Celebrating with the Golden Babies of 1995

 

Venue: Lemon Street Seremban

Whew! Finally it was over –  Till the next reunion. My definition of a Class Reunion is when you stand and belt out the ACS School Song regardless of where you are. This time, under the sweltering heat in a non-air con restaurant and the swirling fans that rested when the blades felt tired,  the ACS Song was followed by the almost forgotten song “Well, well, well”. We were not certain of the origins of this song but most of us seemed to remember it and sang it at the top of our voice after Casey started singing the first line.

This was one of the reunions that only had one certainty: Those from the Express Class turned 50 and that was a good excuse to have a reunion. I was not sure where to hold it as Sungei Ujong the original venue became unavailable. There was a remote possibility of Kim Tan (aka Tan Kim Tze) turning up. He asked if I could arrange for a reunion to catch up with school friends. I was diagnosed suffering an overdose of organising reunions and therefore was not in the mood of going through the motions and getting non-responses to emails and sms. Worse of all, I was one of those who turned 50 in July 2005 and therefore, the event was almost a non-starter. But the show had to and must go on. I arranged with a Form 6 Schoolmate who is now the GM of Sungei Ujong to have the function there. However, 10 days before the event, I still had no idea who was attending despite my emails and sms. The usual non-response or non-commitment was beginning to suggest to me that people might not be interested. I gave up on the event and the booking with SU.

The core gang of Tiew Seng, Koon, Kim Fui, Sze Poh and Wing Kwong were still determined to have the function regardless. So a week into the reunion saw a mad time of looking for a restaurant, as most places were already booked for weddings. As one of the oldies goes, “With a little help from my friends”, we managed all right. Tiew Seng scouted Seremban for restaurants, which was all fully booked. We settled for Choy Kee, which Loon Loon managed to book, as she knows the operators well.  Phooi Fun rounded up the girls; Koon & Loon arranged for the cake and Wing Kwong resent the emails.

I told Loon that I was happy if we could fill 2 tables and had also invited Lee Chee Peng, Chung Wai Foo, Chiang Heng Jin. Mrs Gunaratnam has a family commitment, Mr Yeoh Teng San was celebrating his grandson’s birthday and Mr Madhadevan came down with a viral infection. One of our seniors Peter Lim enjoyed our last reunion so much that he drove all the way from PJ to join us as well. A last minute frantic and threatening phone conversations finally saw more than 30 people turn up.

I left the food menu to Loon and Sze Poh as I hate to deal with the usual who always whine about the food. The food was delicious and we had more than enough to ‘bungkus’ home. A whole evening of catching up which was wonderful despite the humidity and heat. The waitresses conveniently forgot to turn the fans on again after candle blowing, or if it was a hint we overstayed, we paid no heed to it.  Sen Min and Tham Fong rounded Victor Chu who happened to be hanging around his old place in Temiang.  It was fun seeing Victor Chu play the game of “Who are you”  – He asked around even one of the waitress, “Are you my classmate? What’s your name?” when everyone remembered not only him but also Chicago.

The girls had a lovely time as Kim (Tze) parked himself at the ladies table much to the dismay of the other Kim (Fui). Although Pauline insisted we meet at 6.30 PM, we parked at the restaurant from 7.30 PM till the closing time at 12.30 PM. It was an end to a lovely time as different ones brought something to make it extra special. Everyone brought fond memories of our days in ACS. Koon and Loon bought the delicious fresh cream birthday cake for the Golden Celebrations and sent some over to our Standard One and Form Five teachers who were unable to attend. Mei Ling baked blueberry muffins, Felicia brought homemade salad, Kim Fui brought the whisky, Tiew Seng brought the brandy, Balbir brought his name card for Kim Tze and Casey brought his wife. Kim Tan not only brought Sally and also his plastic card to pick up the tab for the entire dinner. Me, I was left with huge phone bills for making all those calls.

As usual, the late birds adjourned to somewhere else for more drinks and merry making after party broke up at Choy Kee Restaurant.  I can’t remember if we adjourned to  Pence Restaurant or was this our last appearance at Curry Leaf. If it was the later, all I remembered was except for one Filipino everyone had a good time. 

Angie Yen

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