It's a 20-cent coin....that's rocket science to me.
That's where it all started. I was four.
That coin was a "keep-sake", a "hand-it-over-to-me-when-I-need-it" coin that my second elder brother cheekiat entrusted me with. According to him, it was for safe-keeping. Having it in his own pocket, the 20-cent coin will not see the light of day. He was six.
Learning it the hard way, my first lesson in science was swallowing that 20-cent coin and then dropping my pants, squatting by a small road-side drain, and waiting for it to emerge from a glorious journey of a "thousand" feet through my intestines. Not the type of journey Confucius would recommend.
That was my first science lesson by experiment. There were no kindergartens then, except for a couple of religious kindergartens within a 2 mile radius that mum and dad wasn't keen at all to send me to. I'm not learning anything so I figured swallowing a 20-cent coin will be a good learning experience.
Man, it was tough. The Queen Elizabeth's 20-cent coin didn't emerge until after what mum complained about the time taken, "Three days and two nights already ah....and still it hasn't come out?!"
For this, I became some kind of a "local hero" for 20 years, until I moved out to start my own family. Nobody in my neighbourhood dared to try this scientific antic, until Kok Aun, an interesting kid who live across the road and 6 years my junior, did that at age 18. But his emerging coin was not so dark. Hmmm.....
Moving backwards to when I was four, it was then in the evening on the eve of my feet-binding, little, domineering but loving grand matriarch's funeral. That coin emerged with the stool and suprisingly to me, it's gotten a very heavy tinge of black, and has become much darker than I am ......but I was so happy!
Not because that it emerged. But that nobody wanted that 20-cent coin, including its owner. My brother Cheekiat said "...ugh!"..............so it became mine for good.
Nobody wanted to hold it. So I washed it with "Sunlight" soap (a popular brand of soap then), and spent it on for a slice of pineapple, a banana and an ice-ball filled with red beans, leong fun, jagung, attap seed and coated with rose syrup on one side of the ball and sarsi syrup on the other two days later. Easy come, easy go.. What a wonderful time!
Many other science subjects were also self-taught, like conduction. Yea, like lifting the glass cylinder off a parafin lamp to blow off the flame and only to get my palm burnt by the glass instead.
Or convection. Like putting my face above the Bak-Chang steamer and then opening it's cover to see if the steaming is done. Yea, the steam did it to my face, "the hot air rises, high pressure to low pressure" kinda stuff. For more than a couple of days, I became a pinkish-in-the-face alien.
Or Newton's Law, like being in the back-lanes where all the latrines were, throwing high up in the air a few empty bottles of Marco (a popular bottled drink like Fanta, but it's green in colour) only to get cut on the feetby bits of the broken bottles.
Man I was cheeky, and on my way to become "naughty".
Aged 7 and on my first day in school, I thought I knew much about science and nature study, which was one of my first day's subjects in Hutching's School. The teacher Mrs. Kangga, asked after teaching for 15 minutes, if anyone can use money to buy sunlight. I raised my hands, and I said, "Yes, teacher!"
"I can buy Sunlight soap, teacher," and neither did she fumed nor brushed aside this silly answer to a silly question.
She sincerely corrected her question and my answer and continued with the lesson of the day. She said we will learn more and more as the days go on. I was humbled. It was inspiring, and it's little moments like this that are meaningful, joyous and memorable moments. Experiences like this that can simply put anyone on a lifelong journey of learning.
If Mrs. Kangga had immediately scolded, chided, ridiculed or punished me for those answers, I would most probably loathe to be at school ever again. I wouldn't have the kind of love for education and learning to continue, and at this moment in time to pursue my PhD, 50 years after the "sunlight soap" incident.
That's a big step.
I'll go retrospective again to age 4 when I make my next entry. But before I do, be reminded that somebody once said, " Life is like a coin. You can spend it anyway you want, but you only get to spend it once."
That is very true, but ain't it funny about the irony that I get to spend my brother's 20-cent coin twice.
