax paper, with several additional layers of newspaper before putting the whole thing in a carton.   Sure enough, by the time we reach home around 11pm that nite, there was only a slight wetting of the newspaper.  

Due to this detour, when we reached the Beaufort restaurant, it was already past 1.00 PM.   At the table were Mr and Mrs Goh Chit Yong and Mr and Mrs Voo Tet Chung.  It was very nice to be able to meet up with them after so long.   Mr Voo looked very fit and had a very firm handshake.  Mrs Goh appeared to me to be strong and healthy as she would still accompany us to visit St Paul's Sec. School after that lunch.   Its a pity that today she is no longer with us.  

While at St Paul's Sec School as a colleague, like a caring sister, she had been very helpful in offering tips on how to deal with the local conditions.   It made my 2 years' stay in Beaufort less stressful.  May God bless her soul.

After the lunch, we went in two cars to re-visit the St Paul's Secondary School.    After entering the school compound, Mr Goh spoke briefly to the school attendant of our intention.   The school had indeed changed a lot.  for instance, there is the school hall in between the former hostel and the front block of classrooms.   The hostel is now staff room, fully air-conditioned.  

to be continued

Of Social Norms

Nowadays, young couples appear to treat their surrounding as if they are all opaque.  They can kiss (I mean wet kiss) each other any time and any where.

I witness one such incidence today.  The young man in the car in front of mine had just stopped at a traffic light junction.  I saw him bending over to the girl on his left and started holding both her cheeks and started kissing profusely.  Then they engaged in deep kissing, locking their lips for quite a while.  They were oblivious to the people on both sides and behind watching them.  

It took a good 2 minutes for the light to turn green.  Even then, I had to wait for another 15 seconds before alerting the man that it's time to move ahead.   After that the car sped off,  overtaking a few cars via emergency lane.   I believe he was trying not to let me recognise his face....lol

Early Bird Catches The Worm

I was reading an article on Bloomberg this morning about STX, a ship building company from South Korea, suffering huge losses due to the slow down in import of commodities from around the world to China.  STX saw an opportunity to enter the fray due to the continued economic boom in China then, or so they thought.

This brings to my mind Sun Tze's art of war.  When STX entered the race to build ships in China, the China market is already booming for some time.  So, it was a late comer, and naturally what it picked up in business might just be the crumb of the trade.  

In any business, or ventures, be it speculating (not investing) in shares, or starting a new business, all else being equal, the ones who started first will usually be the ones to enjoy success, not late comers.   This is evident especially in MLM (multi-level marketing), where someone else can just introduce several new products to the same market, offering more lucrative reward schemes to induce migration of agents to them.  I have seen this countless number of times, and observe how a flourishing business be reduced to one of merely surviving concern, when a key agent just migrates to their competitor.   This is after all a dog eat dog world.  

The saying goes, in good times, think of the bad.   For, sooner than expected, it might just be at the door step.