Ah Bong
1991, 1992, 1993....2001. Exactly 10 years from the first day of class in Saint Francis Xaiver's School. Like all other form 1 (grade 7) kids thought: the new school was entirely strange; teachers were serious; higher form students were big and pride. I brought such feelings with me to my unair-conditioned classroom. I sat next to a window with tons of air-polluting vehicles outside. The worst was that none of my elementary friends came to my class. Fortunately, nothing really happened that day. School ended earlier that day. Then, I went home to prepare the next day.
September 2, I started to make friends in class. Of course, I started with the people around me. The name "Wat Chun Bong" was only heard when teacher was taking attendance. Bong and I knew each other "officially" since that moment. The word "officially" means we only knew each other's name, but not be friends yet.
Time flied day by day. Annual singing contest was approaching. There was a rule that every form 1 to form 3 class had to send some representatives on stage. We had no exception. The most annoying thing was the contest had semi-finals and finals. So, the top three teams in the semi-final would sing again in the final in front of the whole school. One day, our form master suggested to sing "Descendant of Dragon." We did not use cassette tape as background music. Instead, teacher assigned Bong to play piano! No one appreciated this firstly because the song was old and many of us considered it as old fashioned. Secondly, this Mandarin song made us to have more time to be with our Mandarin teache, which was extremely undesireable. Although we did not sing well, there would always be mountains lower than a mountain. Our class went into the top three. We were made even more dump in the final as the form master asked us to sing "Frosty the Snowman." Of course, we lost. Since then, hadn't heard of anything about Wat Chun Bong. Until one day..
There were days in the second half of the year when students became popular to bring "prohibited" items to school. Prohibited items included comic books, porno materials, toy guns...etc. One day, teachers searched on our class suddenly searched on our school bags. Of course, I was fine as I did not bring those things. However, many classmates lost their "treasures." In peak anger, they all guessed Ah Bong was the one told the teachers secertly. It was only because he sat in the front part of classroom. After the search, we all thought the thing was over. Suddenly, my form master called my name and asked me to have a "chat!" People suddenly changed their minds and believed I was the "two five" (two five refers to those betray their friends, families, company...etc.) Luckily, everyone was calm and I was still able to walk out from school after class.
The last time I heard of him that year was an indoor camp at the end of year. We were supposed to have a talent show at night. Bong and I shared the same room along with 8 other people. Bong suggested to do a skit and made up a script. I was not in the skit. So, I watched their performance. There was no surprise in the skit. It was a clone from a TV commercial. Honestly, Bong acted poorly. He did have other chances to perform in front of the crowd. He was the pianist in the singing contest of the follwing year. Next year, our third year of being in the same class, he became the captain of our class's debate team and the actor of a drama competition. I was involved in the events as well. So, we started to build up our friendship.
Although we were in different class after form 3, we could manage to keep our friendship. In the form 5 year, we planned to visit some countries after the Hong Kong Certificate Exam. At first, we wanted to visit South Korea. However, my family said no because of the unstable political unrest. Then, we were planning to UK. My parents did not say anything until we did some research. I felt very bad and embarassed again as I had to turn down the plan again. You know what, even nowadays, I really hate people can't keep their promise. However, I did it twice.
Form six is the so called honey moon year for most students because they would be responsible for school's extracurricular activities. He was the chairperson and I was the treasurer of the English Society. We were also vice president of Honesty House. We overcame many school politics with the teachers while holding debates, story teling competitions. But, we did it happily. We found the politics were only jokes. Teachers look like great person in students' eyes. Are they human beings? Do they have weakness that a normal person has? Of course! One more funny thing was we went to a friend's place in an afternoon. That guy was taking bath but his sister was sitting in the living room. We pressed the bell for hours but no one answered. We went down to the lobby and called them. The guy picked the phone and said we could go up. Bong was mad. When we left that apartment, Bong kept pressing the bell until the elevator came. We touched the ground and Bong asked the guard for phone again. I thought he might be calling his mother. I suddenly heard from him, "I got it! You took bath together!" He called that guy again! I was shocked. The guard was shocked as well. I only stayed in the clubs for 6 months. After that, I went to Canada.
We kept in touch through letters or email. Certainly, we went out and had fun whenever I went back to Hong Kong. We recalled the school time dirty jokes and shared new life experiences every time we met.