Searching for the Soul of Pui Ching

Ted Hsieh

Forty-four years after graduation, a group of high school classmates still tried to find ways to improve their Alma Mater on their busy website. Alumni from around the world, from those who were barely out of their teens to those who were in their 80’s and 90’s, could still work up such a steam over a small group of devious people in China and Hong Kong who made some deceptive attempts to “steal” the name of their beloved school. If that were not a very special school, the word special would have to be discarded from our vocabulary.

Pui Ching Middle School was not just a school. She was obviously a very special school. In fact, she had been a very special school to all those whom she had nurtured for generations. She was special whether she was in Canton, Macau or Hong Kong. She was special even when she was in exile during the Japanese Invasion. She was special then in the remote villages on the mountains beyond the West River. She was special by the lush rice fields near Guilin, with green-clad limestone hills looming in the background. She was special when, in the early 1950’s, true to her altruistic self, she divided the school into morning and afternoon sessions in order to accommodate the refugees crowding into Hong Kong. She was special in good times and bad. She was special in stormy weathers and on a becalming sea.

Just what had made her so special?

There were schools that were richer than she, with more spectacular campus and facilities. There were schools more blueblood than she in pedigree. There were schools, I am sure, that had teachers with more prominent credentials and more eminent degrees. We probably could name those schools with more desirable social prestige and more powerful political connections. But none of them was as special as Pui Ching.

It seemed that Pui Ching’s special-ness did not come from the monetary or physical endowments, the achievements of her alumni, or even the objectively measurable quality of her faculty.

Pui Ching’s special-ness came from the great storytellers she had. Her special-ness seemed to lie in those stories told and retold from one generation to another. The stories about Pui Ching were far more than the sum of her written history we held dear, her physical presence in those photographs we treasured, and the names of her illustrious teachers and “old boys” we revered.

Few institutions could compare to Pui Ching in terms of the narratives her sons and daughters had composed. These narratives had defined her identity. They had made sense of her existence for each Red and Blue generation through a shared interlocking of memories.

We sat in those classrooms to learn various subjects, to be sure. But we learned far more than just how to manipulate numbers or how to put words together. Our teachers at Pui Ching were very good in knowledge transmission, as good as any teacher in any school. But they were also very good as storytellers. The Storytelling Teachers were uniquely Pui Ching. They were the ones who made Pui Ching so very special.

Our teachers put the “Pui Ching Experience” in narrative forms. They shared with us those memories and dreams that defined our school. They talked about our collective past so that we would have a common present and a shared future. Oh, how we treasured those moments when, right in the middle of a geometry lesson, a teacher would say, “Let me tell you a story of….”

“Have I told about….” would always capture our attention during a boring lesson in a sleepy afternoon. The stories of Pui Ching were the stories of their lives. And the stories of their lives became the stories of our lives, bridging the generational gaps and healing the intergenerational amnesia.

Not all our teachers told the stories with equal power or eloquence. But we students who listened could tell that each story told in timeless prose was from the heart. Not all the storytellers were Pui Ching graduates. But we who sat in a Pui Ching classroom knew that these non-grads admired this school, affirmed her students and had totally bought in this “Pui Ching Experience.”

Not every storyteller used spoken words and not every story was about the past. Memories of two teachers in English stood out like granite etchings.

Teacher Cheung was an old Pui Ching grad. Students always liked to entreat him to tell a school story to liven up the classroom. Being serious and shy in a cute way, he always refused. But his shy smiling glances in his refusal under those glasses spoke volumes. They spoke of pride. They spoke of duty of being a son of the Red and Blue. They also spoke with a humility that was totally impressive to the young minds. Pride. Duty. Humility.

Teacher Ng was not a Pui Ching grad. He grew up in Burma and spoke a pure, upper class English. He also had a mustache, bushy and black. His lessons were peppered with sayings and clichés. He would translate a Confucius saying: “To tell on the road what you heard on the way is to throw virtue away.” More often than not, he would add by saying that he did not have to worry about Pui Ching students in doing this. Several days later, he would give us another translation: “The superior man is modest in what he says, but exceeds in what he does.” He would then add that most Pui Ching students were like that. Talk about being brainwashed! No wonder some friends from other schools often complained that Pui Ching kids just loved to wear their school uniform in public and also tended to walk with a swagger. Pride. Duty. Humility.

We are the music-makers
And we are the dreamers of dreams
Wandering by lone sea-breakers
And sitting by desolate streams
World-losers and world-forsakers
On whom the pale moon gleams
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world forever, it seems. (author unknown)

Unlike animals, human beings were created uniquely with storytelling capacity. Our identity was often determined not by the actual events we experienced or things we accomplished but by the stories that came out of those events or accomplishments. Stories of joys and disappointments, tears and laughter, gestures of kindness and acts of rejections, all became parts of us. These stories had been the defining characteristics for Pui Ching and they had also defined her sons and daughters.

Surely other schools had their stories. But they did not have the Storytelling Teachers who were able to make sense of the stories they had.

Someone had said that Pui Ching had changed. If she had indeed changed, it would have to be that she had lost her storytellers. If the storytelling had ceased at Pui Ching, she would have lost her special-ness; she had lost her soul. A soul-less Pui Ching would be just like any other school. Just like any other school, a soul-less Pui Ching would have to use endowments, student achievements or facilities to define herself. A soul-less Pui Ching, no matter how great it was, would attract brilliant teachers and smartest students for all the wrong reasons.

Money could not buy the Storytelling Teachers and prestige did not attract a single one of them. They had to have the “Pui Ching Experience.” They had to have heard those narratives themselves. They had to buy in. Pride. Duty. Humility.

I hope the day when the storytelling ceases will never come at Pui Ching. I pray that teachers at Pui Ching will continue to have stories to tell and that her sons and daughters will be willing to return to their Alma Mater (“the Nursing Mother”) to tell the stories. If they are willing to return, will the Great Gate at Number 80 Waterloo Road, Hong Kong, be open to them?