30th Anniversary Hwa Chong Video
I have recently re-stumbled upon the 30th Anniversary Hwa Chong Video, and many many memories came pouring back. Even though we frequently complain about how life as a student in Hwa Chong is excrutiatingly painful with numerous tutorials and assignments, but looking back, I really do miss those moments. Sitting in lectures trying my best to absorb complex numbers, scribbling like mad during Bio lectures with the occassional sarcastic remark from Mrs Foo, falling asleep during Majulah Singapura in standing position. It's funny but I really forgot how it was like to be a JC student until I rewatched this video.
I remember the first time I watched it was during Orientation. I wanted to skip the "School Documentary" screening and chill at the canteen (just as a bunch of us were going to), but somehow we ended up back in the school hall watching the documentary.
It was this video that defined the beginning of my life as a Hwa Chong JC student, because I always thought with the long heritage Chinese High has, JC side would totally pale in comparison, but this video proved me wrong. And in fact, looking back, I miss HCJC more than Chinese High, well, simply because the Chinese High that we once knew has already ceased to exist. (Security lockdowns, change of teachers, change in academic infrastructure, whether they're truly for the better or not, I believe time will bear testament to that.)
I don't ever think I'll come to terms with Hwa Chong being Hwa Chong Institution. I never came from High School Section, nor was I from College Section; I came from The Chinese High School and Hwa Chong Junior College. I think watching this video made me realise that it was this kind of a Hwa Chong Spirit that made me love the school so much. Forget about what recent hype of school spirit that's been going on since I graduated: all the I LOVE/HEART HC shirts and what-nots; to me, I think that they're merely an outward superficial display. Back then, we didn't have, or rather, we didn't need any of these because we knew instinctively, or should I say, it was within us that Hwa Chong was our school, and regardless of what happened, we know that we wouldn't be who we are today had it not been for our teachers, our seniors and our friends. We thought less of ourselves, but rather, we thought about what we could do to excel and to prove to others that Hwa Chong was truly the best school that there was.
I don't think we were complacent in our work, simply because we knew we had a reputation to uphold. It was something subconscious within everyone I guess, knowing that excelling in our work was not merely something that would be good for ourselves, but that we would do the school and our families proud. Even for those of us who became these supercritical cynics that were seemingly apathetic, it was because we cared too much that we were always voicing out our discontentment so that the school could improve, only that we knew we couldn't do anything about it so we turned apathetic. Either way, what perfectly sensible and intelligent students think are good for the school don't mean anything to Board of Governors or Directors who would find it hard to accept that students of 13-18 had the mental capacity for positive change on such a scale. I guess their impressions of us would always stay at that when they themselves were 13-18, i.e. kampung kids. Bleargh. Guess they still need to accept theories that better nutrition nowadays leads to accelerated brain developments. Either way, that was then.
I don't know what students think about nowadays. Perhaps they view their current education in Hwa Chong akind to getting onboard a train to further their education and that's that, heading mindlessly for a degree (and hopefully a top 10% Hwa Chong Diploma). After their A levels, well, it's just getting off the train. How about a more precise one, a view of what's happening now: that Hwa Chong is a company with a CEO and students are just their products. Oh yes, students are simply products, vessels that can hold academic information, and at the end of it if you can't produce the information to Cambridge, then ta-ta, into the dustbin you go. Every Hwa Chong student perhaps would have felt like that since the merger, but honestly, what can we do? It simply furthers our motivation to work even harder in the neverending rat race. So don't blame your Hwa Chong friends if they mug too hard or don't have much of a life outside of academia, it's what they've been taught and conditioned to do by their CEO and his fellow school governors. A true-life dystopia eh?
I miss my teachers, because they were the ones that really made the school into the school; sans those who have been all accomodating to school administration, who simply care about their own livelihood and sacrifice their moral integrity to appear as these ideal law abiding teachers but totally at the expense of their students. Who needs a CCA teacher-in-charge if HE doesn't fight for the CCA? What's the point of putting him in-charge? Might as well call him the Hermes of the school administration (and for goodness sake, we don't even know whether it's really just HIM or the school administration) If it's any injustice I feel, it's for my juniors, it's for the students and it's for 28 generations of students who have painstakingly year after year been putting up a theatre performance at Victoria Theatre only to now face its potential demise all because of HIM. I abhor the sight of him, simply because if you think your life sucks, then so be it, you don't have to implicate students and the work that they do to make them think that their life should suck as badly as yours.
Huang Cheng gave me a purpose in Junior College. Had it not been for Huang Cheng, I probably wouldn't have missed Hwa Chong Junior College as much as I do now. It made me realise that there were still like minded people who didn't get tainted by cynicism, and people who still viewed school life more than mere academics. That's why I will press on even harder to make sure the very thing that gave me a purpose in my JC student life doesn't die off because of an individual. But that if she does die off, it is because society has triumphed in poisoning all young minds that academics are all there is to life.
