A Classroom Scenario Version 3.0
-My playboy teacher

The Scenario:
A National Language lesson was in progress in a Form Five class at the Technical Institute,Penang, in the year 1969. The subject teacher was Mr.Mat Gau.

Mr.Mat Gau was a man of medium height with a receding hairline. He wore a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses all day long. He never took them off just like a fish could not be parted from its dwelling. He drove a red sports car to school.

His presence could be detected long before you could actually see him as his scent permeated like a skunk's, thanks to the perfume he applied on himself. One student jokingly commented that Mr.Mat Gau’s great grandfather might be operating a perfume factory so as to enable him to have an abundant supply of perfume.

It was little wonder why he got the reputation as a playboy.

Students liked him to bits as he was a jovial,understanding and easy-going man. Never once had the boys seen him lose his temper or scolded a boy.

Every time when Mr. Mat Gau was about to enter the lesson proper, somehow or other, a student would interrupt with some irrelevant questions or excuses to sidetrack his lesson. In the end, to the delight of everyone,the teacher and especially the students,no proper lesson was carried out and needless to say no assignments for the students to bring home.

Most of the time the boys were not keen to learn the national language, Bahasa Malaysia, although it was mandatory for them to get a pass in the subject to qualify them for a Malaysian Certificate of Education[MCE]. They would rather prefer to hear the playboy stories of their Malay language teacher than to follow a boring lesson on grammar[nahu].

Then one day, Mr. Mat Gau thought he should have a proper lesson. He started by telling the class, “Boys,today we are going to learn the important parts of speech,the different types of pronoun.”

Before he could continue any further, a boy by the name of Ah Choy stood up and interrupted, “Sir, last night I thought I’ve seen your car pass by my house along Dato Keramat Road. Where did you go?” “Ah! Ya! My bloody friend-lah, we used to call him Robert Head[萝卜头]. He asked me to join him at the Chusan Night Club[舟山夜总会] at Tanjung Tokong. He wanted me to keep him company. He likes to listen to great music and songs composed by P. Ramlee, Ooi Eow Jin,Jimmy Boyle and Alley Cats.” Mr. Mat Gau started to explain.

“Didn’t you all dance with the ladies?”Ah Kheng interrupted. “Of course, we did. In fact,to tell you the truth,that was our ‘hidden agenda’.Going to the night club without dancing is just like ‘scaling a treasured mountain but to return home empty handed’[入宝山而空手而归]. Not that I want to be boastful to you all; I’m quite familiar with all types of dances.But,I prefer slow-moving ones, especially those with more bodily contacts. You know-lah. It’s really shiok! (exhilarating)” Mr. Mat Gau relayed to the boys the fun he had with his friends at the night club.

The boys were listening with immense interest; they were all grinning ‘like the cat that got the cream.’In the end, a supposed-to-be grammar lesson finally ended up as a story-telling session.