What did I learn at Pui Ching

James Koo

Reading May Chen's article about their trip to E. Europe gave me a cold sweat as I understand she "remembered" all the years, names, and places in her travel report. The years at Pui Ching flashed across my mind again. Two years ago, when I got back to the fold of Lighters, I was shocked by articles like using information theory analyze the problem of weighing 12
balls by Pat Wong, or higher mathematics treatise by Bob Chen. My mathematics skill today only allows me to deal with questions like how long do you have to wait at the Star Ferry. OK, ok, I did not belong in the "math/science" sections, and was not. Now after reading May's article, I wonder if I really belonged to the "art" sections then.

About two years ago, I asked a Lighter to comment on my article before submitting to the 40th anniversary yearbook. The insights and analytical comments were really impressive. After a brief conversation (in Cantonese) with me, an alumni of Pui Ching recently questioned how, or if ever I graduated from Pui Ching.

I was at All Saints Middle School for half a year when I first got to Hong Kong. My abilities in Cantonese, classic Chinese and English must have been worse. Somehow I did reasonably well there so I had enough courage to take the entrance exam of Pui Ching. After getting into Pui Ching, then I realized how ill prepared or how much better rest of my classmates were. I am very happy that I got into Pui Ching so I realized my inadequacy as early as possible.

Most of us probably would agree that we do not use or practice most subjects we learned in school. Then why we tried to get ourselves or our children into better schools? I believe the best lesson one can learn from a good school is that there are a lot smarter, more talented people in the world. I surely learned that lesson in a hurry at Pui Ching.