A Legitimate Way of Playing Truant in School

Nibong Tebal Health Clinic

It has been our Hakka culture and tradition to emphasize the importance of education in the elevation of the socio-economic status of our clansman. Our fore fathers would say, no matter how poor a family is, the children should not be deprived of education.(再穷也不能穷教育) As a matter of fact, whether it was rain or shine, my father would see that I boarded the school bus to school. No way could I play truant under the watchful eyes of my father before reaching the school.

However, I had a legitimate but painful way to play the game of truant during my Standard Two year. Would any one of you like to exchange a day of no schooling with the pain suffered either from the filling or extracting a tooth? Out of sheer stupidity or maybe with a bit of courage, I did that.

Mr. Salleh was a Malay clinic attendant attached to the Dental Department of the Health Clinic of Nibong Tebal at the time when I was at Standard Two in Pai Teik Chinese School. The clinic was located a few kilometres away from my school. One morning, he made a routine round to my school to identify children for dental checking in the clinic. Under normal circumstances, nobody would like to be chosen for this checking as it was like asking for trouble. Most people, even the adults, were dreadful of hearing the grinding sound while filling of a tooth was in progress. I was among a few boys from various classes at Standard Two volunteered for the inspection so that we could evade the lessons for the day.

Normally, if one or two pupils were selected for a routine checking, Mr. Salleh would carry them on his bicycle to the clinic. The boys were allowed to bring along their bags as they were fully aware that they would not go back to school after that. On the other hand,the school had to arrange a bus to send the pupils to the clinic if the number of pupils exceeding two.
We were delighted to go to the clinic as it was clean and spacious. Beside the clinic there was a football field. We could fool around the clinic, playing whatever games we could think of;games that we played were,hide and seek, police catching thieves,high jump and many others which I cannot remember. When our turns were called for inspections, we entered the dental room one by one.It was liked entering the hell from the heaven. We were at the mercy of a Chinese nurse to do what she liked on us, either filling or extracting of tooth.

After the treatment was done for every one of us, it was almost twelve noon. All of us were expected to walk home by ourselves. We really enjoyed the day without lessons and homework, but of course not the treatment by the dental nurse. Nevertheless, we were still looking forward for more inspections to come...

A Visit to the Taman Negara



On the 8th of June, 2004(Tuesday), we started our journey from Bukit Mertajam of Penang state at around 9.30 pm, via Karak Highway, and reached Jerantut, Pahang the next morning at 7.00 am. We took a breakfast at a Chinese stall and headed for Taman Negara Kuala Tahan at 7.50am. We arrived at the destination by 9.15 am. The whole journey took almost 12 hours.

As we were following a budget tour (RM 330 per head), it was unlikely that the organizer would house us in Mutiara Taman Negara Resort. Instead, we had to check in Agoh Chalet, which was situated on the opposite bank of Sungai Tembeling, which is running adjacent to Sungai Tahan. Boat service across the river to Taman Negara was provided by Liaya Restaurant owner, Mr. Yaakub, free of charge, because he catered all our six meals during our two-night stay. The food provided by Mr. Yaakub was tolerable so long as one did not bother to compare to food at Sheraton in Autocity, Juru. In fact Mr. Yaakub was quite accommodative with our additional demands during our stay there.

The tough part of the trip was a total of no less than 8 hours of hiking and jungle trekking within a span of 28 hours interval. This is an experience, which I fear no one of sane mind would like to have a second try.

Of course, most of us enjoyed the shooting of rapids in Sungai Tembeling and walking along the world’s longest canopy walkway (450 m), which was installed 30 m above the ground.

The sole activity I missed was the cave exploration to Gua Telinga where thousands of Dracula offspring are supposed to live. My family members did not follow this excursion for the fear of coming into contact with the droppings of the animal.

The trip would not be so successful if not for the expert guidance of our two tour guides, Mr. Forest Ang and Mr. Jungle Leong from Penang. They have provided us with an excellence service. Thanks to both of them.

This is a good and remarkable experience. If you ask me whether I would like to revisit Taman Negara, my answer is, I shall, if we follow any of the other three entrances to Taman Negara.

In Memory of My 'Taiko'

Taiko literary means eldest brother in Chinese. In a family, taiko, as the eldest son of the family, usually has to help the parents to shoulder responsibilities of bringing up the younger brothers and sisters. There is a saying common among the Chinese, that is, “don’t ever be the eldest son of so and so”, meaning that "don’t be so stupid as to be fully exploited by the person". My father was a cloth merchant 50 years ago. My taiko came from China at the age of thirteen to help my father in the business. When the business failed miserably, my taiko had to be converted overnight as a sheet metal worker to support the whole family. He was the sole pillar in the family at the age of early twenties. Everyday, he slogged more than 10 hours non-stop to make ends meet. Though life was difficult at those times, he was determined to provide his younger brothers and sister with the best education that he could afford. On the other hand, he himself led a very simple and thrifty life. He practically never ate out. My mum had times and again told me privately not forget my taiko's sacrifice for the family, without him the family would have turned hay-wire long ago; his younger brothers and sister would have to join the work force at their teens.

