First Impressions Never Die

J. Koo

Alec Li's answer to my puzzle is correct. His answer, his lucid analysis and how fast he answered, gave me an instant flash back to my Pui Ching days-how smart my Pui Ching classmates are.

Coming from Shanghai, after attending a semester at All Saints School in Kowloon, I got into Pui Ching in 1958. In hindsight, I do not know how did this happen. My parents did not know anybody influential. I had problems with Cantonese, English and never had trigonometry (at that time, it was second semester trig for 11th grade). Anyway, I was very happy sitting there with rest of the Lighters (some of them are very pretty), proud to have Pui Ching emblem on my chest.

But my happiness was very short lived. While I stared at the zero test scores for my English dictation, Chinese recitation, and barely passing grades for Botany, and other subjects, I saw next to me Selena Au and Hsu Won were getting 80 and 90's. Actually, the English teacher stopped subtracting when the test score reached zero, otherwise, I would have negative scores. I wondered how could those pretty heads be that smart or I could be that far behind or stupid or both. While I was struggling with my trigonometry, I looked out the windows seeing those Lighters in section C & D. I understood they were taking calculus and other more advanced mathematics. Again, some of them are very pretty.

End of the first semester at Pui Ching, luckily, I failed only one subject, English, so I could take the make up exam. If I failed two subjects, I would have stayed behind. While most of the Lighters were enjoying their summer vacation, I was cramming the English grammar book.

During the subsequent years, I have been with several elite institutions such as Bell Labs, Intel and others. But I was never as intimidated by my colleagues as I was at Pui Ching, and none of them are as pretty as some of those at Pui Ching. Today, I still feel the same way when I meet with fellow Lighters. I still see you as those faces in the yearbook. The first impressions never die and get reinforced again and again.