Obligation

As I am sitting in the office absorbing the coldness coming from the overhead aircond, it starts to rain. I could actually hear the rains hitting the roof of the mamak stall just below my office. On a fine day the smell of fried chicken will actually engulf my office sipping in through the gaps in the window, overcoming the smell of new paints and glue. On this unproductive day I was still trying to recall the things that I need to do for tomorrow. As I am wondering in and out of my thoughts, the sound of rain drops from outside has actually hypnotised me with its tune, “Tik Tik Tik”. It has somehow transported me back to those fun loving days in Primary School. I remember watching the rains dripping down from the roof. As it fell, it catches whatever light that is still left in the sky emitting some sparkle that enters my eyes.

It was rainy season and today is a day whereby the best thing to do is to sleep but now I am in the classroom doing my spelling test. As I was observing and listening to nature’s symphony from my little desk situated beside the window, my class teacher spoke loudly. As the word entered into my little brain it get translated into alphabets which I wrote diligently, alphabets after alphabets in a piece of paper that has my name on the top of it. In those days exams is conducted 3 times a year. Each exam is like a race, a race to become number one in the class or to me Top Ten in the class. If we manage to do well, we will be the main subject for our parents to talk about during Chinese New Year. We torture ourselves to remember all those text just to fulfil our social obligation which is to get good marks and position in the class. I do not think I remember what I have studied.

I remember that I was very good at History as remembering dates of historical meaning were my favourite past time. I remember there is this one incident which happens at the final year of my standard six. There is this particular classmate of mine who has been chasing me playing “catch me if you can” during recess just before my history exam. After all the chasing and panting, he confess to me his little secret. He told me he asks me to play because he wants me to forget all those date that have been cramped inside my tiny brain. He is worried that I might score higher than he is as he saw me blurting out the dates with ease after recess. He has decided to make me sweat hoping “all the dates” will come out together. Do bear in mind; we are just 12 years old and we are supposed to have a hell of a good time. Our society has actually instilled in us that our priority in school is to score as high as we can, to satisfy our parents and to ensure that we will eventually succeed in life by securing a well paid jobs in an air condition environment holding a pen instead of holding the “Big Pen” sweeping the street in the early hours.

Do we actually make use of what we learn during school? I guess our years spend in the primary school is just a foundation for us to seek out knowledge and to understand it. As memorising pages of text does not help much, it could only improve our memory which will eventually or finally will decline as we grow older. Getting to understand and able to read other languages like English actually opens and expose us up to a much bigger world. We do not have internet access back then but we have libraries which has thousand of books in English waiting for us to explore and learn. Of course we learn good and bad things along the way. We learn there is another part of the world whereby the human occupants there has body hair that is red in color (Hong Mor Kua). We learn that there are words like “tits” when we explore illegal copy of playboys. I am not sure how will a primary school students behaves now, there might be some who might be blogging about their daily school life, how nice if back then we have internet…..I could then relive my life by reading it on my own blog….