EXTRA-MURAL ACTIVITIES
School ended at 1.30 pm but on every Monday and Thursday pupils had to return to school at 3.00 pm for extra classes and extra-mural activities. The time was too short, especially for those who lived far away from school. So, instead of returning home after school, and then going to school again for extra classes and extra-mural activities, I preferred to stay in school. A few other pupils also did the same thing.
I would eat my lunch in the school canteen. I remember that my father gave me about 80 cents, which was a lot of money then. I would save some money during recess in the morning, and spend the remaining money, about 50 cents, on Indian yellow noodles with a lot of tit-bits. Sometimes I would just have a bowl of the famous Chinese soup noodles in Malaysia called “koay teoh tung”, which cost only 20 cents. Then I would do some homework before classes started again at 3.00, and after that I went for extra-mural activities.
Sometimes, to have a change of taste, I would cycle to other schools for my lunch. There was no rice with dishes sold in the Penang Free School tuck-shop at that time. In many schools that I later taught, the tuck-shop was often called the school canteen. So sometimes I cycled to other schools, especially Han Chiang High School which was nearby, to have some rice, the main stable food for Malaysians.
The other schools I usually went to were Methodist Boys’ School and Chung Ling High School. Han Chiang High School and Methodist Boys’ School were just a stone throw away, and Chung Ling High School was further, but still near enough for me to come back after lunch for a rest, or to play table tennis with my friends.
Han Chiang High School was a private school, used Chinese as the medium of instruction, and championed Chinese education. Many Chinese pupils from neigbouring countries, like from Thailand and Indonesia, attended this school.
Methodist Boys’ School and Chung Ling High School, like Penang Free School, were government schools. As its name suggested, Methodist Boys’ School was formerly a mission school supported by the Methodist Church, and Chung Ling High School was a premium Chinese language school.
Besides having lunch at these schools, I also enjoyed admiring their buildings. Although architecture was not my specialty, I loved venturing into their different halls and rooms to explore. It was really fun.
Later an aunt who with her family lived in Perak Road, which was not far from Penang Free School, asked me to go to her house for meals. So instead of going to the other schools, I went to my aunt’s house.
There was an interesting and educational experience which contributed much to my kungfu development. Staying in my aunt’s house was a person, named Chan Fook Yong, who came from another state in Malaysia. After lunch I often had conversations with him. Later he married my niece.
He told me that he was bullied in his native village. An old kungfu master was chivalrous and angry at the bullies. So he taught Fook Yong a combat sequence, and asked him to apply this sequence whenever he was bullied. It worked well and the bullies dared not bully Fook Yong any more.
I asked Fook Yong to show me the combat sequence. On hindsight, though I was unaware of it at the time, the sequence looked like Choy-Li-Fatt Kungfu. It consisted mainly of “pao chui” or “reverse swinging fist” in deep, low bow-arrow stance.
This was the second time someone told me about the effectiveness of a combat sequence. The first time was my sidai, Sifu Yeong Kuen Chi, who later became the grandmaster of Georgetown Chin Woo Kungfu Gymnasium in Penang, about a Karate master challenging an old kungfu master to combat.
“Sidai” means younger kungfu brother who learns from the same master. Besides learning from the old master at Chin Woo Kungfu Gymnasium, Yeong Kuen Chi also learned from my master, Uncle Righteousness. In fact, Yeong Kuen Chi was Uncle Righteousness’ nephew.
An elder kungfu brother is called “siheng”. Although Yeong Kuen Chi was older than me by a few years, I was his siheng because he learned from Uncle Righteousness later than me. In kungfu, it is not the actual age that matters, but the time one learns form a teacher.
“Sifu” is a polite address for a kungfu master. Yeong Kuen Chi was politely addressed as Sifu Yeong Kuen Chi. “Chin Woo”, which means “essence of martial art”, is a famous association for kungfu.
The old master asked his most senior student to take up the challenge from the Karate master. Every time the student used his sequence, which was Sequence 1 of Shaolin Tantui, he literally drove the Karate master to a wall. The climax was that the student did not have prior fighting experience before!
After lunch I would return to school for extra classes. After extra classes I would have extra-mural activities. For my first year in Penang Free School in 1958, I had extra games. After that year, from 1959 to 1964 I had scouting.
Scouts were divided into patrols of about six to eight scouts in one patrol. The patrol leader was called a PL, which was its short form. The PL’s assistant was called a PS, which stood for Patrol Second. All activities of a scout group were decided by a council of patrol leaders, called a PL Council. This council also chose other PLs.
When I joined the 8th Georgetown (South) Scout Group in Form 2 in 1959, it was understandable that I was not made a PL. The next year when I was in Form 3 in 1960 I thought I would become a PL, but the council did not choose me. Nevertheless, I continued to enjoy my scouting.
I became a senior scout on reaching the age of 15, and in Form 4 in 1961 I became a PL or Patrol Leader. When I reached 18 in Lower Form Six, I became an assistant scout master, or ASM, helping to train many younger boy scouts.
One of the memorable experiences was to conduct a camp fire with scouts and girl guides from many other schools. The group scout master, or GSM, Mr Ch’ng Eng Kee, was supposed to conduct the camp fire, but just before the start of the camp fire he had a special engagement elsewhere, so he asked me to take over. It was a successful camp fire and I enjoy it very much.
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