Primary school days...fond memories
- Form teachers could teach english, maths, science, moral education, and PE as well. Basically, they could teach everything except Chinese.
- Spelling, dictation, ting xie, and mo xie were all part & parcel of life. And so was mental sums.
- Textbooks and workbooks were either Nespe or PEP.
- Zero-point was the favourite recess activity for girls. And one-leg was the favourite recess activity for boys.
- Time is not a constant - Recess is the shortest 30-minute period you'd ever find.
- Every student could lay claim to being a "musician", cos we all learnt to play the recorder.
- Debbie Gibson was the original Britney Spears.
- Michael Jackson was the biggest thing in entertainment. Period.
- Young Scientist Cards: To attain the badges, we had to earn a certain number of "stars" by completing certain tasks. Most people, including me, always went for the Young Zoologist or Young Botanist badge, cos they were the easiest. The ambitious ones would go for the Young Mathematician badge.
- The Berlin Wall fell.
- Gorbachev was a powerful guy. And he had that patch on his forehead.
- Move over, Enid Blyton. Roald Dahl was the best writer in the world. Everyone was reading his books, e.g. BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach.
- But I still loved Enid Blyton's The Magic Faraway Tree though. One of the best books I ever read in primary school.
- Two words: Constable Acai.
- Every now and then during class, we would be told that it was our turn to go down to the school dentist for a checkup.
- The school bookshop (well, it was more like a bookstand as it was just a small counter) was a really cool shop which sold really cool stuff, e.g. fancy erasers, fancy pens, fancy paper, etc.
- "The Shaker" was the coolest mechanical pencil ever made. If you had one, you were cool.
- The Lakers had "Showtime", the Pistons were the "Bad Boys", Bird was "Larry Legend", and Jordan won his first NBA title. Oh, and Kareem had those goggles.
- The Reebok Pump was a cool invention.
- After exams, we would bring Uno cards to play in class during free periods.
- WWF wrestling was actually believable. And Hulk Hogan still looks the same today as he did 15 years ago.
- The telephone was our only source of communication after school. If we needed to ask our classmates something, we actually had to pick up the home phone to make the call.
- All the girls were reading "The Teenage Textbook" (together with "The Teenage Workbook"). Guys like me had no clue what the book was all about. And up till today, I still have no clue. I stick to my Danielle Steel and Sidney Sheldon
- The school football field was hardly ever used for football. And neither was the volleyball court ever used for volleyball.
- And the basketball court never had nets attached to the hoops. Even if it did, the nets never lasted more than 1 week. I miss playing football on basketball courts with my buddies
- Michael Chang won the French Open at age 17. And he was Chinese. (Well, American-Chinese...but we didn't know any better at that time.)
- We could order milk packets to be delivered to our classroom every day.
- Every guy wanted a "centre-parting" hairstyle, thanks to Aaron Kwok.
- P6 was an important year. We had our BCG jab, we collected our Identity Cards, and we had to take our first major exam (PSLE).
- We used to read Young Generation (YG) magazine. The only things I remember from the magazine are the names "Goofus & Gallant".
- Michael J. Fox was a really cool actor. "Back to the Future" was the greatest trilogy I watched.
-Teacher's Day was the day which we all did our best to show our love for our teachers, e.g. by making cards, gifts, etc. And it was also the day that our teachers tried their best not to scold any of us.
- Iraq invaded Kuwait. Suddenly the whole world knew who Saddam Hussein was.
- Ben Johnson was disqualified in the '88 Seoul Olympics after testing positive for steroids.
- David Copperfield was the greatest magician who ever lived. Making the Statue of Liberty disappear was the coolest magic trick ever performed. And so was the trick with the two rubberbands.
- The most popular colour pencils to use were the Colleen brand ones (y'know, the ones with two colours per pencil - one colour on each end, and usually came in boxes of 24 or 48 colours?). And the beige colour end was always the most heavily used, because that was the colour we needed to colour humans.
- Autograph books were cool. Before leaving school in P6, you passed your autograph book all around class so that everyone could write some mushy stuff in it for keepsake.
- Vanilla Ice's big hit was Ice Ice Baby. M.C. Hammer had U Can't Touch This, and C & C Music Factory had Everybody Dance Now.
- The word "crush" only had one meaning back then, i.e. to break an object into smaller pieces. Apparently, some girls were aware of another meaning to the word.
- The English Premier League wasn't as popular as it is today. In fact, what Premier League? It was still Division One back then!
JWNY
