First reunion of the year

I was invited to join some friends from the PFS Class of 1971 for dinner last night on the island. Had a whale of a time renewing my acquaintance with the whole lot of them! Made some new friends too. Plus, there was the bonus of meeting up with a few former colleagues from my Straits Echo and Ban Hin Lee Bank days. Khoo Boo Teik and Balakrishnan gave interesting reminiscences about their time at Penang Free School but the spotlight belonged to Lim Guan Eng. Of course, he mentioned the recent General Election but he also talked about the setting up of the Penang Digital Library during his tenure as the Chief Minister here. To cap the occasion, I was asked by the host, Cheah Cheng Hye, to lead the Old Farts, I mean, the Old Frees through singing the School Rally. No decent Old Free would want to be seen with a copy of the lyrics and thankfully, none was required. I must have had led the singing with a lot of gusto because soon afterwards, someone suggested that I take up the microphone for a bit of karaoke session. Horrors! Not my cup-of-tea.

Incidentally during the after-dinner camaraderie session, Cheng Hye was mentioning Boo Kooi's point about we all belonging to the May 13th era. I reminded him not to forget that two years earlier in 1967, there was this hartal in Penang. He hadn't forgotten it, Cheng Hye said. In fact, he opened up to say that he was almost killed during the curfew period. At the tender age of 13, he was selling pineapples near the Sia Boey market after school hours. At the height of the hartal, he was rounded up and jailed for violating curfew. Seeing that he was a mere boy, he was released the next morning and given a curfew pass to allow him to return home. "I was terrified and kept holding up the pass above my head until I reached home," he recalled. 

In my opinion, the hartal shook Penang far greater than the May 13th incident. Initially meant to be a peaceful attempt, led by the Labour Party under Lim Kean Siew, to protest the devaluation of the old Malayan dollar and the rising inflation, thugs and gangsters emerged in great force to create havoc on the island. The City Council buses were singled out for stoning and mobs attempted to overturn them. The Police were unprepared for the violence and the Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) were called in to maintain the curfew.  

Now, just a little explanation how I ended up with this bunch of fellas from the Class of 1971. Agewise, I should belong with most of them. We had started our Standard One in one of the various primary schools in 1961 - I was at Westlands Primary - but because I landed in an express class in Standard Two, meaning I jumped to Standard Four in 1963, I ended my education a year ahead of them. But as I said, we are all generally of the same age despite me being one year their senior in the Free School. The marvel of last night's dinner was that I met two persons who were with me in the same Standard 1E class and therefore they counted as among my oldest of friends. Can you imagine that?

Cheng Hye bought five copies of Let the Aisles Proclaim from me in 2016. I simply had to give him a copy of Ten Thousand Prosperities this time.