Education

I am very fortunate, very fortunate indeed. I am born in ‘good time’. We cannot choose when we want to be born and everything seem predestined (because I know God exist and the truth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, which has come down from Heaven to save Mankind).

However, not all people are as fortunate as us. We are so fortunate today because our fore fathers had laid all the foundation work for us. But still, in this society, there are still poor families around. People are struggling to survive.

People have to work everyday to earn a living. Women traditionally stay at home to look after children and the home. Nowadays, women are like men. They also play a role in supporting the family.

However, not all the people are given an opportunity to go to school during the olden days. Come to think of it, it is a great gift for my grandmother to have such a ‘great gift‘ to believe in Jesus Christ, even though these old generation of people did not have any education (and yet they believe…)

Schooling (读书)
My mother, just like these people, did not receive any education at all. My father received little education (Boys’ Town). And it was my father who taught me Mathematics during my kindergarten and Primary School. My mother always said: She knows the words but the words don’t know her… This means that she knows that she is looking at words, but she does not understand or read any words. She can only write numbers and sign (write) her own name. My father, received little education, knows little Malay, Chinese and English (only a few words).

Women like my mother, is not so lucky. She suffered so much during her lifetime. I never see her happy. Her happy times are transient. I don’t think that is really happiness for her… really too short, as compared to her hard times, sad times and suffering times. During the olden days, people think that women should not have a good education. It is a waste of money to ‘invest’ or pay money to send their daughter to go to school. Their thinking is that, women ultimately stayed at home to look after the family, so there is no need to know so much…

Thus, my father and my mother have no proper schooling experience at all.


Photograph of my parents’ wedding painting: I think this painting was done during the early 1960s, perhaps about 1962 if my mother remember correctly.

Education(教育)
I never know the importance of education. I never know the importance of schooling. Of course, now that I have my own children, I have already know the usefulness of studying. For people who have no opportunity to go to school, just like my mother, it would be a life of REGRET and a life of WONDER, having NO EXPERIENCE at all about SCHOOL LIFE and the most REGRET is not able to RECOGNISE WORDS…


Photograph of Me wearing Yung An Primary School PE Attire, with my pet Chicken on my shoulder…

Since she has no opportunity to go to school at all, it must be SUCH A GREAT IMPORTANCE (from her own experience) to be able to go to school. She always tell me to study ‘kiang kiang’ (Teochew: to be smart or intelligent)…. and she taught me how to pray in front of her mother (at the grave, at St Joseph’s Church)…

Schools (学校)
My first official school is Yung An Primary School. However, my first schooling experience is at the church, my kindergarten, at Church of St Francis of Assisi. I attended kindergarten for a year, and then I studied at Yung An Primary School for w6 years. After I finished my primary education, I went to Boon Lay Secondary School. At Boon Lay Secondary School, I studied for 4 years. My results enabled me to enter into the Junior College, and I went to Jurong Junior College (two years study) before I finally study at National University of Singapore.

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