My teacher

Attended my uncle’s funeral two days ago and met up with my primary school teacher. It is almost 30 years since I left the primary school and seeing my old teacher, all the sweet and sour memories started to come back one after another. Time flies and once the very strict and well respected teacher has become an old man, still well respected among the community in a small town Arau, frequently presence himself in giving moral supports to the families in need, big or small occasions, weddings or funerals alike.

Before I approached my teacher who was sitting with another guest and chit-chatting, my father gave me a reminder, asking me not to ask my teacher whether he could remember who I am. I guess I’m not stupid enough to ask that question as I know how could it be possible for an old teacher in his seventies to remember the name of all his students, which could be more than thousands? I walked to him and wished him and surprisingly he still remembered me, and asking how my younger brothers were doing. I guess he could be chatting with my father before seeing me and knowing that I was coming back to attend the funeral.

His teaching career spanned not less than 3 decades I guess, teaching my aunties, me and my younger brother through the sixties, seventies and eighties. I guess we hardly can find a teacher as committed as him nowadays. Those days when I was growing up in the seventies, there was no such thing as “pendatang” issues. Even though I was from a Chinese Primary School Hwa Aik for six year, I was then to Secondary School in Dato’ Sheik Ahmad, just a few kilometers from my house which was surrounded by Malay kampong. My dad speaks fluent Malay, my late-grandma spoke excellent Malay although my late-mother didn’t speak Malay at first but she learned up pretty fast, she was a well sought after tailor in Arau, a lot of Malay ladies engaged her in stitching baju kurung, I remember how my mom getting herself so busy before Hari Raya as her customers would be coming to our house to ask for their baju kurung.

I hardly can remember any of my teachers in the secondary school or lecturers in the University but I surely cannot forget someone who is so committed to his duty as a teacher not only in the school but as a good friend to the parents and a role model to the community in a small town Arau.

As all these racism issues become more disturbing than ever mainly being cooked up by crooked-mind politicians, it seems the peaceful and harmonious days in the seventies or eighties have passed us as more and more politicians choose to take the racist’s path to achieve their ulterior motives.