Memories of Malaya - 5. Pasar Road English School

My father has been inspired again to share another story from his childhood as part of his guestblogging series, Memories of Malaya. Being my father, there is the invariable section on food. So there are no suprises there - however, I am surprised to learn that he was taught gardening at school - hmm, he’s kept that a secret all these years: the next time he comes over to the UK to visit me, I shall have to set him digging and weeding in my garden….

He has just turned 70 this year so the time that he is writing about in this post would be around 1947:

English speaking

At the age of 8 or 9 years old I was sent to an English language school which is a school where the teaching was in the English language and the use of the expression “English school” in this note will refer to this category of schools unless otherwise specified. I do not know the discussions that might have taken place by my parents as to what type of school their child and later on children would be sent. I suspect that there was little or no discussion and it was a matter of course that I would go to an English school. Both my parents and paternal grandfather were educated solely in English. There were many families where the fathers were educated in English and their mother tongues though usually at an elementary level for both languages. Many Chinese were very passionate about the Chinese language. They consider it as a mark of patriotism to China and culture both of which they felt would be lost if the Chinese language was not taught to their children. Despite glaring evidence in every day life that those who were educated solely in the Chinese language enjoyed a lower standard living, many families still insisted on sending their children to these schools.

So much to learn

Anyway there I was in the Pasar Road English School sitting at a bench desk and on a bench sharing it with 2 other boys. There were 40 boys in a class. One of the earliest lessons, I remember, was the teacher teaching us by asking us to repeat the five vowels.

In one of the sessions I remember wondering to myself as to how long it would take me to be educated to university level to study medicine and how this could be accomplished when there was so much to learn. My Father was a medical doctor so that was naturally my reference point. The school day started at 7.45 in the morning and ended at 12.30 in the afternoon. The school day was divided into periods of 40 minutes each with a half hour break or interval as it was called. Sessions consisted of reading aloud from simple English text books and doing arithmetic, drawing, singing, gardening and P.E. Not all subjects were covered everyday. The subjects were distributed throughout different days of the week.

The “reading aloud” part of the lesson consisted of the teacher calling out a boy who would read a few sentence or a paragraph and then another boy and so on to read the prescribed section of the book. This is good training as the boy would learn to stand-up and speak out. After each boy had finished the teacher would give an explanation of the part that had been read out. For arithmetic we used books which had the problems set out and we copied them into exercise books and added our answers to the problems. If there was anything meant for the whole class it was written on the blackboard using a white chalk.

The classrooms were airy and the teachers were competent, hardworking and did not shirk their work on the whole. If you were caught doing mischief you would be made to stand on the chair or outside the classroom and when the headmaster went on his rounds and he saw you he may on rare occasions add his own punishment which may include a stroke or two of the cane on your outstretched palm.

Gardening

An interesting feature in the curriculum was the period for gardening which was allotted two periods consecutively and once a week. During this period we would dig rows of beds and would plant sweet potatoes, beans and some other easily grown vegetables. If it did not rain for a week or so we would have to water the beds with water from the tap. The tools for the work were supplied and kept by the school and they were used by other classes as well. Peer pressure would force every boy to do some work even if it was merely weeding the beds. It is a shame that nowadays when we have all sorts of classes to prepare children, the gardening period is done away with. It would teach young children the dignity of manual labour and that dirtying ones hands is not beneath scholars. This period appeared to be a holdover from the schools during the Japanese occupation when we had such periods and we did the same thing. The reason for this I suspect is because Japan being very much dependent on its agriculture wanted its population to respect and love the land and also to plant for the war.

Food

As this was a period just after the war and many were suffering from lack of protein the school supplied free milk once a week. We would each be given a full mug of milk which we could drink it using our own mug there and then or take it home.

During the interval many of the boys would go to the tuckshop to buy their snacks which consisted of sliced fruits or fried noodles. Coming from a doctor’s family I was not allowed to eat tuckshop food for hygiene reasons. I would have sandwiches spread with butter and sprinkled with sugar brought from home. Because of the heat of the day the butter would have soaked into the bread and it was quite delicious but still I would pass by the tuckshop and longed to join in the crush to get some snacks. I think young boys do not like to feel left out of things. Most of the time I just strolled around the school. Some boys would put up a net and play a few games of badminton or kick a football in the field. But I did not and do not like sports and also did not like going back to class feeling hot and sweaty.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A request for help: I don’t have any photos from that period either of a school or school boys. Can anyone help and donate a copyright-free photo for me to illustrate this post?

Photo: of a school in modern Malaysia thanks to gxianfu from flickr.com (CCL)

memmlya