A visitor we Do Not Expect

With the news of us relocating to Beijing recently, our relatives and many of our friends have made promises and plans of their imminent visit while we are here and we are glad. After all, one of the reason that we took a three room unit in Beijing was to have an extra guest room for our visiting friends and relatives. 

However, there are two things that we did not expect. Firstly, we did not expect to receive a visitor from Malaysia within the first two weeks that we are here and secondly, the visitor himself was someone that we would NEVER have imagined or expect in a million years!

Not that I am complaining. In fact, I am totally ecstatic when he informed me that he would be coming to Beijing and would keep me updated on his arrangement. I remembered clearly informing my wife about his arrival and she could not believe her ears too.

I would have expect our first visitor would be relative or a close friend of ours but never, nope, never, a classmate whom I have not sat down casually to catch up and chit chat for over 3 decades after we both left ACS Ipoh after our Upper Six.

Oh yes, we still see each other on the professional basis, although he is probably the last person I would love to see in his capacity. You see, he is our children pediatrician, Dr Liew from Subang. If we were to make a trip to see him, it would be because it has became necessity arising from some form of illness or health issues we would have with our two super charged offspring. In other words, the less we see him, the better!

But, this is one friend that I have always admire and respect from the days when we were classmates back in Ipoh. He has always came across as the determined, extremely focus, always cheerful, shy, quiet and intelligent chap in the class who goes about doing nothing else but study and make sure that he excelled in his exams. And that he did with flying colors, not that it surprises me. I, on the other hand, was pleasantly surprised that I did not fail every subject and got enough to scrap into TAR College, considering the amount of activities and fun I had!

And what impressed me the most during his visit to Beijing were three things:-

• he made every effort to make sure that we do meet up so much so that he actually took a cab from where he was staying and made his way to our apartment.
• he was in Beijing to fulfill one of his childhood dreams after all these years.
• he was every bit the same old person I have grown to respect and admire with some pretty amazing transformation over the years. 

As we sat down over the two days that we have time together, we walked down our memory lane fondly together, caught up with what we were up to after we parted ways in school and how we got to where we were today. We talked of our age (oh yes, we are no longer in our youth), our changed priorities, our focus now in our lives, our aspiration and dreams yet to be fulfilled. As we exchanged our views , it has became increasing clear that we both share the view of how important to revisit and rekindle those friendships that we have built over the years.

The funny thing was that we actually shared similar nightmares albeit for different reasons. He has nightmares, even now, of going into an examination hall, not that he does not know the answers but for trivial reasons like forgetting to bring pencils or identification documents. I, on the other hand, have nightmares of sitting in the examination hall, starring blankly at the examination paper and not knowing a single thing, a true reflection of the difference between both our readiness towards examination!

The Dr Liew that I have the privilege to catch up with while in Beijing, although still very much the very likeable and cheerful person with an extremely positive outlook in life and still equally focus in his quest and dreams, however, is also an extremely open, confident and chatty chap, no longer shy nor quiet.

I am very glad that things have worked out very nicely for him and his lovely family and he is definitely a role model that my children could follow .... not only excelling in his studies but the determination, cheerfulness, positive outlook and the focus that he exhibits in pursuing his dreams. (My earlier post on Dr Liew under the post "Determination and never give in and never give up)

Oh yes, about his fulfilled childhood dream in Beijing. He is a trained wushu exponent as long as I have known him and to be trained in Beijing by the best teachers was one of his wish. I admired him for making it a point to realize that one dream (not many of us do. Many of us, even forgets what that dream was in our journey growing up) but more importantly, the same courage, determination and focus he has in being the oldest participant at 50 while the rest were in their teens and prime twenties.

He was definitely NOT the visitor we expect but the visitor that we are extremely thankful and glad to have.

Determination and NEVER GIVE IN and NEVER GIVE UP ....

I was reading the "Be Inspired" column today in the Star about how this Indian boy whose father and mother are odd job workers, hardly earned enough to eat and where he and his siblings would often go hungry for days. He had no proper shoes and would wear his totally worn out shoes and walked kilometers to school but with one fierce determination to learn and to succeed. He would improved his English through reading old Star newspapers that his mother picked up to generate additional income. Despite being hungry and wanting in so many departments, he did not give up but strive to study hard, scoring straight As in his PMR and his SPM examination. With a state funded scholarship, his dream of furthering his studies in France has finally came true.

All these brought me to recall two of my childhood classmates, both from the same class since Form 4 and 6 in ACS Ipoh. One from an average family and another from a poorer family living in Jelapang. Both equally determined to excel during our school days but unfortunately both ended rather differently in life.

I met Poh Cheng, a Chinese educated student when we did our Lower Six in ACS Ipoh together. He was well built, evident from his years of practicing Wushu, shy but ever so cheerful with a perpetual smile. We were all in the Bio-Math stream and he was exceptionally good in almost every subject from Chemistry, Physics (which I was totally hopeless at), Biology and Mathematics, all this despite his constant challenge in understanding English since all our reference books then were in English. His biggest fear was "Kertas Am" (General Paper), because this was a Bahasa Malaysia subject where a good grasp of Bahasa Malaysia is almost a must in order to get through.

But he was determined and I remembered him reading and reading and reading, just to improve his grasp of both these languages.

One thing that strikes me the most is that he cycled to school every morning from Jelapang to ACS Ipoh, a journey that would cover more than a few kilometers. He was not one of those richer Ipoh kids who took buses and were chauffeured driven to school. Being a school prefect myself, I honestly do not recall him ever going in late for school.

I remembered one time when we had to prick our own fingers to get blood for one of our biology lab class and my dear friend almost fainted at the sight of blood.

Needless to say, he passed his STPM with flying colours.

Today Dr Liew is my son's pediatrician. He has certainly come a long way. Even when he first started his clinic, I remembered him working very long hours to establish himself. Today, he has a beautiful family, established career, driving a posh 2 door imported car, traveled the world and financially more than stable. He is still as jovial, ever smiling and ever so friendly.

His fierce determination to succeed has found SUCCESS.

Then, there is other friend of mine. Kim Seng was a skinny fella but super talented in art. We both took art in our Form Five SPM and I remembered that we were constantly competing to see who got better grades. Even now, I fondly remembered his superb rendering of the water droplet in water colour on fruits and leaves. Till today, I still could not reproduce the same.

He was from an average family and he too was equally determined to do well and was studious, unlike me who got a little too active `chasing girls' and getting involved in almost every organisation that is to join to get to know the opposite sex. (ahem!). Despite his efforts, we both did not do that well in our STPM. I went on to study at TARC while he went on to resit his STPM.

On his second attempt he passed and got accepted into a university in Singapore. We communicated once during that time. When he was in his second year while I was doing my third in TARC, I received the dreaded news from my Ipoh classmates who were also studying in Singapore. Kim Seng has committed suicide by hanging himself. He left behind a letter for his parents, asking for forgiveness for letting them down.

Till today, I do not know the exact reasons that had drove him to end his young life in such a tragic manner. I am sure that he thought that whatever that he was facing then was insurmountable and he gave in to the stress and he gave up his will to fight on and live ....

Today, Kim Seng remains a memory of a good childhood friend and every time I see a water droplet on an apple or a leaf, I can vividly see his face ....

Therein lies the importance of possessing both of the above, a Strong Determination to Succeed and an equally strong conviction to NEVER GIVE IN and NEVER GIVE UP!

"Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." (Sir Winston Churchill in his famous speech to the students at Harrow School in 1941)