怀旧

看到了小時候王景華、邱文強、郭景秀和郭秀珠的樣子嗎？

Thai Heng said...

Let me walk down the memory lane with my old classmates of Standard 6 Class 1 in the picture taken in 1955, more than 53 years ago.

In the row of the girls I can only recognise a few: third from left is Chiew Yik He邱玉蛾, sister of Chiew Boon Keong邱文強. She was good at maths .

Sixth from left is Wang Jn Ruan, who is the sister of our school badminton player Wang Jin Chu. She lived in the medicine shop which occupied the corner lot of the block where Ban Hing Bookstore and Bata Shoe were, the name of her shop was Sin Chee Teik.

She was sweet but very quiet, I don't remember she ever talked to any boy.

Lily 陳麗莉is on her left. I never talked to her. Those days the girls stayed among themselves all the time, they seldom mixed with the boys.

On the left of Lily is Zen Shieh Yeh鄭雪葉, she was much older than us . She was already a beautiful girl, a bit bashful but very sweet. She became teacher and married a school headmaster and now they live in Klang.

On her left is Chiew Yin Shia邱允霞, a dark girl very good at studies.One day she came to me and asked me to lend her my composition book, I was very flattered.

The last girl is Lee Yik Ying李玉瑩, a small skinny girl. I was told she got married and divorced.

There was another girl Chai Yin Zen, sister of Chai Lee Ren, she was a dark and sweet girl. I was attracted by her but dared not make any move. She is not in the picture, I really wonder.

I have not seen her since CHHS days. I heard she stayed back in Muar and remained single.What a pity.

Let us go to the boys in the row just behind the girls: can you recognise the first four from the left? Peter Khoo邱文昌, Meng Leng陳明龍 ,Chow Sien鄭昭賢 and Chai Lee Ren蔡立人.

I am sure the first three names sound very familiar to you. The chubby faces are still there, right? So innocent and boyish, I doubt Peter had developed any interest in the girls, he was the smallest among the boys,but the smartest.

Who would expect all of them to grow up to shine in their studies and careeers later?

1955 was a memorable year: this was the year when MCP leader Chin Peng and his comrades Chin Tien aand Rashid Maidin left the jungles in Baling, Perak to have peace talks with the late Tengku, Tan Cheng Lock and David Marshall.

The newspapers were full of the coverage of the talks but we were still too small.

Chow Sien 昭賢interviewed the wife of Chen Tien陳田 and published a book, the book is on sale in MPH.

Chow Sien was detained when he got entangled in the leftist activities in KL and sent to Batu Gajah Detention Camp where he remained for six years under ISA.

He studied hard and passed his Upper Six Cambridge examination.

Nobody knows what happened. Lily fell in love with him and visited him in Batu Gajah while she had time.

This is some romance CH must write one day.

Now they have a son who is an engineer but still pursuing his MA studies and a daughter who is a lawyer working in Taman Tun Dr.Ismail.

Peter 邱永昌has now settled down comfortably in Perth as an Australian citizen with his dear wife Saofong who is from Singapore and ML陳明龍 has also retired as Director General of The Environment Department.

ML married a friend of his sister, Kate Teo 張仰喬who is also from CHHS. Now she joins us for our Tuesday gathering. After taking her retirement from her law practice she devotes a lot of her time to cooking, so ML is the lucky guy who gets to taste her new dishes before everybody else. They live in Taman Tun Dr.Ismail and sometimes we meet during our morning walk in the park nearby.

As for Lee Ren蔡立人, he went to study in Australia after CHHS and we never met.　Someone told me he has passed away, bless his soul. Some thought he was proud but we were good friends.

Sixth to the left is our class monitor Wang Swee Hwa王瑞華. A very nice boy but we have never met.

Can you recognise the boy on his left? That is me the Hailum boy. So you all know me already.

I was staying with my late dad in a rented room opposite the Clock Tower in Jalan Maharani. He was a kepala for a rubber holding owned by a Singaporean.

My father decided to stay in Muar leaving my mom and sisters at Pagoh after he was threatened with arrest and deportation to China by a detective.

Those were the days when these detectives were so powerful they could slam you with any accusations involving the communists and took you away from your family.

Some of my neighbours were detained and sent to China, leaving their wives and young kids to struggle for survival. Some never met again.

I remember this detective came to our room one day, he left after my father took out some money and gave it to him. My father told me he could　not leave us behind.

Two seats away from me is Zang Wee Tak張維達 of the Wee Shin Bookstore 維新書局near the Rex Theatre. Two of his elder brothers were our school basketball players. Our school was famous for our strong basketball team those days.

An elder sister joined the communists in the jungles.

After the peace treaty was signed in Bangkok, she came back to work for Hai-O in KL and later Kajang as a Chinese medicine doctor. She was among a few others from CHHS who disappeared into the jungels during the Emergency rule.

Wee TAk 維達was my good friend, I used to go to his bookstore to read the many magazines for free.

Wee Tak's mom always dressed in nyonya attires and his father was already very old and fragile.

I was told Wee Tak now runs a sundry shop in Muar, I should look him up soon.
March 20, 2008 9:43 PM

請找出小時的劉實蘭、梁炳超和李文英？