Forty Years Later……

If you put a group of ‘girls’ who have been separated for forty years in a lock-up, they would thank you profoundly as they would be too happy to be together to chat endlessly and excitedly hoping that tomorrow would never come.

What is more if they are introduced to scenic, serene and conducive environments like the Mengkuang Dam and Cherok To’kun Forest Reserve at Bukit Mertajam. I am convinced that they would be chatting away non-stop like a bullet train going around the world or like a merry-go-round, praying that the Earth would not be spinning so that the next minute would always remain the next minute.

This was exactly what happened to my secondary school female classmates when they met on April 25, 2009. Hardly could I see them not talking to one another for even a split second. Maybe it was how they would made up for the lost time of forty years of missing one another. Nobody would have imagined that this would happen after forty years of leaving school.

The whole story started with a secondary-school classmate, Chew Ee, who was keen to pay a visit to me and Pek Im at Bukit Mertajam. Shirley suggested that either one of us would have to do the 'homework' and to make arrangement for them to visit the place. I was inadvertently dragged into planning this one-day trip.

After numerous alterations to the itinerary, I came up with the final draft as follows:

8.30 am: -Waiting at McDonald's, Autocity (For those guys who are unfamiliar with the 'dim sum'shop)

9.00 am: -Dim Sum at Orient Precious Restaurant at Butterworth.

10.30am: -Stroll at Mengkuang Dam

1.00pm: -Duck feast at Lunas

3.00pm: -Tea chat at Cherok Te’kun Forest Reserve ,at the foothill of Bukit Mertajam Hill.

5.00pm: -Bible Study at St Anne's Old Church

5.50 pm: -Group Photography Session with teachers at BM Country Club.

6.00 pm - 7.00 pm -Dinner at BM Country Club

7.00 pm -Departure.

A total of eleven of us followed the one-day trip with Thean Seng joining us briefly for the breakfast of 'dim sum'. In the evening we were joined by another classmate, Raju, and four other former teachers. Two tables were ordered for the dinner at the BM Country Club with my wife and daughter in the company. My wife prepared two complimentary dishes for the dinner while Chew Ee contributed the fruits for descert.


I was very glad that Ah Nia and Song Hooi could set aside their tight working schedule to join us all the way from Johor Bahru and Ipoh respectively. I knew fully-well that they were ‘busybodies’ as time is money for them.

Jokingly, a classmate was telling, “If you want to talk to Ah Nia, you have to be in her lawyer office with a file opened before you and the duration of conversation recorded. Before you leave her office, you have to settle the consultation fee. Outside the office, she will always keep mum and she won’t be talking to you as it is non-productive to her.”

As Ah Nia had indicated to me earlier that she would like to meet us in the North, I did inform her through email about this event. Later on, in her reply, she wrote, “Well, I have booked my flight back to Penang on 24th and will be returning to JB on 26th. I am eagerly looking forward to meeting all of you again after so many years. I believe we have much to talk about and have informed my family and associates that I would be fully tied up on 25th.”

Another classmate from Kota Kinabalu, Seng Kwang, was keen to join us. Nevertheless, at the eleventh hour, he was tied up from head to toe with his busy working schedule. He could not make it across the South China Sea. He could only hope that CNN or BBC would show a live telecast of the event. He put it in this way, “to start a business is rather easy,but to end it abruptly is extremely difficult”. Like what a famous blogger used to say in his blog, follow my lips closely and say it loudly and clearly in the Hakka dialect, “koi gong yong yi siew gong nan” [开工容易收工难]。
The Bukit Mertajam trip was considered a ‘great reunion’ by Pek Sim, especially at the dinner table where the pupils met their former teachers after forty years. Siew Sim sent us a congratulatory message from UK via email stating thus “Happy reunion to you all……. I am envious but equally delighted that you are all getting together. Like Pek Sim said 'enjoy today because who knows what tomorrow will bring'.”

To be frank, we have to thank Siew Sim as all the gatherings organized by us so far would not have materialized without the 'initiation' of Siew Sim during her last holiday trip from England in 2008. In fact, Shirley has noted that Siew Sim has been doing it since the 1980s. To this, Siew Sim reacted, “You are both very kind to think of me as the initiator of the grand reunion. Like you I felt that life is too short to be miserable and inward thinking. Personally, I shall go to my grave not saying 'I wish I had done' whatever.”

It is interesting to note that on this very day of our gathering many secrets that had been kept for forty years were 'decoded' within a day without bringing them to our grave. Secrets like what were the nicknames of our fellow pupils and our teachers and how the names were derived from; how a teacher fell ill and later died after being unintentionally cursed by a pupil and so on…..

It became a laughing stock when Pek Sim mentioned that the exchange of our SMS and email between her and me during these few days were far more than our conversations when we were at school during those few years combined. In fact she could hardly recall we had ever talked.

Credit had to be given to our 'Brother Hoe Soon' when he acted as ‘Father Hoe Soon’ the moment he took the stage at the podium to conduct a Bible Study for us in the St. Anne Church compound. He explained to us how and why Jesus Christ suffered for the sake of mankind. 'God will bless you to be born with everlasting life in heaven once you believe in Jesus Christ' was what our 'Father' wanted to emphasize.

Finally, I do hope that April 25, 2009 would become a day to be remembered by all those who have made it possible. For me, I will never forget it!

Who knows we may have another gathering again forty years later on.