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Lately I drove back to my hometown and all of a sudden, there were some inspiration,
flashing out some sweet old memories during my stay in Penang. As a result, I wrote
several articles on those matters.
The photo above taken when I was in Remove 4, 1974.
The above photo, taken in the year of 1979 when I was in Form 5 Science.
The above photo taken during our School Fun Fare Festival.
Today, the article I am going to share with you my secondary school where
I spent six good years there, i.e. 1974 to 1979 ie. none other than Heng Ee
High School. It is located on Hamilton Road in the George Town area and
is relatively close to Penang Free School, one of the oldest schools in
Penang and I don't think it needs any further elaboration. However, it does
not apply to my school which does not have such a long historical
background. As such, I will cover some of its unique story and hope you
are enjoy reading it.This school has its own uniqueness in the sense that its ground is divided into
2 sections: one side comprises the school administrators' rooms, teachers' room,
staff room, cafeteria, foyer, school hall, blocks of classrooms, computer rooms,
living skills rooms, science laboratories and a football field while the another side
comprises a small car park, basketball courts and a volleyball court. This piece of
idle land has been acquired subsequently for expansion of the school. It has been
conveyed to us when I was studying there, but it had been acquired many years
after I left the school. When we talk about this school, one major component which cannot be omitted is
its founder. I believe this great man should deserve more coverage as he had
contributed significantly to our society and the school in particular. Do not forget
that being a foreigner and establishing a Chinese School in a foreign country is
definitely not an easy task. Thank God for his persistence and endurance
throughout his journey of struggle. Mr Goh Boon Poh is currently the principal of this school. The photo, above, shown the front view of this school The school was founded in 1957 by the late Datuk Father Arthur Julien, a Belgian
missionary who arrived in Penang from China in 1952. He had also established the
Heng Ee Primary School and Heng Ee Kindergarten in 1952 and 1969 respectively.
There is no surprise for him to be awarded a Datukship for his significant
contribution to our society. Some of you may able to see that being a westerner
and wanting to establish a Chinese school in a foreign country certainly impose a
great challenge to him. He used to share with us the challenges he had gone through
when we attended his classes once a week. I always salute him for what he had done,
but he always attributed this values with the Chinese values, which I find lots of
similarity. No wonder that he spent lots of his time to master Mandarin and he can
speak even better mandarin than I do. I found him to have even a deep understanding
of Mandarin and our cultural values. He made himself so humble that we could treat
him as a friend, who always stand by to assist us in any way he could. I recalled that
he even convince the headmaster at that time to allow us to make use of the classroom
during the school break for our revision as he knows that majority of the students are
from lower income group and many of us do not have proper place to study at home. To reduce the consumption of electricity, he even offered us his room to smaller group
of students who wish to come at night to study in the school. He always keeps the school
expenses to a minimum as this school only received very minimum funding from the
government despite it being designated as a national school. Most of the expenses are bored
by public donations. The great man had impacted my life a lot .I always looked upon him in
my life of struggle as well. It is truly blessed to know this great man at our young age
despite me being always a shy pupil, who chose to struggle silently than to share it out with
others. I have only been transformed after I accepted Christ as my Savior. On my way back to Kuala Lumpur, I asked for the guard’s permission to enter the school
compound and take the photo of the little statute resembling him standing at the open space
between the school front and the other building. Though he had gone, but his spirit of
dedication to serve the needy students are beyond words. I can vouch for him – being the
man who walk his talk - uses every possible means and assistance he can have to reach
out to those students in need, regardless of race and social status. This made most of us
students feel proud of him. I recalled a few of us have approached him to borrow the classroom for prepare for our
school examination. His smiling face well indicated to us that he was more than happy to
do so and truly understand our difficulty to study at home. I learnt that he also offered his
room, at the school, to students who truly need a room to study which otherwise was not
available at their own homes. He seemed to know every need of his students. He gave us
all the necessary encouragement when we were saddled by unfortunate incidences. He
always shows us the way and always standby to give the necessary encouragement that
could cheer our hearts and souls.
NO wonder that lots of us loved him very much and he gained our highest respect.
Though he had gone, but his spirit and name will be always remembered. He was always very proud of this school, for being able to use Mandarin language as a
medium to conduct classes here as he found that this language has lots of high values that
need to be preserved. He used to describe all these values and cultivated them in our lives
despite being a foreigner to us. We can sense that his love conquers all barriers and we are
always looked upon him for such a cheerful spirit. He does not always look cheerful and
energetic, but he was always willing to offer his hands to anyone who needs his assistance. It was learnt that he contributed the entire heritage of 50,000 pounds he received from his
father to this school. He can speak mandarin very well and he faced a great challenge when
he initially raised funds to build these Chinese school from the Chinese community. Firstly
people are doubtful of him for being Westerner and willing to build Chinese schools in foreign
land. Thank God for his endurance throughout his challenging years and today his name will never
be forgotten. Though the statue subsequently built after his death is no comparison to his
contribution to this school, it will serve as a remembrance of his great work, He can be
remembered as a model to the world at large. Before we put an end to this article, we urge those who know about his life to contact us
either via comments or email to jamesoh2003@yahoo.co.uk or bthongoh@hotmail.com so
that we can blog more about his life and his great contribution in the internet sphere.
Thank you for your kind participation.
We look forward to hearing from you, James Oh
Founder and Group CEO |
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