18 years ago

Me and my Bahasa Malaysia teacher who also happen to be the woman who gave birth to me. Picture taken in front of my classroom, Darjah 3 Hijau.

My friend, The Teacher, practically rolled on the floor laughing when she saw this picture. She couldn't handle the flowers tucked into my hair. For the life of me, I couldn't remember how the teacher who made up my face managed to tuck so many flowers into my hair. Quite a feat.

I was in Standard 3 and this picture was taken on Prize Giving Day. All classes had to prepare a performance and my class teacher, or perhaps more likely an enthusiastic trainee teacher, had the brilliant idea for a fashion show.

When I was very young (I was 9 then), I was an impulsive volunteer. I was one of those annoying kids whose hand would shoot up in the air shouting me! me! me! whenever the teacher asked for a volunteer or asked a question. Simply saying, I was an obnoxious know-it-all because I read a lot and had quite an impressive level of general knowledge for a kid my age. And with that came the seemingly natural urge to assume responsibility or maybe I was just power crazy. But let's not accuse a 9 year old girl of that. It was not until later in my life that I learned to shirk any form of responsibility and to shut up in class even though I knew the answer. Then again, I didn't really study that hard in boarding school and thus most of the time I genuinely didn't know the answer to my teachers' question. Or I wasn't listening as I was fast asleep during lessons. These days my level of general knowledge has not really improved from when I was 9 as I have trouble retaining information in my thick skull. The only consistent thing about me from then till now is that I am bloody lazy. This has nothing to do with me being Malay although it has deconstructed some of my mates' view in London about Asians being hard-working. Then again there was this Chinese bloke who did nothing but slept all through out the course.

But I digress. The reason why I was decked in a kebaya that I had outgrown was because I volunteered to do so. My grandfather who was quite an avid traveler, bought that pair of kebaya for me when he went traveling in Indonesia. Before I realized what I was doing, I found myself explaining to the teacher that I had a pair of kebaya from Indonesia and was willing to wear it for the fashion show.

I didn't realize that it meant that she would feel it was ok to treat my face like a blank canvas. Look at that picture and read my expression. That was not exactly pure joy. See, I am not exactly a novice to wearing make up. But it was incidents like this which made me swear off make up for the rest of my life.

I remember during rehearsal I was told off by the teacher because apparently my walk was not cat-like enough. She said I walked like a cowboy and I thought that I deserved a pat on the shoulder as it was no mean feat to accomplish that when you are decked in a kebaya.

It was such a traumatic experience that I swore off kebaya for a lot of years after that. It was not until I was at Uni that I learned to appreciate the kebaya again. And my choice of style today is the classic Kebaya Nyonya made popular by the Straits Peranakan Chinese. I reckon it's like a tribute to my Hometown which was a Straits Settlement. I even wore a black pair for my year end exhibition at the Bartlett.

I still walk like a cowboy though. Can't help that.