True Stories of Edge of Life When One has to Transit to Other Side, #1.

Peter Woo YamPoon, 8/2015

1. Mrs Jones.

I was living at an apartment at intersection of Maple Street and Fook Wah Street, during the bombings of Hong Kong’s shipyards, in WWII. It was 3rd floor (British called it 2nd floor), has a 12' by 20' front room, a 12'by 12' middle room, a corridor, a bathroom, a kitchen, altogether may be 400 sq. ft., plus a gigantic roofless balcony 90 degrees, 10' wide and may be 40' long.

        I don't care to climb up to the 4' high side wall of the balcony, to look down on the street, because there is a 45 degree "roof" sloping off that wall for some 6' or so, so if my parents lift me up I still could only see the sidewalk on other other side of the street, but not the street surface itself.

        But one day, as a 3 yr. old kid, I invented a new game. I took my shoes, and my parents' shoes under the beds, and went to the balcony, through them over the side wall. Poof! they vanish without a trace, no sound, . . .

        Some minutes later, Mr Jones of 2nd floor came up the stairs and knocked at our door. My mother opened it, and he said, "This pair of shoes fell on my head as I was crossing the street. Is it yours?" Ah, it was one of my shoes.

        My mother uttered a loud Ai-Yaaah!, and I suppose she dashed downstairs to pick up my homework from the street. (There were little traffic on the streets in those days, because people were starving.) Then she came at me, asked me why I did it. I had no good answer. She was angry enough to punish me stand in front of the cabinet. I began to cry, because I don't want to see her angry face, and I rubbed my back left and right against the rim of the door of the cabinet, I still now remember. I still did not understand why she was angry because I threw the shoes on to the street.

        Some months later, I had to go to my first funeral procession in my memory. It was for Mrs Jones. She had always been sick in bed in all my memory. Now they put her into some nice brown coffin, on some "funeral van", I don't think my mother and I walked with the funeral procession. We Christians don't do such processions on streets.

        Then that night, my mother said, "Guess what was her last words? She suddenly was smiling, and said, I saw Jesus . . . "

        What a peaceful feeling at her last minute on earth.

        It was the first proof that this life is not all. Life goes on beyond death.

        This is the first time I was so convinced that it is wise to live a life that you will not regret when you step across that Door into your next life.

        How? Wait for my next article. 

Memories of Mr Chu KaFai, Chemistry Master.

Peter Woo YamPoon, School Cert.  1957

woobiola@yahoo.com, 7/16/2004

[Explanations added for US readers]

          When Mr Chu came to teach at QES [Queen Elizabeth School, a high school in HK], it caused quite a stir.  I was in Form 4A [equiv.  to Grade 10 in US], he was head teacher for class 4B, and some friends there told me he was very good, or very severe, but all said he taught very well.

          So one day he started to teach our class.  He was confident, full of energy, and his lectures contents were rich and well-organized.  But he was severe.  Soon he gave us a table of "valencies" to memorize, such as sulphate is 2-, ferric is 3+, aluminate is 3-, bicarbonate is 1-, etc.  Then 1 week (?) later, he quizzed us orally in class.  One classmate loudly proclaimed that "oxide" is of valency 1, and he was immediately punished to write it 100 times.  He did give us warning of the quiz, so the diligent students did not get caught. .

          After this we knew he meant business.  I wish I could have used such methods of pedagogy in my math classes in college here in US, but I had no such freedom.  I do sincerely believe public humiliation, when used properly, can generate great motivations and improvements on student behaviors, better than the whip or the spanking ruler. .

          I began to like him.  He was very confident that his teaching will generate great results in terms of distinctions and honors in School Cert and Matric exams, and we never even dreamed of challenging him in class.  [In HK, School Cert is a colony wide high school graduation exam, more severe than SAT.  For each subject, about 10 percent will get distinctions (like an A in US) and 20 percent gets credits, (like a B+ in US), and 30 ro 40 percent will fail.] I thought he had taught in another high school before, but I also believed he was a fresh graduate of HK Univ.  (I now know from his orbituary he taught at St.  Paul Boys' before he came.) He enunciated English very clearly, even with his peculiar Hong Kong accent.  He was better than other teachers who would pronounce "same thing" as "Sam sing".  He invented some peculiar English phrases which he would use on us if we misbehave.  One of them is "you are a stupid fool.".

