My Story Part 2

I was headmaster of SM Kemayan for 4 years. When I first arrived at the school, I was greeted by the senior assistant Encik Saman. He was surprised to see me. As the two previous appointees had rejected the offer. I also met a fellow Lipisian at the school, Chong Yoke Fah, who was formerly teaching in SM Mahmud Raub. I put up a night in his rented house. The next day I stayed at the teacher's quarters with Mr. Neoh Dian Bin ,a younger teacher from Penang who was also the school's scout master and prefect master and Mr. Tee, a science teacher from Mentakab. There's a spare room in the quarters but no bed. I had to make do sleeping on desks. Three of us used to have lunch and dinner together at restaurants in Kemayan town. The Chairman of the Board of Governors of the school was (and still is) Mr. Teoh Tiow Tee, 66 who organised a dinner with some parents to welcome me as the new HM. He often visited the school
and talked to me on school matters. He would cycle to the school from his house. He would go round collecting donations for the annual school sports and other school projects. He would also bring along a part time reporter to school functions. The next day, Chinese newspapers would publish reports on school functions and most of the time with photos of him. That man likes publicity to this day. I can still occassionally see his pictures appeared in Chinese papers on the East Coast page. He came from China at an early age and taught himself BM. He could even gave speeches in BM. Now he's about 92 years of age. He was also the former MCA Chairman of Kemayan.
Kemayan is a border village with N.Sembilan. There are about 20 over shops there. The people there are mostly rubber smallholders. Triang town is about 20 km away. I used to drive down to Triang to bank in school money. The 3 young Chinese female and 2 male teachers and I used to go down to Triang for dinner. Later the female teachers volunteered to cook for all of us - dinner only and we shared the cost. We also played basketball together in the evenings and also gin rummy once a while.

My Story

Now happily retired, do what I like to do like reading, watching TV and cooking.I started off as a temporary teacher after finishing my Cambridge School Certificate (OSC) in Clifford Secondary School. Teaching English in a Chinese primary school.The young students enjoyed my lessons because I taught them to sing English songs. Very unlike the older teacher who only wanted the students to memorise words. I became a trained teacher in 1967 and taught English and Geography from Remove Class to Form 3 in a Lower Secondary School in Budu. I was attached to the English medium section of the school. Passed my HSC in 1969 through self study and enrolled as an external student of London University. Transfered to Raub and taught in SM Dato Shanbandar in 1070. Transferred back to Lipis in 1977 and taught English and Geography in SM Clifford,my alma mater.After 2 years I was transferred to SM Chung Hwa as Senior Assistant. After 2 years in Chung Hwa, I was transfered to the newly established District Education Office as Penyelia Sekolah Menengah under the 1st PPD Yusof Jaafar who was incidentally, my former boss in SM Clifford.Again after 2 years, I was transfered to Kemayan, then under Temerloh district as the Headmaster of the Secondary School there. Kemayan is a Chinese New Village about 16 km from Triang. I had never been to this part of Pahang and I had to look at the map of Pahang to locate the place. So I packed a bag and drove alone to Triang on a Monday morning. When I came to the Triang bridge, it was dismantled. I was wondering how to go to Kemayan when I could not cross the bridge. Then I asked around and I found out that there was a new road to Kemayan. So I turned back and went searching for the road outside the town. As I was entering the Kemayan cowboy town, I saw something like a school building in the distance. When I went nearer to it, I found that it was a Chinese primary school. I asked around for the secondary school. A young man on a motorbike asked to follow him and he took me to dusty lane outside the town. After negotiating a windy and dusty lane, I finally reached my destination. It was a new school, only 3 years old. The former HM, Mr Ooi was transferred to Kg Raja in Cameron Highlands. I reported to the then Senior Assistant, En. Something( Sorry, forgotten his name).He was surprised to see me. He thought I was not coming because the previous two persons appointed rejected the appointment. I was given no choice to reject bc my boss in PPD Lipis did not tell me beforehand. I think he gave me the promotion to transfer me out. The school had electricity but no water. We had to make do with sky juice and the toilets were often smelly. We had about 25 teachers, a clerk, an office girl and a general worker, but no jaga. There were about 500 over students - 80% Chinese. I managed to survive 4 years there,going back every weekend to Lipis, a 3hr 15 min. drive non stop.Managed to get transfer back to Lipis in 1988 after making 3 trips to see the then deputy director, En. Abdul Razak Abu, a big fierce looking man resembling Kublai Khan. I was a bit scare at first and I nearly got cold feet after waiting outside his office for some time. I managed to talk to him and found that he was a reasonable man. He asked to serve for a few years and he promised me a place in Lipis if there is a vacancy. True to his words, I was transferred to SM Benta,Lipis in 1988. My father passed away in 1987. In 1996, I opted for early retirement at the age of 50 after completing 25 years in the education service, entitling me to full pension. I became a tution teacher teaching English at the local IKIP tution center. One of the students was Siti Nurhaliza (now Datuk). Then I took up Rockwills Franchise and trained as a Professional Will Writer. I had an office the Lipis Centrepoint Complex which I bought in 1995. After 2 years I got an offer and became a Lecturer in GMI (German-Malaysian Institute)KL. I was to start the Malaysian Studies and Moral Studies at the Institute. GMI offers hands-on industrial voccation courses and bc of govenment regulations, it has to offer these 2 compulsory subjects. So I was the pioneer lecturer in these two subjects at the institute with no reference at all from anyone. All lecturers, except for English and Islamic studies, there were technically qualified people and the books in the library were almost all technical subjects. So I had to look for materials on my own in order to teach. Many of my works came from books and daily newspapers. I made a lot of transparancies for my lectures. Luckily, GMI gave every lecturer a laptop and access to Internet the whole day. So I had no problems.End of part 1. Part 2 will come later. JM Tan 23.07.07