My childhood memory from the later part of primary school is at its best today, thanks to a friend who has just created an online group for it. It sprung those old memories up. Many other have joined the group afterward and subsequently uploaded a few pictures from those days.

One of the pictures dated back to some thirteen years ago, it features a group of children on stage performing flute, on supposedly a farewell event. They were putting unsmiling expression which strike me now as memorable. Not sure how they feel back then or if they really understand the meaning of the farewell but for kids, such a gathering would translate to fun.

Since I was a little, I have always been intrigued by the working of human’s memory. Songs, sounds, smells, pictures and almost anything could evoke our past memories. Even when we think we’ve forgotten already but deep in our subconsciousness, they do exist. These memories only surface when something evokes them.

Through the names, pictures and events in the group, I could remember a few things from that time. My strongest recollection are from the last three years of primary school. Below are 2 of them:

The school bell incident.

In school, there’s a quite heavy bell hanging by a rope just in front of teacher's office, weighing probably some tens of kilograms. The bell acts as a signalling tool to students and would ring a few times: first in the morning when the school starts, second and third in the noon when there’s class break and when the school ends.

One time after the ending of a class break, a student was asked to ring the bell with an iron stick so that students would be ushered into their own classes. Due to the weathered condition of the hanging rope, the bell fell and landed on the student's foot. He screamed and was off of school for at least a few weeks. His initial is A.

The hit and bleed incident.

This happened when I was in primary four. A boy student was playing noisily during class and as a result, disturbed the whole class. The teacher came and hit his head with a wooden ruler. As she might had accidentally put too much strength on it, the boy bleed and cried. His initial is A.W.

There were more incidents happened, but none comes as sticky as above.