          I don't recall him writing very much on the board.  He simply dictated his lecture notes orally, and we copied like crazy.  He would write on the board only special terminology here and there.  So we learned there are something like 12 properties of oxygen, 15 properties of chlorine, and some 20 properties of phenol and benzene.  Why so specific? So that we can reproduce them at the School Certificate or Matriculation (university entrance) exams.  This may sound like a ducks-stomachs-stuffing pedagogy, but we liked this stuffing stuff, and immediately we scored better than Kings College and caught up and even beat Queen's College when results of these public exams came out each summer.  [The most pretigious high school in HK are called "colleges"].

          So his teaching method is simple: Prepare the students for the public exams, and they will be eternally grateful. .

          But he was so full of energy that we students also learned a lot of qualitative analysis and titrations at the lab. .

          He taught us how to mix extremely dilute lead nitrate solution to a very dilute potassium iodide solution, and after a few seconds, golden crystals will precipitate in the test-tube. .

          Another time he taught us to fill one test tube with hydrogen sulphide [Americans say 'sulfide'], and another with chlorine, both gases.  Hold them in both hands, the tubes being plugged with our thumbs.  Then face the test tubes mouth to mouth, and remove the thumbs.  In a second or two, there will be an explosion in a small "pop".  This was absolutely delightful for us students.  Then classmate TCC took a test tube, filled it with the hydrogen sulphide, but stuck it into the outlet of a chlorine generating Kipp's apparatus, and turned on the chlorine tap.  The result: a giant explosion, filling the lab with fumes.  Mr Chu turned green with rage, and, I guess, must have shouted "stupid fool" at him a few times, but I saw a touch of his kindness by asking us to open the doors to clear the air, and he still did not forbid us to do this experiment in future. .

          One day, at a mid-term test (or a final exam?) he gave a problem something like this: A mixture of X and Y were dissolved in z amount of water, and titration showed that it took p amount of P or q amount of Q to neutralize the mixture.  Find the percentage by weight of X and Y. .

          Luckily, I was good in algebra.  So I solved it.  It turned out I was the only one in class that got it.  In fact I thought it a bit unfair to those in class who may be weak in algebra but were otherwise good students.  I did other problems in that test very well, so I got 107 points out of 100. .

          Mr Chu is unsparing in giving very low grades to students, and 20 or 30 points out of 100 was quite common.  So this 107 points was one of the most charming moments in my life.  Mr Chu never praised me in front of the class, but he would give me a smile which is a sort of a grin.  But that was good enough for me. .

          I had him as teacher for 3 years or more, and I majored in math and chemistry as undergrad in HK Univ.  Back then, many of my friends wanted to become Einsteins, so they worked very hard at physics.  I did too, but I blamed it on poor teachers that I eventually lost the ambition, and went for math instead.  I never got any distinctions in physics. .

          I can still recall those high school days when my enthusiasm for chemistry, being fanned by Mr Chu, would prompt me to acquire my set of test tubes and chemicals in many bottles, at home. .

          After we went to HK Univ., sometimes we would come back to QES, to visit who? Mr Chu of course.  He would kindly inquire on our affairs.  He is genuinely in love with his students. .

          =========== NOW IN CHINESE ============

                                     朱家輝來也﹗

                                      胡蔭磐 2015/6

          1955年秋﹐我在QES中四A班。朱老師來了﹐教我們化學。他享盛譽﹐來勢儼若一道旋風。港大理科畢業﹐英語講得流利﹐但仍有一口「香港腔」。

          第一堂﹐即在黑板上寫下一大列要我們強記的東西﹐下一堂要我們任他考問（拷問）。例如﹕氫、鉀、鈉 的值是+﹐鈣鋇銅是++﹐鐵鋁是+++﹐氯化、硝酸、碘化﹐是負1﹐氧化、硫酸、硫化﹐是負2 ....

