Joanna's Story

As I begin packing for my re-location to Singapore, I chance upon more old school photos and just can't resist reminiscing about my beloved BBGS.

None of us really "leaves" BBGS. We carry her with us throughout our lives. We treasure her memories; be they bitter or sweet. We live and hold dear to the principles ingrained in us through years of discipline and tradition.

As I walked past the wire-fence gate for the first time in 1983, only one thought filled my mind. I was continuing the tradition of being a third-generation BBGS girl in my family. My mother had left these gates in 1961 after completing Senior Cambridge and my grandaunts before her.

In my first year, one teacher left a vivid impression on my mind and she is none other than Mrs. M. Aziz. I am eternally grateful to her for teaching me to appreciate the beauty of the English Language despite all its complexities. I still remember the time she shared an extract from one of Gerald Durrell's stories. It went like this:

We had little compunction in foregoing its hypothetical amenities as an annexe for our embryonic zoo.

Can you imagine how stupefied I was to hear that sentence? To top it all, we were told that this extract was taken from a textbook for 13-year olds in the UK.

Mrs Abraham was another of my favourite teachers whom I'm privileged to call a close friend and confidante. English lessons were so much fun! We composed limericks, wrote advertisement captions and sang the Animal Farm anthem at the top of our lungs. Among the witty creations churned out by my classmates was this advertisement jingle coined by my close friend, Usha Panchapakesan, for an optometrist:

Come to Sunlight Optician and see things you've never seen before

Other advertisements included Rest-in-Peace coffins and Please Release Me tablets - the ultimate cure for constipation!

We practised Choral Speaking with and almost religious fervour. I am very proud of the fact that my English class entered the finals of the competition every year without fail and won on four occasions.

BBGS also gave me numerous opportunities to develop leadership and interaction skills. I shudder in amazement every time I recall the Herculean tasks accomplished. When I sat for my SPM in 1987, my list of responsibilities included: Chief Editor of the school magazine, Vice Captain of Cooke House, Senior Prefect, Patrol Leader for the 32nd KL Girl Guides Company and cell group leader with the Christian Union. Needless to say, my SPM results were way below expectations.

And so it was with great trepidation that I returned to BBGS as a Form Six student. I wanted only to excel in the STPM examinations so that I could enter university. No more responsibilities for me. Instead, I was landed with the heaviest task of all --School Captain! It was indeed an honour to serve the school for the 1988/89 term. In spite of the hard work involved, it turned out to be one of my best years in BBGS.

All in all, my years in BBGS can only be described by listing almost all the superlatives in the Oxford Dictionary. We have been moulded by the same traditions and disciplined by the highest codes of conduct. And this is what BBGS has contributed to society. Multiple generations of women have carried her high standards all over the world. We do this because we have pledged our love and toil in years to be and taken our places as loyal women with our race.

BBGSian wins Pulitzer Prize

Malaysian with WSJ bags Pulitzer

BEIJING: After just 10 years as a journalist, Malaysian Fong Foong Mei has achieved what most others can only dream of – win the Pulitzer prize.

She is one of seven members of a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) team that won the 2007 Pulitzer international award announced on April 16 for a series of reports on capitalism in China last year.

"It was pretty unexpected but luck has a part in it. It's nice to have the highest journalism prize, the prestige counts a lot but life goes on as usual.

She does have her feet on the ground. "You still have to do the next story and it doesn't get any easier," said the 34-year-old former Bukit Bintang Girls School student who writes under the byline of Mei Fong.

It took two months to find someone who would talk and the construction workers were touched that someone was interested in their story. Fong had written about the difficult living conditions of migrant construction workers in Bejing and co-authored a second piece on a Chinese doctor who was inspired by the "Erin Brockovich" movie starring Julia Roberts, and fought to save his village from environmental pollution in eastern Fujian province.

The migrant workers report also earned her a first prize in the 2006 Human Rights Press Award given out by the Hong Kong Correspondents Club and Amnesty International earlier this year.

Fong recalled the time spent on the stories.
"It took two months to find someone who would talk and the construction workers were touched that someone was interested in their story," she said.
"For the report on the doctor, it was difficult because we didn't have the freedom to travel and do interviews without official permission.
"The waiban (provincial foreign officers) found out about us towards the end of our reporting and chased us out of town. We took a car down from the mountain at night and they followed to make sure we left.

Fong studied at the National University of Singapore under a scholarship from Singapore Press Holdings. She worked with The New Paper for three years.

She went on to complete a masters in International Relations at Columbia University under a Lee Foundation scholarship.

When she graduated in 2001, Fong undertook a three-month internship with WSJ which then led to a job offer.

In 2003, Fong was transferred to Hong Kong and came to Beijing last year.

Married to an American-born Chinese, she returns several times a year to Petaling Jaya to visit her mother and sisters and have her fill of Hokkien fried noodles and roti canai. – Bernama

The Complexities of Choral Speaking

It's been a month since I started polling our favourite BBGS traditions, and it appears that Choral Speaking is the runaway favourite! So, here's another dose of nostalgia for all you BBGSians out there ;-)

Before choral-speaking gained nation-wide popularity among secondary schools in Malaysia, it was the pride (and pain!) of all BBGSians. The art of reciting poetry as a group, focussed primarily on pronunciation, expression and volume. Where appropriate, we would introduce special effects to highlight a particular mood within the poem.

