Walking in Geylang

I passed by my primary school the other day while location scouting. I've often walked or driven by with friends, and have even pointed out to some of them where I used to do this and that. However, this was the first time I came with a camera.

I had a good time in primary school, as far as I remember. I think most people do. It's hard not to when you are little, naive, with no expectations, and life hasn't fucked you up beyond belief yet.

Every school has its own little set of eccentricities; rules and regulations which make no sense to anyone except the administrators. We had a rule stating that we had to bow to the huge statue of Lord Buddha whenever we crossed in front of it. Well, it wasn't really a strange rule since it was a Buddhist school. I mean, I'd imagine Christian schools having mass hallelujah outpourings and shit like that.



Behind the van, you can kinda make out the entrance to the hall. Lord Buddha sat at the very end of it, cross-legged, on top of the big, black marble-paved stage, behind a shield of glass. He stared out peacefully, blissfully on the masses of kids in front of him, his lips curled up in a slight smile. His hand was raised permanently in a gesture of blessing, rising from the folds of his gold-plated robes. I tended to avoid his eyes. They looked scary to me, like he knew too much about what I was thinking.

Now the statue is gone. I peeked in from the gates and there was just empty space where he used to be. Of course, since the school building has now become a halfway house, I don't suppose they have any need for huge-ass statues with gold-plated robes, regardless of how blissful they look.

The hall was huge and cavernous, and was often dark, except for Lord Buddha, who was almost always from within his glass enclosure. There were ping pong tables at the other end of it, where we whiled away many hours.

On both sides of the hall were dark, narrow concrete stairs with a bold stripe painted in the middle of the steps. There were arrows pointing up and down on the top and bottom of each flight of steps, indicating which side of the stairs you were supposed to stay on. As a general rule, you were supposed to keep left. You were also supposed to be well-behaved while getting from place to place - no yelling or running was allowed. I once got smacked on the palm for doing both at the same time, having the ass-luck to run into the discipline master on the stairs.



This is an alley behind a row of classrooms on the ground floor. This and another like it often turned into impromptu playgrounds where kids chased each other and played their silly little kid games. These classrooms were where the kindergarten, primary one and two kids were housed. In front of these classrooms, on the opposite side of the alleys, was a long drain covered with concrete blocks and iron grills, running the entire length of the blocks. After recess you could see the little kiddies squatting by it, brushing their teeth en masse, all part of the government's efforts to keep kids' teeth clean. I never understood why they felt that toothpaste was optional.



My classroom for the last couple of years was in this wing of the school. I forgot which floors we occupied over the years. On the fifth and top floor were dusty storerooms with bizarre old science projects and teaching materials in them. There was also a music room (on the left) with an old piano and lecture-type chairs (those with tables attached), which I thought were cool at the time. There we sang crappy songs and played the recorder very badly. Calligraphy lessons were also held at the top floor on Saturdays, but I never went.

On the ground floor of the right wing was an empty space where kids would assemble in wet weather. It also became a wonderful space to play games in, and many afternoons were spent there. Behind this space were the toilets - dark and dank places, with creaky corrugated metal doors, eerie dripping noises, flickering lightbuilbs, cracked mirrors and a persistent smell. The left wing also had the same empty space, but behind it was the canteen. How we would wait in eager anticipation for the bell to go off for recess, ready to make a run for it and try and beat the crowd. Prices were a steal; where else can you get a whole meal for under a dollar?

Being a prefect, I'd get to go for recess early (I think), so I could patrol the place when all the kids were out. Of course, we abused the system as much as possible, and continued munching even when we were supposed to work. Besides, with the chaos going on around, who cared? Little kids pushed and shoved for a place at the concrete tables and benches, lined with smooth white tile. Huge tubs were placed along the sides of the canteen, filled with dirty crockery. Voices and noises mixed to create an all-consuming buzz of sound.



