My second school

My second school was Tai Ping Yang (太平洋) or Yao Han (耀漢) Chinese School. It was a private school. Most of the teachers at Yao Han was from Taiwan. My brother Sing was studying in high school at Tai Ping Yang. As Hing was two years older than me, so she was in Year 3. And I was enrolled into Year 1. It was a big school. On the first day I got allocated to sit next to my best friend Han Xiang (漢祥) who lived three houses away from mine. I remembered there was once I was sick. I coughed into a handkerchief and the teacher accused me of whispering to Han Xiang. She forced me to stand up and whacked a stick on my back. When she started her second whack, Han Xiang grasped that stick and explained to the teacher that I was sick. Unfortunately, he and I got detention after school. Han Xiang was a deeply protective towards me. I remembered there was a group of kids who often laughed at us. They made jokes about us being so close, labelling us the ‘married couple’. We ignored them until one day they cornered me and teased me about the ‘married couple’ act. I was so terrified. Han Xiang stepped in and got into a fight, whilst I was in the corner, crying like a baby. The yard teacher noticed us and got us (Han Xiang and I) detention after school again. The teacher punished us by writing ‘I-will-not-fight-with-others’ endlessly for a hundred times. We stood there laughing during our detention.

After school, my brother Sing walked us home. He often bribed us with ice blocks to walk faster to get home and carry his books for him. He kept his promised and got what we wanted.

I stayed at that school for about half of the year until my brother Sing got into a fight. The night before that fight, he met a group of boys from the same school on the street. They challenged him for a fight but somehow he got off from them. The group was a bunch of bullies from the same school that we went to. They came from wealthy families. The next day they met at the school ground and challenged Sing again, cornering him at the canteen. His two friends (Ying Kuan and Xi Lou) jumped in and helped my brother out. They got into a heavy fight. My brother got injured on one of his eyes and his friends also got injured. I saw blood everywhere. The whole group got called into the principal office. Soon after, some of the boys got expelled and my brother’s group voted to change school. So once again Hing and I moved to another school called Truong Phuoc Duc. Sing moved to another school.