          我們是中國人嘛﹗連荀子《勸學篇》都肯背﹐ 怕啥﹗

          下一堂﹐他果然逐排逐行來公審﹕每樣離子價值多少﹖答錯了﹐要罰寫30次﹐由班長襲名打報告。這令我們震驚了﹐此公果然是真要命的。

          某同學貪過癮﹐混進隔壁中四B班去。被他一眼檢出來﹐罰站在一米高的高凳上。（還好﹐他不打手板的。）這同學﹐後來成績很好。可見嚴師出高徒。

          最妙的是﹕他要我們在實驗室玩試驗。他教我們有些書本沒有的知識。例如﹕固體碘有點像砂糖﹐溶在酒精裡是深紫色﹐但溶在氨水裡時﹐就變成黑色的沉澱。我們用濾紙把這沉澱濾出來﹐趁濕時把半粒米的沉澱放在桌面上﹐十分鐘後﹐風乾了﹐你用鉛筆輕輕地敲它一下﹐它會突然『拍』一聲﹐爆成一縷紫煙……。我回家後照樣作給弟妹看﹐把他們嚇得不敢光著腳在樓板上走﹐怕踩到這些「爆炸品」。

          另一天﹐他教我們拿兩條試管﹐一條裝著氨氣﹐另一條氯氣﹐兩手拇指蓋著它們﹐

然後管口相對﹐兩拇指一齊放開﹐管口吻管口。兩種氣體相混﹐突然「崩」然一聲﹐發生小爆炸了。

    哎呀﹐好玩極了﹐原來朱老師也有他滑稽的一面。

    忽然有一位T同學﹐把一條試管裝滿了氨氣﹐拿到玻璃櫃裡﹐把發出氯氣的KIPPS機的出氣管插進自己手上的試管裡﹐氯氣一出來﹐碰到管內的氨氣﹐便砰然一聲﹐白煙四冒。大家都驚了﹐但玻璃管沒有爆碎。

    朱老師氣得七竅出煙﹐青著臉﹐不用粗口﹐但用他的港腔英語﹐大罵 You Stupid Fool!  You Stupid Fool!   我們忍不住大笑。那同學嚇得臉青了﹐我們想想這次老師要怎樣罰他﹖在操場跑九十圈﹖課後留堂清理實驗室﹖……

          誰知﹐朱老師沒有罰他什麼﹐好像連他自己也笑。我們以為他笑那同學可以如此愚不可教、笨不可及。其實他可能是笑他自己年青時也作過這種傻事。

          兩年後 1957 年夏季﹐我們考會考﹐很多同學拿到「優」或「良」﹐成績超越英皇書院﹐追上皇仁書院﹐但還是不及聖保羅男女校。我們QES 名聲此後大噪﹐到我們升到大學後﹐朱老師升官作副校長了。

          我們這才明白﹐朱老師對我們這麼雷厲﹐這麼狠﹐其實是一片苦心。要我們死背氧氣九樣性質﹐氯氣十四項性能﹐原來他知道﹐多年來的試題﹐常說﹕「試列出氯氣的八樣性能。」所以他偏要我們死背十四項﹐等我們多一點機會拿優拿良﹐學校成名﹐他便高興了。我如今想起來﹐竟有點兒想下淚。

         

Reminiscence of Mr. Terry Chamberlain

by Peter Y.  Woo, woobiola@yahoo.com,
HK School Cert.  1957
Assoc.  Prof., Biola University, La Mirada, CA

