For those who studied in Singaporean primary schools

I find back a little of me.

1. You grew up watching He-man, Transformers, Silver hawk and Mickey Mouse. Not to forget, Ninja turtles and Smurfs too.

I watched those in Chinese.

2. You grew up brushing your teeth with a mug in Primary school during recess time. You will squat by a drain with all your classmates beside you, and brush your teeth with a coloured mug. The teachers said you must brush each side 10 times too.

This I wasn't told. Am incorporating the skill now. Very useful really, to never slacken on teeth-brushing.

3. You know what's Bin(1) Fen(1) Ba(1) San(1) is all about.

No I don't.

4. You know what SBC stands for.

Yes.

5. You were there when the first chinese serial, the Awakening was shown on TV.

I was.. sort of there, when the re-run was shown on afternoons at 3 pm.

6. Internet? What the hell is that? So you thought a decade or more ago.

Hmm.

7. You find your friends with pagers and handphone cool in Secondary school.

Didn't have friends, with or without pagers and handphones, in Secondary schools.

8. SBS buses used to be non-airconditioned. The bus seats are made of wood and the cushion is red! The big red bell gives a loud BEEEP! when pressed.There are colourful tickets for TIBS buses. The conductor will check for tickets by using a machine which punches a hole on the ticket.

Oh yes! I used to wait dutifully for a non-airconditioned 197 everyday after school to save that 10 cents.

9. Your favourite actor and actress is Huang Wenyong and Xiangyun. Next is Lee Nanxing and Zoe Tay and the Aiyoyo woman.

Didn't have favourite actors and actresses. Still don't now. What's this - an iconoclast?

10. You've probably read Young Generation magazine. You know who's Vinny the little vampire and Acai the constable.

Nope.

11. You were there when they first introduced MRT here. You went for the first ride with your parents and you would kneel on the seat to see the scenery.

Missed it by 2 years. (The introduction in question took place in 92, no?)

12. Movie tickets used to cost only $3.50.

Wow really?

13. Gals are fascinated by Strawberry Short Cake and Barbie Dolls.

Not I.

14. You learn to laugh like The Count in Sesame Street.

Didn't watch Sesame Street, English TV, or much TV in general.

15. You longed to buy tibits called Kaka(20 cents per pack) and Ding Dang(50 cents per box), that had a toy in it and it changes every week not forgetting the 15 cents animal crackers and the ring pop, where the lollipop is the diamond on the ring.

Had no clue about any of those. Not conditioned to spend money.

16. You watched TV2 (also known as Channel 10) cartoons because Channel 5 never had enough cartoons for you.

Didn't watch cartoons or TV2.

17. All that you know about Cantonese is from the Hong Kong serials you watched on TV2.

Maybe.. Can't remember my impression of Cantonese before WD.

18. Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, The Three Investigators, Famous Five and Secret Seven are probably the thickest story books you ever thought you have read. Even SweetValley High and Malory Towers.

Well I do read thicker Chinese books like the 四大名著. But, yeah, HB, NC, FF, SS I did read and rather made me a fan of Enid Blyton. Sadly most those storybooks are dumped copies savaged by mum. The SSs I received for some academic achievements.

19. Civics and Moral Education was “Hao3 Gong1 Min2”.

Yeah... so?

20. KFC used to be a high class restaurant that serve food in plates and let you use metal forks and knives.

I see. Was rather insulated from the fast food industry as well. In general insulated from all consumerism targetted at primary school kids or non-primary school kids or non-kids.

21. The most vulgar thing you said was asshole and idiot and THE MOST EXTREME WAS 'super white'...you just couldn't bring yourself to say the hokkien relative.

Didn't say any of those. Didn't really appreciate their significance then.

22. Catching was the IN thing and twist the magic word.

What's "catching" and "twist"?

23. Your English workbooks was made of some damn poor quality paper that was smooth and yellow.

Believe it or not this provokes strong memory. It proves I'm really rather academically oriented - to remember well stuff regarding work. Or it proves that I really hadn't had the little subset of "life" designated for primary school kids.

24. CDIS was your best friend.

Is that the publisher of all the textbooks? How's that anywhere near being a friend? Oh wait it's the publisher of a lot of assessment books too. Yeah I did a lot of assessments, but then again those books were once again salvaged by mum from dumps so I have to spend hours erasing the previous kid's working. And invariably they used thick pencils and made deep impressions. And I mean DEEP. It wasn't unusual that I exhausted half an eraser for less than five pages; and still ended up writing in the ghostly shadows of ungainly curves and lines.

