University days

Nanyang University was not my first choice of schools. Everyone in my class went on to the University of Malaya. By August, when I still have not received my admittance letter, I panicked, and thought, it is time to do something, so I boarded a train, bid mother goodbye, and went to Singapore.

Nanyang University was the only Chinese u

niversity in Southeast Asia. It was very famous for its Mathematics department, one that churned out more Ph.D.s than anyone else. Of course, I have never been to Singapore before that

day, let alone college visit.

School has started for a few weeks by the time I arrived. From the train station, I took a taxi to the university. I ended up in front of a bungalow, not knowing where to go. I went in, knocked on the door, and a kindly man came out, and advised I go to the guard's desk at the dorms to ask for direction. It turned out he was the chancellor of the University, a man with three Ph.D.s.

The guards informed me they will work with Administration to get me started, and get me a dorm room, but it may take a few days. They advised me there are a few students from Penang, and I recognized a Cheah Chow Hun from my high school. We were not friends, and we hardly knew each other, but none the less, I forced myself to introduce myself to him. He took me in warmly, and said I could stay with him in the dorm room.

The dorm rooms were double occupancy - two beds, two desks with book shelves on top, and a chair each. Other than that, it was very sparse, very stark. The walls were whitewashed. Almost no one put up posters in those days. At most, there would be a calendar hanging on the wall. I went to the commissary (store, book store, grocery store all in one) and bought a reed mat so I c

ould sleep on the floor, and that was my bed for the first two weeks in the University.

By and by, I met more Penang students - Lim Kee Seng (who left after a couple of months for New Zealand), Khoo Kee Kian (who became my best friend while in Singapore), and a few others, including Chan Soo Ching, who had childhood polio, and walked around with crutches. There were about a dozen of us from Penang, more from other parts of Malaysia. The Penang students form a small friendship circle, and traveled together. Especially during the long school breaks, we will all travel back to Penang together, and back to Singapore, My father knew Soo Ching's father. Their shops were close by so he always told me to take care of her during the trips.

I soon settled with the routines of the s

chool. Weekends, Khoo and Chow, and at the beginning, Lim and I would go downtown to Singapore by bus. From Jurong, where the University sits, to downtown, near North Bridge Road (no longer there) took about an hour and a half. The buses were the old diesel buses, with no air conditioning, so we would try to take a window seat. By the time we got downtown, we will be so dusty and sooty, you can actually wipe black soot

out of your nose. So, the first stop is the Supermarket. It is not a grocery store, but actually a departmental store. We head first to the rest room, and washed our faces and hands. Khoo has this paper that you tear off, a small square about an inch square, and it was coated with soap, so it worked like a s

mall piece of soap. Very convenient. He also let me have this paper that you press on your skin, your face, for example, and it will soak up the oil on your skin. I recently saw someone use that in an Asian trip, so I guess it is still in circulation.

My favourite place downtown are the bookstores. There was MPH, the Malaysian Publishing House, and North Bridge Road had a few Chinese bookstores. We spent most of our

times there, standing and reading books.

This is the pillar gate at the entrance of the University. Through this gate, you drive down a road that passed by the College of Art, and finally come to a clearing that was the bus stop and taxi stop. Across the street was the store and the canteen. Immediately outside of this entrance, there was a small grocery store, that also has a small eatery. Not quite a restaurant, and bigger than a food stall. It h

as eight to ten tables.

The first semester I was at the University (we called it NU), I had meal plans, so lunch was provided. No breakfast, no dinner. Lunch was set at 12:30. Come

or lose it. We ate family style, so you pick 7 friends, and sit at a table for 8. You will try to pick 7 friends whom you know eat slow or eat little, because otherwise, you may be out of luck. As soon as the food

is presented to the table, everybody lean over and grab what they can, like hungry animals. The girls at the table usually suffered. The food was good, though. I remember soup every meal, vegetables, and pork, or chicken. Always tasty and fresh. The kitchen is at the back of the dining hall, and you can actually see the cooks making the food everyday.

After a semester of that, I decided to go solo, and eat at the canteen. You can get prepacked rice and chicken, or rice and roast pork, or rice and fish. It was very convenient. You walk over, pick up a bag of rice of your choice, and grab a drink, and that is your meal. A dollar for the rice, and twenty cents for the drink. Fortunately I can eat the s

ame food over and over for months, so I was happy with the canteen.

At times we go outside of the gate to the restaurant, and order something. We do this on the weekends when the canteen was not serving food. Most of the Singaporean

students go home during the weekends, so the school

was empty, and the canteen was closed. It was through these weekend trips and meals that we formed our friendships.

This next picture shows the administration building. It is very traditional Chinese in style. The bursar of the university was a Chung Ling alumnus, so he was very kind to us Penang students. No, it does not mean we don't have to pay tuition, which was 360 Malaysian dollars a semester, but he would personally take care of us whenever he saw us.

There were maybe twenty stone steps leading to the front door. At the end of the steps is a broad landing. It would make a grand parade stand on the landing. History was made there in my second year at NU. That was the year 1971, and the women liberation movement arrived at Singapore. A big group of women got together to show their support of the movement, but there was no protest. It was funny, because they

just gathered there, no speaker, no shouting, no slogan. Then suddenly, everyone (maybe not everyone, just a few of them) threw their bra into a waste basket in front of the building, and beat a hasty, shy retreat back to their rooms. Thus ended the women's liberation movement at NU.

This modern building was the Department of Mathematics at NU. It was the newest building on campus at the time I was there, between 1970 and 1972. It was also the only air-conditioned building on campus. It was my home for the three years there. I would spend the day in the building, and the nights at the library. Both the Math building and the Library were built on top of a small hill, so there was a lot of walking uphill and downhill during those three years. For the years there, I was immersed in the study of Mathematics. I think it was probably the 'funnest' time of my life, studying, running around with my friends, not a care in the World.