        Here are three recent tributes to Mr Chamberlain:
         (a) I was teaching calculus for 16 years.  One day I said, "You people are so lucky to have me as your teacher, all because of ---- Mr Terry Chamberlain, who influenced me to choose a career in math, in my high school days". 
         (b) In various math classes, I enjoy with devilish glee forcing the American youths to memorize the 12-line poem of trigonometry.  "I want you to memorize it, not because we Asians like to memorize things (and force others to do so), but because I was taught such, by an Irishman teacher, Mr Chamberlain.  Here it goes:
        Sin sum equals sin cos plus cos sin,
        Sin dif equals sin cos minus cos sin,
        Cos sum equals cos cos minus sin sin,
         Cos dif equals cos cos plus sin sin
        Two sin cos equals sin sum plus sin dif,
         .  .  .  .  etc.  .  .  .  . 
        If you don't like to memorize these 12 lines, then you may as well memorize chapter 8 of the book of Romans in the Bible.  The choice is yours .  .  .  .  "
         (c) Another occasion: I was teaching partial fractions techniques in 2nd semester calculus.  There was a trick taught by Mr Chamberlain to express something such as
         (2x+5)/(x+1)(x+2)(x+3) as
         A/(x+1) + B/(x+2) + C/(x+3). 
         Mr Chamberlain taught us a nice trick to compute A, B, C.  So I told my students: this trick is called the Irishman's method, in honor of him. 
         * * * *
        Really, I treasure the numerous times that Mr Chamberlain got us to chant the "12-line poem" in class, day after day.  He taught me math from Form 4 to 6, (equivalent to 10th to 12th grade high school in US) from 1955 to 58.  Back in the 1950's we students memorized many, many things, and we Chinese are good at that.  We memorized Tang poems, many verses in Confucius' Analects, quite a few essays of Han Yu, Liu ZongYuan, and other scholars, many dates in world history, memorized chemical formulas, some 14 properties of chlorine and 20 properties of benzene under the merciful pedagogy of Mr Chu KaFai.  I regrettably did not, but others did, memorize English poetry, Shakespeare, or modern Chinese prose, or biological subjects. 
         Before Mr Chamberlain came, in Form 3, we were taught math by a Mr Kell.  He was not as loving to us kids as Mr Chamberlain, and I frustrated him once by asking him an innocent geometry problem which got him spend hours on it and could not solve it unless he used trig, which we did not learn till Form 5.  So the next morning he almost "threw the book" at me. 
        So when we had Mr Chamberlain for the first time in Form 4, we noticed he is kinder, nicer, never getting angry.  One day someone in class did something messy and very untidy.  I forgot whether it was homework or something else.  Mr Chamberlain saw it, and exclaimed "Aiyah!" which got the whole class to laugh like crazy.  Cantonese "aiyah" means "a frightful surprise", such as when you go into the kitchen and discover 3000 ants all crawling happily over spilled food on the floor. 
        I began to notice that he got "lazy", by giving us less homework, but doing more problems in class with our participation.  High school teachers in Hong Kong carry a pitifully inhumane load of teaching some 5 hours of classes per day, like us teaching 25 undergrad units per week, plus Saturday.  So Mr Chamberlain managed to get us all to work under his nose during class, and he got to call us by our Chinese names.  Result: we all did better. 
        Classmate Ng WaiKwok (Sch Cert 1957) asked me whether I remember how many distinctions and credits we got in math back those years.  I vaguely recall that our achievements in math and chemistry paralleled those of Queen's College, and we always beat King's College.  We did beat QC once.  And we were better than Wah-Yan or DBS.  The only school we were no match with was St Paul's Co-ed.  (If some of you can check the School Cert and Matric results as reported in South China Morning Post back then, it will be appreciated.  SCMP has a storeroom of all the newspapers from 1940 till now, at their office near Taikoo City.  )
         As another tribute to Mr Chamberlain, these days I repurchased some of the textbooks he used in those days, which I collect with fondness.  From British used bookstores such as www.abebooks.com, I ordered C.V. Durell's "A Geometry for Schools", but I could not get Durell and Robson's "A New Trigonometry for Schools".  I also bought in HK some paperback version of S.L.Green's "Advanced Level Pure Mathematics", and Nightingale's "Higher Physics", which was a great help to me in those days, but I never got a distinction in physics in my whole life. 
         Just before School Cert Exam, Mr Chamberlain bought a heavy box to class one day.  It was a tape recorder.  Cassettes were not yet invented.  He would get all of us to say something in English, and play them back.  I got the most embarrassing moment in my life, as I stammered and muttered what thoughts that came to my mind that day.  But I appreciate greatly his creative ideas of his helping us with our spoken English. 
        * * * *
        Just a few years ago I reconnected with him.  I wrote him a letter, "I'm Woo YamPoon, whom you taught from 1955 to 58, Form 4 to L6 .  .  .  I wonder whether you still remember me ...." He replied (in my own words, because I cannot find his letter now) , "I remember you real well, as well as Ko HonYim, Tsui WaiFat, Cheng SaiWah .  .  .  Perhaps I had a deep impression of the classes I first taught in HK.  I caught you reading a book (under the desk) one day during class.  But then I discovered it was Calculus.  So I let you off, with a warning not to do it again.  You were 2 years ahead of the class..."
        I truly did not remember such a thing, because we all often read other books under the desk, especially during lectures by boring teachers.  But Mr Chamberlain was never boring. 
        Of course I told him about the above mentioned three episodes.  He was quite happy about them. 
        * * * *
        Finally, one more great thing about Mr Chamberlain: The syllabus of Advanced Level pure math for Matriculation includes too many things, and most teacher would drop a few topics.  He however, managed to find time to teach us a chapter on circle inversions, which is a part of modern geometry invented by Steiner in the 19th century.  It is a technique that can solve some plane geometry problems involving circles.  What it did for me was: Today I am one of the handful of people in the world that can solve such problems as published in a Canadian math magazine, the Crux Mathematicorum, if such technique is applicable.  My solutions to these problems got published a few times, and I am greatly indebted to Mr Terry Chamberlain.