I told my nephews and nieces that they had a common but a great father. With his pair of magnificent hands, he could feed the mouths of 3 generations under the same roof.

I am very indebted to my taiko, really.

Gatherings of the Former Classmates of the Sixties

An unexpected phone call from a lady in the late evening of 24.5.08(Saturday) prompted a gathering of former classmates of the sixties to be held on 26.5.08(Monday) followed by another gathering on 28.5.08(Wednesday). This lady was none other than our very outspoken Hng Siew Sim. Through her initiative, and the efforts of Shirley and Thean Seng, a gathering of classmates who have never met one another for almost half a century became a fond memory for those who have attended the gathering. As Thean Seng put it, “If we don't try to meet one another this time, we may not be able to do so the next time around." I do agree with him as time is definitely not on our side as some of our classmates had already transmigrated to the next world.

In the latest gathering, we were glad to have Mr. Ng Huang Leng and Mr. Maniam, our former teachers of the Nibong Tebal Methodist Secondary School, to join us and catch up with the missing link(s) of the past forty years.This was a very memorable evening as it would be an added chapter down our memory lane.


If we considered the gathering as a necklace, then I would say we were the beads with Siew Sim as the string that joined up all the beads to form the necklace. When shall we form another necklace? I would like to pass this question over to our 'string',Siew Sim.

A Visit to Sungai Lembing

Recently I joined a trip to Sungai Lembing. Maybe you are already quite familiar with this town.It is an old tin mining town in Pahang operated by British Colonial Masters long before and after Independence of Malaya in 1957. It was abandoned twenty years ago. The town is predominated by Chinese folk speaking my Hakka dialect. It is now a sunset town suitable for folk like me in the sunset years. It is no wonder that many tourists complaint that it was hard to catch a sun rise in the dawn on top of Lembing Hill.
Several tourist attractions can be found around this town like Rainbow Waterfall, Tin Mining Musuem,Abandoned Underground Tunnels of Tin Mine, Lembing Hill scenery and Charas Cave.

To get to Rainbow Waterfall is quite an "exclusive" experience which money alone may not acquire. One has to be prepared to go through a one and a half hours of bumpy ride in either a lorry or 4-wheel drive uphill and then hike for another hour or so before reaching the destination.

My other observation of Charas Cave still puzzles me. To enter the cave one has to climb up staircase. It is unique in the sense that in name it is supposed to be a Siamese temple (Wat). Inside the cave, one will find statues of Buddha and Kuan Yin. But, one would be completely dumbfounded to find out the resident monks inside the cave are neither Siamese nor Chinese; they are INDIAN SAMIS. To a person like me with a limited knowledge of Buddhism, it is hard to convince him that a "Wat", "Kuan Yin statues" and "Indian samis" can be put together under the same roof inside such a gigantic cave. Through my experience, I would like to suggest to those would be visitors to the spots mentioned is: bring along with you lots of T-shirts and drinking water. You will be assured of continuous sweating in the process of hiking. This is a good exposure which you should try once in a life time, would you?

Ping Pong in the Primary School Years

Table tennis is also known as ping pong in Chinese. It is the game I started to play when I was at Standard 4 in Pai Teik Chinese Primary School, Nibong Tebal, in the year 1960. Mr. Choo, a new teacher was transferred to my school at the beginning of the year. He was very skilful in the game. He played offensive style. At that time most of the teachers were from outstations and they were staying in the school quarters. Every evening they passed their time playing various games among themselves or with the pupils. Mr Choo took the initiative to promote table tennis game. With the help of his colleagues and financial aids from school or school board, he managed to put up not less than 10 units of ping pong tables along the passage ways connecting the school buildings. He and some other teachers helped the school to organize its maiden inter-class table tennis competition for pupils of standard 4 to standard 6. This helped to arouse the interest of the pupils towards the game. Before the competition started, the pupils practiced the game earnestly. Many would save up their pocket money to buy table tennis equipments like bat, ping pong balls and net, to save the trouble of having to borrow them from the school. The most popular brands at that time were Double Happiness from China and Butterfly from Japan. With around $10 or so, if I am not mistaken, one would be able to acquire a quality bat or racket. A ping pong ball at that time was sold at the price of around twenty cents or so.

