back for the hundreth year – a st. michael’s institution’s centennial celebration 2012

Going back to St. Michael’s Institution after what felt like a mental hundred years in waiting was awesome when I finally found myself in actual attendance for the school’s one-hundredth-year celebration on 29 September 2012! For years I have been looking forward to this centennial event to the point of near-obsession for some reason I can’t even comprehend. Sometimes I even have some minor anxiety about what if I couldn’t make it due to some circumstances. Now, I am glad that have become a part of that historic milestone along with three thousand plus other fellow alumni, current to former staff and students.

I could still remember the terrifying moment on the first day of school like it was just yesterday. I was desperately clinging to my mother’s hand and then panicked with separation anxiety the next day after Mom had to leave me behind. It felt like Mom had abandoned me indefinitely. Admittedly during those years, going to school wasn’t exactly something that I looked forward to! I was the subject of name-calling and was bullied by certain teachers both mentally and physically. Somehow I managed to survive with the good years in-between where kind and dedicated teachers balanced out the not-so-good years. Also my gratitude to the schoolmates who chose to remain friends with me until this very day do make the whole experience an incredibly worthwhile part of my life. The school also boasts of the most majestically beautiful architecture which is a rarity in this country from that era.

The welcome banner.

With my two other old fellow Michaelians touring the school grounds. It was so hot and humid that our shirts were soaked!

The venue for the evening’s dinner.

With my Form 1 (year 7) teacher, Mr. Timothy Chee.

The evening of the celebrations.

There are some 3000+ Michaelians here!

Thank you for the memories, St. Michael’s! Here’s to another 100! Hope I can make that 🤭

My last visit to the now demolished old primary section. This was my first classroom at St. Michael’s institution. These 2 images were shot in 1993.

Read Full Post »

between the jumbo jet and the mighty wind

I had to shop for a camera lens blower as an art student in Singapore some 20 decades back. While shopping for one in a shop that we frequented for our photography needs, I realized in the display case were two large ones and the most expensive amongst the others; these two looked similar even down to their descriptive card backings of the blisters (sans its actual brand names) and in pricing. The only exceptions were one had “Hurricane” molded on it while the other one had “Jumbo” facing up underneath the blisters. Out of curiosity, I asked the storekeeper about the differences between these two.

He told me that one was of the size and presumably also imbued with the strength as powerful as a jumbo jet hence, ‘Jumbo’ while the other was one of nature’s most powerful forces the, ‘hurricane’ that was already self-explanatory molded on the blower. I asked for his personal opinion and his experience on which one would be the more reliable one of the two. He asked me to think – a jumbo jet may be strong but the hurricane in some instances could easily blow off or damage the jumbo jet. He concluded that “…of course the, ‘Hurricane’ would be the more powerful one!’

With that terminology, I took the ‘Hurricane’ home.

When I got back to my apartment, I removed the blower out of its sealed blister to inspect it. I ran my thumb over the impressive embossed ‘Hurricane’ molded on the surface of the silicone blower and then I felt with my fingers another embossing on the other side of the blower. I turned it around and found the following words embossed across it – ‘Jumbo’.

Have to give credit to the storekeeper for his long and creative clarification to sell the eight-dollar blower.

Read Full Post »

dad the student in 1950’s surviving sepias

These are just a few surviving photographs of Dad’s taken when he was a student at Scotch College in Melbourne circa 1950s. We have lost quite a bit of those photographs and I have personally destroyed some as a kid (and my dad would still occasionally remind me on it unless we don’t go there about his college days or the subject on old photographs!). Until this day I can still recall tearing up some of those prints and flinging them over the balcony of our apartment/flat on the 6th floor!

Kudos for modern technology where I can salvage whatever is left and store them digitally.

My Dad rented a room from an Italian family. He still talks of them as being very warm, caring and treated my Dad as part of their family. In the image above, the eldest son of the family is picking my Dad up from the airport.

One of the experiences that my Dad still loves to tell from his Scotch College days is where he became a subject of mass attention whenever they were called in for ‘mass’ physical/medical check-ups or examinations. They all had to strip down to complete nudity before being asked to stand in line for their turns to go to the doctor’s desk. Before he could even get into the line, he would be surrounded by other white students. They would stare, point at my Dad’s crotch and whisper amongst themselves and giggle. Dad was the only Asian in the whole college at that time.

Here, Dad is posing in front of the main building. Probably circa 1954-55.

Picnic with his friends – the couple on Dad’s right are now residing in Bangkok. They own a gas/petrol station or kiosk. According to dad, the wife was possessive over her husband then and that hasn’t change until now. They still meet whenever my parents have to go to Bangkok.

As a part-time volunteer ranger!

Read Full Post »