          =================

More about the Coots

 More about the Coots.

                   5/15/2015

          Do you feel you are like a coot, unnoticed, insignificant, unimpressive in this world?

          Your family may not have treated you well.  You did not impress your teachers at school . . .

          So some day this little coot was hungry, running around seeking for food, but found none.  She got desperate, eventually she collapsed on the sand, crying out "caw, caw". 

          The Bible said God heard its cry.

          You say, that is impossible, the world has 6 billion people like me, and may be 1 billion coots.  How can God listen to one little coot?

          Have you known some governments are producing computer gadgets that some day will monitor all people on earth, on their actions, even on their thoughts, by sealing some gadget on their forehead under the skin . . .

          If humans can do such, why can God not hear all our cries?  Hmmm.

          Q.  You mean there is some One out there that has an interest for me, this little flotsam of protoplasm in this universe?

          A. That is what the Bible tells you.

          Q. Would His heart be touched with my desperate cries and my pains?

          A. That is what Psalm 147 says.

          Another story: Father Abraham has a maid Hagar, who got pregnant under permission by her mistress Sarah, bore a son Ishmael, but one day the mistress also got pregnant, and so there is no more room for Hagar and the boy Ishmael.  So they got kicked out of the house, and wandered in the desert, parched and thirsty.  Ishmael fainted, and Hagar went under another bush, and cried her heart out.  God heard her cry.  Pointed her to a little spring of water, and she and Ismael survived. 

          Q.  Good story.  But does it mean this God is real.

          A.  Try Him.  Wait someday you have something hanging on your heart. You can pray, "Father God.  Woolywootle the Old Man told me You are real. If so, please hear my cry . . . and deliver my loved one from his/her plight, and deliver me from all these tears . . . " 

          Q.  You think this will work?

          A.  If you have a sincere heart, you will see Him as a merciful Hand in control of your life.  You should be ready to say, "If He is God, I am ready to change my attitude in life, and seek Him more."

          Q.  I will give it a try.

          A.  Many did.  I'll tell you some stories next time.

The Young Ravens (Ps. 147)

“Praise to the Lord on the harp . . . who covers heavens with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, and caused grass to sprout on the hills.  He gives the cattle their feed, and the young ravens that for which they cry . . .” Ps. 147: 8,9. 

