Green Road

Green Road



I was born in the year of the snake in 1953 in Jesselton, my father was 32+ years old. Joblessness forced him to leave his home town to Kuching where with the help of his sister (my aunty) and relatives found him a clerical job with the British Colonial Government.
The Batu Lintang government quarter we lived in was just a kilometer from this St. Paul School. Naturally, I was sent to this Roman Catholic missionary school to begin my education.
My family migrated from British North Borneo (Sabah) since 1953 and permanently settled down in Sarawak.
By the time I entered this St Paul Chinese Primary School, 2 brothers were born.
My father as a government clerk, financially was not well to do but was able to scrape along.
In those days, the Chinese community was composed of 3 major classes, the Business (the Hockien and Teochew), the Agriculture (Foochaw and Hakka) and the Government services (The Hakka).
Those in government services were minority and considered middle class. My father as a government clerk fall in this middle class. We are Hakka.

While those Chinese children in the agriculture families spared of the hard life of agriculture works, my childhood living in the government quarters was a simple one.
St. Paul's Primary School was situated at Green Road, very near to our home at  Batu Lintang Government Quarters. St. Paul has 2 schools, the Chinese School and the English School.
The normal traditional practice of the Hakka government employee has been to send their children to English Schools. A sign of loyalty to the British government and not to Chinese Schools which were Anti-Colonialism and pro communist.
My father somehow enrolled me at the Chinese school of St. Paul.  A mistake many of the relatives indirectly pointed out to my parent. A mistake which my parent often brought out during their argument.
A mistake became obvious to my parent in the later days when all the English educated relatives have a well to do professional and migrated to Western countries  living a comfortable life while I from the Chinese schools has no “futures”……………
But things make a drastic turn in this new century when Chinese language play a leading edge in a new world order………………..