School prefects 1964

school prefects 1964.

(Standing l to r): Jampong Seliong*, Timothy Liaw Aik Hon,
Chih Ching Ping, David Chin, Tony Hung, Jolhi Sa'ar.
(Seated l to r): Lankie Simbas*, Mabel Chiew, Denys Lang*,
Leong Mei Kim, Mohd. Matasan*

Tanjong Lobang School was built by the New Zealand Government under the Colombo Plan scheme. It was completely built, staffed and funded by them. There was another school, Dragon school in Kuching funded by the Australians. These two countries were trying to outdo one another in providing education in Sarawak. It was good that developed nations helped the under developed countries in this way. I believe in giving a starving man a fishing rod; teach him how to catch a fish instead of giving him a fish! This way he and his children are still eating fish today (long after the foreign aid is discontinued).

Today as a just reward, the donor countries are harvesting in a hundred fold what the scheme has cost them originally. Returns came to the host country now in the form of good will and other immeasurable benefits like foreign tourists income from overseas students of previous recipient countries. Even our chief minister of Sarawak today, Taib Mahmud, was a law graduate from Adelaide, Australia. The finance minister, Dr. George Chan, was a medical graduate from Sydney U. Both of them were Colombo Plan scholarship students.  Dr. Chan’s mother is Lukoo, who is a good friend of Mrs. Thien, my guardian. Lukoo was also James Thien’s guardian in Brunei in 1958.

The head master of Tanjong Lobang School in 1963, was Mr. Alan Ruthe. With him were kiwi teachers: Mr Dewhurst, Mr. Wanty and matron, Mrs Cosby. Local teachers were Sargunam, Lillian Loke, George Ong, Lulu Ong, Mrs. Philips, James Foh and Miss Ellen Liaw. Later on, Mr Ruthe left Tanjong and he was replaced by Mr. Henderson who taught us General paper in 1964. He also taught us how to play Rugby football, sing Maori  songs ( Pokarekare Ana) and performing the Hakka, a Maori war dance! Mr. Theodore Sargunam was our Chemistry teacher and Mrs. Philips taught Biology. Mr. Wanty was our Mathematics and Physics teacher. I enjoyed most of all, the applied mechanics lessons. 

I can still recall the formula for the horizontal component of a gravitational force P acting down a slope. It is Fh=P.cosine theta. The vertical component Fv=P.sine theta where theta is the angle of the slope in radians. My proudest achievement is being able to remember even now the cosine rule:

a square = b square + c square - 2bc.cosine theta!!

I learned this algebra formula in additional maths in 1963. It was over 40 years since I first heard of the cosine rule and function of a function in calculus. Mr. Wanty was certainly a good teacher; but some times I wonder what good was algebra and calculus to my life during the previous 40+ years?!

Later at Swinburne Technical College, Melbourne in 1966, I also learned about the workings of imaginary numbers i, matrices, entropy-enthalpy diagrams, lamina flow theory, carbon steel equilibrium diagrams, eutectic temperatures for various carbon and alloy steels. I learned Fortran 4 programming language, graphics, vernier callipers, inert gas welding techniques, machining and also how to read a bamboo slide rule. All this technical knowledge had very little use during my working life with Shell Lutong. They trained me further in supervisory and computer skills which were not covered in any of my academic courses in school. After retirement, I took up blogging as a hobby to help me pass the time. It was time well spent because now I have a very active presence on the internet! I have not less than 60 blogs. My foot print on the world wide web is huge!