seafood dinner @ jumbo east coast

many years ago, i ate at a jumbo restaurant in a country club at serangoon garden; though i was aware that there was another restaurant by the same name at east coast park, i had never visited it until last night. in fact, it was my first visit to east coast seafood centre. so many overseas visitors have raved about the seafood served at the centre and yet some singaporeans like me have not stepped foot there.

this is like a week of meeting up with former students i had lost touch with since i left balestier for ghim moh. the gathering was primarily a farewell dinner for wing nam, who flies back to hong kong tomorrow, but it was also a chance for me to meet other two former students whom i have not seen since 1975. they are johnny tan and cheng yan.

kim seng, a sia pilot, flies the airbus 380 to sydney and london. each month, he flies twice to sydney and once to london. also found out that he is a buddy of p james, the president of the air lines pilot association - singapore (alpa-s) whom i meet at least once a month. cheng yan, who once worked in lam soon and then seagate, is now the vice-president of an american company manufacturing modems for singtel.

also at the dinner were swee hee, kum lay and his wife, soon leong, simon, ron sim, herman ho, kwan, thai soon and, of course, wing nam and his wife. we were there from about 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.

there was much talk about organising a big get-together of oac members. the proposal was to hold it at a resturant owned by one of the former oac members, belinda. wing nam told me that he would definitely be back if swee hee was to organise this big bash in 2010.

the greatest impact of all

finally managed to get tye thong to meet up with his former student wing nam. when wing nam joined balestier hill secondary in 1973, tye thong was his form teacher in secondary 2/21. our 'hong kong boy' remembers mr tan (tye thong) as the teacher who introduced him to race walking.

some of our former students from balestier hill secondary who still keep in touch with us or who have made the effort to contact us and meet up with us, after all these years, have never been taught by us in the formal classroom. in fact, all of them remember us not because of our classroom teaching - that must say something about our class lessons - but what we imparted to them or did with them outside the classroom.

the extra-curricular activities (eca) that we conducted for them apparently have far greater impact than all the formal lessons in the classroom. in those days, we were the ones who initiated the eca; it was something we were passionate about, something that we wanted to do and enjoyed doing. much unlike today, where co-curricular activities (cca) are 'farmed out' to outside instructors or assigned to teachers who may deem it as extraneous to their teaching responsibilities.

it is the same testimony that we hear each time we meet our ex-students: being involved in oac (outdoor activities club) has helped to shape my character and prepared me well for life. when i asked one of our most successful ex-students what has helped him to be where he is today. his reply was: the one takeaway that has been etched in my mind was the lifeskills that i picked up at the 10-day leadership training camp.

many of the students who are doing well in their careers attribute an important part of their success to the training and the experiences that they had when they were members of oac. the programmes that we provided included hiking, canoeing, overnight camp, canoe expedition around pulau ubin, field cooking, sing-a-long and opportunities to lead.

the two teachers who worked very hard to make sure that the oac activities were meaningful to the students were sng thai soon and kwan tuck hong. khoo boo sun and i played a supporting role only. at one time, oac was so popular that more than one-quarter of the school population were enrolled as members.

meeting up with wing nam after 33 years


wing nam and his wife on the upper deck of the yacht























met up my former student wing nam who is back here on a visit. since leaving singapore, after completing his 'o' level, he has been working as a policeman in hong kong. he is here with his wife. he took leave from work to attend the wedding of the daughter of one of his classmates.

we all met at keppel marina as another of his classmate, herman, owns a yacht which was moored at the marina. twelve of us went for a spin and splash in the 4-year old million dollar cabin cruiser. the boat ride took us from keppel bay to kusu island and back.

back at the marina, we gathered at the wine bar for a drink. we were joined by another two former teachers of theirs, wendy syn and lilian kwek. a smaller group of us then adjourned to lau pa sat to let wing nam enjoy local favourite dishes like satay, rojak, ikan bakar, juihee eng cai and otar.