A Teacher’s Memoirs: Hwa Chong Junior College

By Ang-Lee Lai Kuin

Hwa Chong Junior College (), established in 1974 is one of the top junior colleges in Singapore. Its’ bilingual (English and Chinese) and bicultural junior college programme prepares enrolled full-time 16 to 18 year-old students for the Singapore-Cambridge GCE A-level examinations for entry into the top local and prestigious foreign universities – such as the Oxbridge universities in the UK and the Ivy League universities in the US.

The College attracts the best local students after their GCE O-level examinations, top-tier foreign students, the Ministry of Education’s ASEAN Scholars as well as other sponsored scholarship students from China and India.

This book of memoirs, covering my years at Hwa Chong as a pioneer teacher from its very first year, shares with all my Hwa Chong  colleagues, students Councillors and students (past, current and future) the history and traditions of the College whose deep rooted ethos and spirit help it to consistently deliver many top students and scholars into the best local and most prestigious universities overseas.

These memoirs, written on the occasion of the College’s 40th Anniversary, also record and share the travails and distressing times of the College, as it was forced to spend several years ‘on the move’ in temporary premises. The memoirs also share the triumphs of the College’s students and student Councillors as they excel not only in their studies but also in various Co-Curricular Activites, and in leadership appointments – while enjoying their College life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Dec 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781482855104

Ang-Lee Lai Kuin

Lai Kuin was born in Batu Pahat, Johor, in West Malaysia. She attended the local Tengku Mariam’s Girls’ School and then the Temenggong Ibrahim Girls’ Secondary School before going on to English College, Johor Baru, for her preuniversity education. She then won a federal government scholarship to the University of Malaya to earn her bachelor of arts and diploma in education degrees. She also has a graduate diploma in applied linguistics from the SEAMEO Regional English Language Centre in Singapore, as well as a master of arts (applied linguistics) from the Institute of Education, University of London. Lai Kuin joined Hwa Chong Junior College as one of its pioneer teachers, when the college first opened its doors in 1974, teaching general paper, English literature, and English as a second language to the Chinese stream students. During her thirty-four-year teaching career at Hwa Chong, she also held appointments as the students’ mentor for the Ministry of Education ASEAN Scholarship students to the college each year and as senior teacher adviser of the students’ council from 1994 until her retirement in 2007. She was in charge of the college students’ annual UCAS universities applications for admissions programme to the Oxbridge universities in the UK and to the Ivy League universities in the US. Lai Kuin took early retirement at the end of 2007 to devote her time to the enlarged family. Today, she has three grandchildren. Aside from enjoying time with them, she also enjoys cooking and baking, reading, writing and traveling, and she regularly helps out at a church outreach program for one of the centres for the elderly.

Book preview

Foreword - 2

The task of writing a foreword for the Students’ Council section of this book of memoirs about Hwa Chong Junior College, was certainly daunting and yet evocative and humbling at the same time. For one, I had the privilege of being taught and mentored by Mrs Lai Kuin Ang (whom I shall henceforth address simply as Mrs Ang), a distinction I know I share with many a reader.

Nearly two decades ago, I was simultaneously a student in her General Paper class and the President of the Student’s Council she helmed. I found myself reverting to my trembling eighteen-year-old self right before an exam, this time writing an essay with the weight of the knowledge that not just you the reader would scrutinize it, but so would the very person who taught me how to distill my thoughts and convey clarity through the written word. How then do I even feebly attempt to do justice in the next few paragraphs and exult not just the writings of Mrs Ang but the human being that she is? Indeed, the memories, banter, anecdotes, and above all, the wisdom that Mrs Ang shares in this book is as much a personification of her toil and investment in countless young lives as it is a representation of a distinguished institution. It is an important endeavor but more so, an irreplaceable legacy not just for those of us reminiscing the passage of time but also for the countless more young lives that will pass through the gates of Hwa Chong.

Few teachers have the persevering spirit to endure more than three decades of teaching, mercurial school administrators, regular changes in the national education policies and maintain perspective and passion through it all. As a young woman called to teaching (after being afforded the precious opportunity to be educated at a time when few women had such liberties), Mrs Ang began her career in education at Hwa Chong. She then took a short break to pursue a graduate degree in linguistics at the University College in London.

When Mrs Ang first returned to Singapore, as fate (or rather, the Ministry of Education) would have it, through a highly vapid process involving a man quite literally playing a game of darts on the map of Singapore, it was initially proposed that she be placed at another institution where there was little use for her skills. Fortuitously, her indomitable spirit prevailed and she returned to Hwa Chong where she would remain till her retirement. One of my favorite anecdotes of Mrs Ang relates to the time she unyieldingly supported a student who did not have the clout to argue her case. Mrs Ang had personally tutored this student through a period of debilitating depression and the student had finally regained her self-esteem enough to appear for her examinations but was not allowed to do so. Suffice to say, her fierce moral courage to fight for what she believes is right is best exemplified by the vernacular term she is most aptly described as – ‘chillie padi’ – the tiny but extremely piquant pepper that flavors many a Singaporean delicacy.