As ping pong game fever built- up day by day, all the ping pong tables in the school would be fully occupied during the recess time and in the afternoon. Booking of table was done conventionally by placing a table tennis bat on a table before recess time. A table with a bat placed on it was considered booked by an unidentified pupil. Usually, a pupil would try to get the permission from the class teacher pretending to go to toilet and on the way to the toilet; he would secretly make a detour to place a ping pong bat on a ping pong table. Once a bat was placed on a table, the table was considered safely booked by the owner of the bat and others would have no claim over it during recess time. Surprisingly, this unofficial ruling worked in those days without much argument among the individuals and table tennis bats reported missing was seldom heard of.

Due to overwhelming interest in the ping pong game, the school emerged as the state champion in the Penang State Primary Schools Table Tennis Championship within a short span of one year. The school was able to retain the title for the subsequent year. Although I spent quite a lot of time playing the game, I was not selected into the school team as I was only a ‘second division player’. It could be that I did not have the gifted talent and skills as my other classmates.
Now, as a retiree, I take up the game once again to keep my body and mind fully alert and occupied. To show that I am really serious and keen in the game, I bought a Butterfly branded blade and rubber in the hope that ‘my not-so-good’ skill will be complemented and supplemented with a quality bat. Will it? Have to wait and see.

My Primary School Years


As I was walking down memory lane to my primary school years about 50 years ago, school was just like a fun fair to us, especially among the boys. We played all sorts of games with much enthusiasm. On the other hand, study was our secondary concern, especially the language subjects like English and Malay which seemed to be foreign to us. We were very noisy during these linguistic lessons. Our English teacher in Standard Six was Mr. Khor Peng Chong. He had no way to induce us to be interested in his subject. He would thank God if we did not make noise during his lessons. Once he was very angry with a very notorious boy by the name of Lim Su Kuang that he swore that if that boy could pass the Secondary School Entrance Examination by the end of the year, he would jump from the Nibong Tebal Bridge into the River Krian to commit suicide. Unfortunately, he had to 'eat his words' as Su Kuang not only passed the examination; he passed it with Grade A.

I was another mischievous fellow who pulled the Malay language teacher’s leg during the Standard Six year. I remembered once the 'cikgu' was very delighted when I volunteered to stand up to construct a sentence in the Malay language. The sentence that I constructed was "Saya suka makan kopi dan minum roti." [Literally it means "I like to eat coffee and to drink bread."]I could not recall what was the punishment I got from the 'cikgu' after he had heard it.

At that time we did not realize the importance of these two subjects. What we were really concerned was the games we would play after the lessons were over. It was no wonder that our command of the English language was next to nil when we entered the Methodist Secondary School of Nibong Tebal the following year. We got frequent scolding of “Idiots” from Mr. Liew Jui Siong,our Form Teacher of the Remove Class.

Of course, there was always an exception. Khor Boon Seah was a real mugger. At home he had to study all day long under the scrutiny of his mother. Every day he was compelled to study for a fixed number of hours before he was allowed to come out to play with us at the Pai Teik School Union compound in the evening. He and Chin Phaik Hooi, another girl in the same class, were keen contenders for the first position in the class since Standard Two. There was a secret which I kept with Boon Seah for almost half a century. Once, during our Standard Four year (1961), Boon Seah was not satisfied with his performance in a written test for not being able to secure high marks. He worried that this test might affect his overall performance for the year. As such he urged me to go along with him to the school in that very afternoon to alter the answers on the answer script. I duly complied with his request as he used to grant me favours such as permitting me to learn riding on his bicycle and to play table tennis in his backyard. He ferried me to school on his bicycle. We stole the answer scripts from the staff room and made alterations of the answers under a papaya tree outside the staff room. We obtained perfect scores for the test.

Swimming was another extra-curricular activity of our own creation. A few of us among the boys would jump into a stream by the roadside on our way to school for afternoon activities.

On one occasion when we were having a 'swimming session' in the stream, Mr. Tan Choon Huat, a horrible teacher who seemed to be meddling with whatever things we did, was passing by in a Honda motorbike when he saw us. He stopped to confiscate our clothes to frighten us. As we were worried about how to leave the scene in the nude, the busy-bodied teacher came back minutes later to return us our clothes. Once bitten, twice shy. For the future swimming sessions, we made it a point to transfer our clothes on the other side of the stream to avoid ‘history repeating itself’.

School life in the primary school years was full of joy as most of us at that time did not know what and how to worry about our future. We let our future take its own course.

Undoubtedly,up to today, many of us still regard the primary school years as the best part of our school days as we liked to go to school not to study,but to play until there would be no tomorrows.