Behind the main building, a spiral staircase wound its way from the ground to the fifth floor (although access to the top two floors was blocked). It was narrow and dark, and I thought it was the most amazing thing in the world. I loved that staircase, it was like a secret route to the staff room and more. I hardly met anyone along it, which added to the feeling that it was mine and mine alone. I also loved the alley that ran behind the building, under these stairs, connecting the toilets to the canteen. The whole back of the building felt mysterious and exciting, at least to an overactive kid's mind.

In front of the buildings there lay three basketball courts, which served as our assembly grounds, playgrounds, and everything else. With no soccer field, and only hoops available, it was no surprise that almost everyone played basketball. Not everyone played well though. Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that I'm terrible at anything involving an object flying through the air and requiring physical co-ordination. I was never a good player, but I loved hanging around the school players because, well, they were the cool kids, and a geek needs to know cool kids.



Around the school was a real alley, where we ran during our P.E. lessons. It had a strange smell to it, which I still can't place to this day. It might have been a cross between some industrial cleaner and garbage, but I guess I'll never find out. I have never smelt it anywhere else. The alley still surrounds the grounds, but it's different now, having been raised in places and smoothened out in general. The smell is also gone. I had shitty ankles, and still do, and recall getting many a sprain along the potholed path.



This is another part of the alley. Just beyond it was a coffeeshop, and we often played games on the path leading to it and along this alley. Games with nonsensical names, like "Pepsi-Cola 1,2,3", which one might imagine is a drinking game of sorts until one sees kids stomping on other kids' feet with gleeful abandon after yelling the phrase.



Right across the street from the school was the home of a classmate. Many of us ran straight there after school, for it was the coolest place around. They owned the entire building. The ground level was used as a storeroom, his dad had an office on the second floor, and the living quarters were on the third. I'll never understand how his dad could stand to work in his office with a whole bunch of rowdy boys sprawled on the floor in the very same room, fighting over the controls of the Nintendo and Sega.

The storeroom area had an old rusty air-conditioning rack above a doorway, and a toilet in the back, with a sink outside. I remember makeshift basketball games using the rack as a hoop, followed by much splashing of water at the sink. Of course, ventilation was almost nil, so you can imagine the sweat.

Once a bunch of us were playing basketball in the pouring rain. It was either an evening or a weekend or holiday, because there was virtually no one else around. We were having the time of our lives when a teacher abruptly stopped our fun and made us stand, dripping wet, outside the staff room. If his intent was to stop us from playing in the rain so we wouldn't catch cold, then putting us outside the air-conditioned staff room where we caught gust after gust of chilled air didn't really help his cause. Some other kid saw us and went across the street to borrow a bunch of towels, which was real nice.



This is a park near the school compound, about five minutes' walk away. Near the end of our time in the school, we spent quite a bit of time hanging out here. Back then, the equipment was definitely more old-school; wooden planks, metal slides, swings made out of rubber tyres. None of this plastic crap.

On the last day of school, the whole bunch of us came here and sat for a long time. Some climbed into the canal and sat on the sides. We talked, as much as twelve year-olds could talk, about the uncertainties in our futures. We sang songs, we cried, and promised to remain friends forever. Ah, how things change. Now some of us meet up a couple times a year in a seedy cafe and chain-smoke. But back then, how strange and forbidding the outside world (read secondary school) looked to us. We were the big fucks in school, lording over all the lower classes. Now we were all to be split up, and made to face an alien environment alone. It was almost unbearable. But we survived, like people almost inevitably do.

For me, all that remains now is a distant memory. Snatches of it, brief slivers that I grasp at, trying to recall a bigger picture. It almost never comes. Six years. Six years reduced to snippets of memory, barely enough to formulate a coherent blog post. I walk around the area once in while, but it barely jogs what little memory there is left, nothing new comes to mind.

Six years of experiences. Blown away like cigarette ashes in the breeze. C'est la vie.

Note: This post took me the entire fucking day to write, on and off. What a loser.