The reader is likely to appreciate the very courage that Mrs Ang exemplifies in the writings that communicate the history of Hwa Chong and the various events that quintessentially mark its character. The reader is also likely to appreciate the occasional sheer audacity of its student leaders in the writings about the Students’ Council. The history of the Student’s Council in Hwa Chong cannot by any means be divorced from Mrs Ang’s presence in the Council as the lead Council teacher (a post she held from 1994 until her retirement) and her primordial contributions in shaping it to be what it is today – the highest student body in the College tasked with not only representing students but also being custodians of the rich culture and traditions of the institution.

As I followed Mrs Ang’s writings on her online platform, I felt as if I were connected by an invisible cord to a family of students present and past whom I had never met, but whom I would know and instantly recognize if we were to meet somewhere in the world. Simply put, there is nothing more marvelous and enduring than what this set of writings has inspired – an entire community united by a shared heritage.

I hope then, that in the written form of her writings the reader will join me in once again being transfixed as we read about the Mid-Autumn Festival, the grand Lighting Web in the Central Plaza, the tuneful ‘xin yao’ folk songs, the once familiar mass-dance steps, the dauntless ‘Hwa Chong kebaba’ cheers, the blazing energy of the Orientation Camp fires and much more that remind us that we too were young, and fearless.

Lakshmi Ganapathi

Pediatric Resident,

Boston Children’s Hospital, Massachusetts

Fellow, Harvard Medical School

October 2015

The College

Genesis

Hwa Chong Junior College celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2014. It was to commemorate that special occasion that I decided to share with all, my memories of the College from the time I joined, in February 1974 till when I left in December 2007.

Our first College premise was at the National Junior College (NJC) as our own Hwa Chong Junior College’s (HCJC’s) building was still not quite ready for use. The College started with just the English stream, as the intake of the Chinese stream students came a few months later because, for them, there was only one intake. As ‘guests’ of NJC we abided by their rules and followed their culture – staff members had to be dressed in dark blue once a month for assembly. Perhaps, the then NJC Principal, Mr Lim Kim Woon, was trying to foster a symbolic image of discipline in the College’s culture, and as guests, the HCJC staff acquiesced out of courtesy. A few months later, and in order to accommodate more students (for the second intake of students), we moved to the then University of Singapore (now NUS, Law Faculty campus) on Bukit Timah Road, using its eight Nissen Huts as classrooms. So, right from this nomadic start we ‘learnt’ to deal with shiftings. Memories come back to me of teachers using umbrellas to go from Nissen Hut to Nissen Hut for their lessons, whenever it rained. Then too – the human conveyor belts formed to expedite the shifting of College furniture pieces, equipment and resource materials when we eventually moved to the Duchess Road/Bukit Timah Road campus to accommodate a much larger student population including the Chinese stream.

Our first Principal, then, was Mr Lim Nai Tian. He interviewed me for the teaching appointment in December 1973 – and, I was surprised when he told me that he knew me from some 7 years back when I was then a student of English College in Johor Baru. I was somewhat embarrassed that he recognized me before I did him. Mr Lim was Head of Department, Maths at English College, JB when I studied there. In those days, Arts students were not allowed to do Maths. And, although I was in Arts I wanted to also study Maths. He remembered me as the ‘instigator’ of a petition to the College Admin, appealing for a chance to do the subject.

And yes, the story of HCJC parallels the story of my career literally. I joined Hwa Chong as a prelude to settling down in Singapore. I chose to stay with the College all these 30 over years with two sabbaticals – one, for about nine months, in 1977/78 when I left to do my Graduate Diploma in Applied Linguistics at SEAMEO Regional English Language Centre (RELC) in Singapore, and from September 1984 to September 1986 when I followed my husband on his overseas posting to London. I, being a workaholic, chose to do my M.A. with the Institute of Education in London during those two years as the children were in full-day school in London, and upon my return, I resumed my career at the College where I stayed till my early retirement in December 2007.

The College’s campus at Duchess/Bukit Timah Roads was really still a case of ‘work-in-progress’ as only the classrooms, the Lecture theatres and the office were completed. I can still recall that the canteen was not ready, and so the inner forum became a make-shift canteen ‘in the open’, providing only the very basic offerings of the usual drinks, rice and noodles for students and teachers. There was, however, a roti-prata stall – which added a bit of variety to our menu! The ‘U-shaped’ main building (Central Plaza) had an open, flat roof top which, of course, provided many students with the right venue for private rendezvous! The Administration office was on the ground floor – where the current ‘Fishbowl’ (the students’ cafe) is. The staff room and library were on the upper floors together with two lecture theatres. Where the Science Block now stands was the Haw Par building – with class rooms, and smaller rooms that served as living quarters for our early Association of South East Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) scholars. Teachers nicknamed the Haw Par building ‘Siberia’ as it seemed so remotely located from the main building. The Central Plaza soon became the one venue for all celebrations – its slate tiles notwithstanding, the festivities always culminated in the Snake dance led by Mr Lim. This would ‘worm’ its way upstairs and downstairs all over the College