See ya on Monday next. Have a good weekend.
That's where it all started. I was four.
That coin was a "keep-sake", a "hand-it-over-to-me-when-I-need-it" coin that my second elder brother cheekiat entrusted me with. According to him, it was for safe-keeping. Having it in his own pocket, the 20-cent coin will not see the light of day. He was six.
Learning it the hard way, my first lesson in science was swallowing that 20-cent coin and then dropping my pants, squatting by a small road-side drain, and waiting for it to emerge from a glorious journey of a "thousand" feet through my intestines. Not the type of journey Confucius would recommend.
That was my first science lesson by experiment. There were no kindergartens then, except for a couple of religious kindergartens within a 2 mile radius that mum and dad wasn't keen at all to send me to. I'm not learning anything so I figured swallowing a 20-cent coin will be a good learning experience.
Man, it was tough. The Queen Elizabeth's 20-cent coin didn't emerge until after what mum complained about the time taken, "Three days and two nights already ah....and still it hasn't come out?!"
For this, I became some kind of a "local hero" for 20 years, until I moved out to start my own family. Nobody in my neighbourhood dared to try this scientific antic, until Kok Aun, an interesting kid who live across the road and 6 years my junior, did that at age 18. But his emerging coin was not so dark. Hmmm.....
Moving backwards to when I was four, it was then in the evening on the eve of my feet-binding, little, domineering but loving grand matriarch's funeral. That coin emerged with the stool and suprisingly to me, it's gotten a very heavy tinge of black, and has become much darker than I am ......but I was so happy!
Not because that it emerged. But that nobody wanted that 20-cent coin, including its owner. My brother Cheekiat said "...ugh!"..............so it became mine for good.
Nobody wanted to hold it. So I washed it with "Sunlight" soap (a popular brand of soap then), and spent it on for a slice of pineapple, a banana and an ice-ball filled with red beans, leong fun, jagung, attap seed and coated with rose syrup on one side of the ball and sarsi syrup on the other two days later. Easy come, easy go.. What a wonderful time!
Many other science subjects were also self-taught, like conduction. Yea, like lifting the glass cylinder off a parafin lamp to blow off the flame and only to get my palm burnt by the glass instead.
Or convection. Like putting my face above the Bak-Chang steamer and then opening it's cover to see if the steaming is done. Yea, the steam did it to my face, "the hot air rises, high pressure to low pressure" kinda stuff. For more than a couple of days, I became a pinkish-in-the-face alien.
Or Newton's Law, like being in the back-lanes where all the latrines were, throwing high up in the air a few empty bottles of Marco (a popular bottled drink like Fanta, but it's green in colour) only to get cut on the feet
Man I was cheeky, and on my way to become "naughty".
Aged 7 and on my first day in school, I thought I knew much about science and nature study, which was one of my first day's subjects in Hutching's School. The teacher Mrs. Kangga, asked after teaching for 15 minutes, if anyone can use money to buy sunlight. I raised my hands, and I said, "Yes, teacher!"
"I can buy Sunlight soap, teacher," and neither did she fumed nor brushed aside this silly answer to a silly question.
She sincerely corrected her question and my answer and continued with the lesson of the day. She said we will learn more and more as the days go on. I was humbled. It was inspiring, and it's little moments like this that are meaningful, joyous and memorable moments. Experiences like this that can simply put anyone on a lifelong journey of learning.
If Mrs. Kangga had immediately scolded, chided, ridiculed or punished me for those answers, I would most probably loathe to be at school ever again. I wouldn't have the kind of love for education and learning to continue, and at this moment in time to pursue my PhD, 50 years after the "sunlight soap" incident.
That's a big step.
I'll go retrospective again to age 4 when I make my next entry. But before I do, be reminded that somebody once said, " Life is like a coin. You can spend it anyway you want, but you only get to spend it once."
That is very true, but ain't it funny about the irony that I get to spend my brother's 20-cent coin twice.
See ya on Monday next. Have a good weekend.
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