For all the angst, I still miss Hwa Chong. It truly moulded me into who I am today. Even the negative experiences, because I now know I do not ever want to become like some of these people, or put myself into a situation like those I had faced. Teachers that taught me beyond the textbook, friends that have become close companions, if not for Hwa Chong, I never would have met them. Truly, although we might never relive them, they will always remain vivid and alive memories within us.
Hwa Chong, my alma mater. A place that taught me so much more about life.
I remember the first time I watched it was during Orientation. I wanted to skip the "School Documentary" screening and chill at the canteen (just as a bunch of us were going to), but somehow we ended up back in the school hall watching the documentary.
It was this video that defined the beginning of my life as a Hwa Chong JC student, because I always thought with the long heritage Chinese High has, JC side would totally pale in comparison, but this video proved me wrong. And in fact, looking back, I miss HCJC more than Chinese High, well, simply because the Chinese High that we once knew has already ceased to exist. (Security lockdowns, change of teachers, change in academic infrastructure, whether they're truly for the better or not, I believe time will bear testament to that.)
I don't ever think I'll come to terms with Hwa Chong being Hwa Chong Institution. I never came from High School Section, nor was I from College Section; I came from The Chinese High School and Hwa Chong Junior College. I think watching this video made me realise that it was this kind of a Hwa Chong Spirit that made me love the school so much. Forget about what recent hype of school spirit that's been going on since I graduated: all the I LOVE/HEART HC shirts and what-nots; to me, I think that they're merely an outward superficial display. Back then, we didn't have, or rather, we didn't need any of these because we knew instinctively, or should I say, it was within us that Hwa Chong was our school, and regardless of what happened, we know that we wouldn't be who we are today had it not been for our teachers, our seniors and our friends. We thought less of ourselves, but rather, we thought about what we could do to excel and to prove to others that Hwa Chong was truly the best school that there was.
I don't think we were complacent in our work, simply because we knew we had a reputation to uphold. It was something subconscious within everyone I guess, knowing that excelling in our work was not merely something that would be good for ourselves, but that we would do the school and our families proud. Even for those of us who became these supercritical cynics that were seemingly apathetic, it was because we cared too much that we were always voicing out our discontentment so that the school could improve, only that we knew we couldn't do anything about it so we turned apathetic. Either way, what perfectly sensible and intelligent students think are good for the school don't mean anything to Board of Governors or Directors who would find it hard to accept that students of 13-18 had the mental capacity for positive change on such a scale. I guess their impressions of us would always stay at that when they themselves were 13-18, i.e. kampung kids. Bleargh. Guess they still need to accept theories that better nutrition nowadays leads to accelerated brain developments. Either way, that was then.
I don't know what students think about nowadays. Perhaps they view their current education in Hwa Chong akind to getting onboard a train to further their education and that's that, heading mindlessly for a degree (and hopefully a top 10% Hwa Chong Diploma). After their A levels, well, it's just getting off the train. How about a more precise one, a view of what's happening now: that Hwa Chong is a company with a CEO and students are just their products. Oh yes, students are simply products, vessels that can hold academic information, and at the end of it if you can't produce the information to Cambridge, then ta-ta, into the dustbin you go. Every Hwa Chong student perhaps would have felt like that since the merger, but honestly, what can we do? It simply furthers our motivation to work even harder in the neverending rat race. So don't blame your Hwa Chong friends if they mug too hard or don't have much of a life outside of academia, it's what they've been taught and conditioned to do by their CEO and his fellow school governors. A true-life dystopia eh?
I miss my teachers, because they were the ones that really made the school into the school; sans those who have been all accomodating to school administration, who simply care about their own livelihood and sacrifice their moral integrity to appear as these ideal law abiding teachers but totally at the expense of their students. Who needs a CCA teacher-in-charge if HE doesn't fight for the CCA? What's the point of putting him in-charge? Might as well call him the Hermes of the school administration (and for goodness sake, we don't even know whether it's really just HIM or the school administration) If it's any injustice I feel, it's for my juniors, it's for the students and it's for 28 generations of students who have painstakingly year after year been putting up a theatre performance at Victoria Theatre only to now face its potential demise all because of HIM. I abhor the sight of him, simply because if you think your life sucks, then so be it, you don't have to implicate students and the work that they do to make them think that their life should suck as badly as yours.
Huang Cheng gave me a purpose in Junior College. Had it not been for Huang Cheng, I probably wouldn't have missed Hwa Chong Junior College as much as I do now. It made me realise that there were still like minded people who didn't get tainted by cynicism, and people who still viewed school life more than mere academics. That's why I will press on even harder to make sure the very thing that gave me a purpose in my JC student life doesn't die off because of an individual. But that if she does die off, it is because society has triumphed in poisoning all young minds that academics are all there is to life.
For all the angst, I still miss Hwa Chong. It truly moulded me into who I am today. Even the negative experiences, because I now know I do not ever want to become like some of these people, or put myself into a situation like those I had faced. Teachers that taught me beyond the textbook, friends that have become close companions, if not for Hwa Chong, I never would have met them. Truly, although we might never relive them, they will always remain vivid and alive memories within us.
Hwa Chong, my alma mater. A place that taught me so much more about life.