          There is a “Mile Square Park” close by.  Sometimes we took evening walks there.  There are small lakes, small island, and plenty of birds.  We Chinese loves the green herons, white storks, white pelicans, sea gulls.  We only dislike the jackdaws and crows big and small. 

          Why?  Just because they eat dead animals’ meat.  . .

          Q.  Did you really see them eat such stuff?

          A.  Never in my life.

          Q.  So you are believing in superstition. . .

          A.  It was taught to us from our parents, we Chinese repects parental teachings as decades-tested immutable truths.

          Let me continue.  One of the most neglected birds are the coots.  They are all black, like crows, yet with pointed, short yellow beaks, plus yellow webbed feet, like small ducks.

          Q.  So they are ducks?

          A.  No, wild ducks we Chinese call them “Ngaan”, which are seasonal birds, some flying from Alaska to Peru, and lodging in California just for a few days in between.  They have colorful graceful necks and heads and cute and lovely. 

          These coots ain’t.  They have no necks, chatter not as awful as crows and blackbirds, but still noisy to my ears. They go in flocks, running on the ground, looking for worms (just because there are no dead carcasses . . . ?).  They are not scared of humans unless we get to within 5 feet.  We Chinese don’t like them, because they are not beautiful like the herons and cranes.

          Q.  But God made them that way, why don’t you love them as if they are herons and cranes?

          A.  The Calvinists say God pre-determined and pre-elected us Chinese to naturally love herons and cranes and not the coots.  But I ain’t no Calvinist . . .

          Back to my story.  I found out that God loves the coots, which Psalm 147 says “young ravens”.  We Chinese don’t love ravens, and of course this includes young ravens.  Yet God not only give them food, but also hears their cries. 

          Eventually this compassion and tenderness of God moved me to tears.  God loves you and me more than young ravens. 

         

Unforgetable Mr Man and Classmate

Q.  Peter, You are in mid seventies now, age-wise.  What do you think of your life?

A.  There are two kinds of people:  One looking back at life and find some meaning thereof.  Another looking forward to the future life when we step across the threshold from this life to the future. 

Q.  You are suggesting I am the first kind, and you are the second?

A.  A lot of people are “temporarily” the first kind, but longing for something to justify them switch to the second kind.

Q.  You know I am an uncertain atheist.

A.  I like this term: uncertain atheist.  I understand.  Often I look back at my life, I love the unforgettable moments I had with my father, a cousin whom I visited just 2 months before she passed on.  I am looking forward to the day I can sit at the feet of my father, and tell him stories of what I did.  I also have unforgettable recollections of some of my highschool classmates and teachers too.  There I saw the glimpse of the best model of a good human soul, with unselfish love for others. 

Q.  Like what?

A.  Like the marks of a drop of blood stain, on our exercise book where we had to write our Chinese compositions in half-inch squares, with Chinese brushes.  Why such blood stain?  The teacher, Mr Man JongLit, would persevere to teach us about morals and values of life, from the class called National Literature (Gwok Man), and despite his nascal pharyngical cancer (uncurable in the fifties), he still struggled on, putting cotton balls in his nostrils in day time.   Now, I see that is his way of loving us students, unto his last day in life.  These blood stains to me are worth millions, telling us about his soul. 

Q.  What a story!  Something more?

A.  Then one day he was too weak to stand up to write some notes on the blackboard.

Suddenly a classmate, Tsang Kwok Pui, raised his hand, “Teacher, let me do it”.  Tsang is famous for his award-winning calligraphy.  From that day on, he would be the teacher’s clerk, writing anything he wishes on the board, with a calligraphy matching that of the teacher’s.  This persisted until perhaps 2 weeks before the teacher died.  Recently I looked up Google for this model classmate Tsang.  He went to Taiwan for college, came back to teach in some schools in Hong Kong, and some students wrote something prasing his character and personality.  Now he is our age, retired, but I think I still can pursue on his whereabouts.  Tsang to me is a beautiful specimen of goodness in human character.

Q.  Go on!

A.  Too bad, I reached my page limit.  Next week.