25. The only computer lessons in school involved funny pixellised characters in 16 colours walking about trying to teach you maths.

Yes, I remember one or two such sessions. They were cute problems about fruits and friends and weren't as hard as I had expected. They were done in a big room with tall ceilings, and were the last classes of Fridays too. Gosh the memories.

26. Waterbottles were slinged around your neck and a must everywhere you go.

I had used mineral water bottles instead.

27. Boys loved to play soccer with small tennis balls in the basketball court or play something that uses tennis ball to hit other players known as “HUM TAM BOLA” during recess /after school

Ok. No idea.

28. Hopskotch, five stones,chateh and zero point were all the rage with the girls and boys too...

Did that in China. The level of difficulty and complication in the latter two games are much higher in Chinese schools.

29. Science was fun with the balsam and the angsana being the most important plants of our lives.

Till this day I still have little clue of how balsam looks like. The most important plants of our lives start growing when we are little. The names that stick on my mind are 梧桐，白杨，桂花，月季，names back from a time when I wasn't at all confused about what they were about.

30. Who can forget Ahmad, Bala, Sumei and John, eternalized in our minds from the textbooks. Even Mr Wally.

Not Mr Wally. Other than that, how true. And how funny.

31. You did stupid exercises like seal crawl and frog jumps.

Not sure what they are.

32. Every children's day and national day you either get pins or pens with 'Happy Children's Day 1993' or dumb files with 'Happy National Day 1994'.

Thought the gifts were pretty cool. I was still getting files even in secondary school.

33. In Primary six you had to play buddy for the younger kids like big sister and brother.

I didn't have to. There probably weren't enough younger kids in my school.

34. Chinese teachers were always old, boring and damn fierce looking.

Actually, I've always found them kind and helpful. Oh well, Chinese has been a subject close to my heart.

35. Your form teacher taught you maths, science and english.

Yeah. The well-rounded quality was impressive.

36. The worksheets were made of brown rough paper of poor quality.

Really true. And emanating the fragrance of printing oil. I think if I get back to them they wouldn't've gotten any browner.

37. You went to school in slippers and a raincoat when it rained, and you find a dry spot in the school to sit down, dry your feet, and wear your dry and warm socks and shoes.

How useful! How come nobody taught me that?!

38. Famous Chinese singers were only Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok and Leon Lai.

There was 小虎队 too.

39. School dismissal time was normally around 1 pm.

Which had been an extremely awkward time for lunch for a person who had never eaten out till 20 years of age.

40. There would be spelling tests and mental sums to do almost everyday.

Oh yes. The mental sums. How I relished seeing the 10 out of 10. But it wasn't everyday though, sadly.

41. Your friends considered you lucky and rich if your parents gave you $3 or more for pocket money everyday.

Was foreign to the concept of "pocket money".

42. During class gatherings, parents always tag along in case someone gets lost at Orchard Road.

There was no class gatherings, not on Orchard Road at least.

43. You freak out when the teacher tells you to line up according to height! and hold hands with the corresponding boy or girl.

It was alright. Just did as told.

44. Handkerchiefs were a must for both genders.

Really? Thought tissue paper was the thing to use.

45. Collecting notebooks and all kinds of stationery was a popular thing.

I like doing that always.

46. Autograph books were loaded with “Best Wishes”, “Forget Me Not”, and small poems like “Bird fly high, hard to catch. Friend like you, hard to forget”.

How true and silly. Though had no autograph nor autographed anyone in primary school days. No wait I did try to compose a poem of my own in the same genre. It goes something like "You like sing, you like dance, wish you have a good advance." It could be due to its blatant grammatical flaws that it was nevered passed around and down to the primary school kids of today.

47. Class monitors and prefects loved to say “You talk somemore, I write your name ah!”

Oh well, I was never told that.

48. There were at least 40 people in one class.

For a school that closed down a year after I left, there were many less.

49. Large, colourful schoolbags were carried.

I carried a huge black corduroy bag which was increasingly fraying at the bottom. My deskmate tried stapling the gap but it didn't work.

50. You brought every single book to school, even though there was one thing called the timetable.

Didn't know that one thing called the timetable.