I recently found a poem, written by Mak Mei Ling from Form 5 Science 3, in the 1983 School Magazine. The poem so accurately and humourously describes the annual pilgrimage of BBGSians to the altar of the Inter-Class Choral Speaking Competition.

The Complexities of Choral Speaking

Oh help... That particular time of the year

Has inevitably arrived -

It's Choral Speaking time again.

Choral Speaking?

A certain aura of panic surrounds

The usually stable BBGSians

The very word

Sends chills down our spines.

Librarians in the city

Are naturally mystified

Over the sudden popularity

Of their poetry books

As we comb and rummage

Through them in our zeal.

After days and days

Of searching, reading and rejecting poems,

We come to the conclusion

That no one has yet to produce

A poem striking enough

To suit our sophisticated tastes.

Having no alternatives,

We turn to our class' budding writers

And beg, cajole and even threaten them

To produce a top notch poem

In exactly 24 hours,

No matter how empty or void

They claim their heads to be.

Having secured our Tennysons and Kiplings,

We now struggle to choose a prize winning topic.

"What shall we speak on this year?"

"Nothing"

"I know, our PTA toilet project!"

"Uh-ah" "World War Three?"

"How about banning Choral Speaking forever!"

Finally,

After many hours of brain wracking

And hair tearing sessions,

Our self-proclaimed geniuses

Complete their royal assignment

But, the heartache is far from over

As up crops a totally new problem -

How exactly do we pronounce

All these lip twising

Tongue rolling

And mind boggling words?

Everyone has their own version

Of how the poem should be recited

"...this way...."

"...no, that way..."

Insults are thrown

Egos are bashed

Reducing our poor Choral Speakers

Into nothing but "Quarrel" speakers

Amidst the catastrophe

A star is born - our conductor.

See her face twist

See her hands fly here and there.

She calms our frayed nerves

And reassures us that

We do not sound as terrible

As everyone says we do.

Yet, it is she who tortures us

With countless hours of practice

Turning our lovely, harmonious voices

Into miserable, pathetic croaks.

After what seems to be

An eternity of voice projection,

We are forced to go on stage.

Behind the shaking knees,

Cold fingers and chattering teeth,

One comforting thought

Remains in our hearts -

For we know that

If we never pull through to the semifinals,

The 38 of us overworked, underpraised

Angels in Bata shoes

Need never, ever go through

The complexities of Choral Speaking again.

Meeting up with Dr Irene Teo

Shu Ling and Irene

Shu Ling was back in KL last week, and mooted the idea of meeting up with Irene. We got together at Dragon-I at the Curve, and had a long chinwag over copious cups of Chinese tea.

The fact that our Irene Teo became a doctor comes as no surprise. She used to sweep 50-70% of prizes on Speech Day. Irene graduated with an Australian medical degree and is now attached to the corporate sector. Irene's sisters, Diana, Karen and Selena, also attended BBGS.

Our conversation was lively and candid, filled with anecdotes of past antics and sharing of information re former classmates. Some topics of conversation did remind us that 20 years have passed since we left BBGS. Marriage, kids, cholesterol levels and the solemn realisation that some of our classmates were no longer with us. We've lost two to cancer, and one on the ill-fated SQ 6 flight. Sigh...

Nevertheless, we were happy that we managed catch up after such a long time. Shu Ling & I will no doubt be touching base more often, as I'm relocating to Singapore next month.

You School 1 or School 2?

"You School 1 or School 2?" is a question that sounds like gibberish to most people, but makes a world of difference to a BBGSian.

Firstly, it's a way to establish if someone is pure-bred, meaning that she attended BBGS from Std One right through to Form Five. If she did attend BBGS primary school, then the "School One vs School Two" debate is one she'd be privileged to take part in.

BTW, it's ok to be a "mixed breed". This debate carries no weight once you've been through the cleansing rituals and loyalty-building traditions of secondary school.

You see, the primary school was divided into morning and afternoon sessions. School One would start in the morning for the first half of the year, and swap to the afternoon session for the remainder. Vice versa for School Two.

The old frangipani tree that stood for decades outside the primary school is one that we all remember well. And that's probably the only thing we had in common. In all other fields, School One and School Two were intense rivals.

I remember us competing in:-

• Public examination results - It was an annual race to see which school could get the most 5A's in the Std 5 exams and get our faces published in the newspapers. (For the record, it was School 2 in 1981 with my little face amidst the throng of pint-sized overachievers ;-)
• State-level choir competition - we would make faces at each other from across the hall
• School mural - which school produced the artwork?
• Prefects duty noticeboard - which school had the best decorated noticeboard

On one thing however, we would always stand united. Come hell or high water, we had to beat CBN or Convent Bukit Nanas - our arch rivals

My mother, sister and I were from School 2 and we were definitely the BEST. Anyone care to disagree?

Feel free to post a comment :-)