uniqueunicornsinuniformsunite! : Primary School Days II: Dancing!

Dear jumjum...

My slightly tomboy stage with
short hair and no two front teeth!

Part two of my primary school experience! My school required all boys to keep a crew cut (up til secondary school, so it was pretty hard to tell the boys apart from the back), and girls had to cut lo ma zhuang (no idea how to write in chinese) which basically meant your fringe should not touch your eyebrows, your sideburns should not touch your ears, and your hair should not cover your neck. Rumour has it that the school once had to deal with a severe kutu outbreak, hence the rule (no idea how true this is).The only way to escape this was to join the dance troupe or gymnastics-only if you have joined for a year and have shown real passion in it, they'll let you start growing your hair long. Once you quit, your long hair-growing rights are forfeited. I don't remember if initially my sister just wanted to grow her hair long or she was genuinely interested in joining the dance troupe, but she fell in love with it and stayed on until secondary school. And I, the little sister, just wanted to follow everything she did so I joined too (also story telling, debate, mooting, A Levels- just tailing after my sister).

Less tomboy here. On holiday in Kuching, at my aunt's old house, 3rd mile.

From left: me, the smartest girl and class moniter, gymnast, pretty girl who speaks cantonese.

The only time in my life that I was actually thin was when I was dancing! For the afternoon session students, dance practice was every Wednesday, from 10am to ?? (I forgot), in the school hall, and I lovedlovedloved it!! We would dance barefooted and our soles would be black with dirt. We wore the dance t-shirt and dark coloured short tights. I remember I had two pairs of tights, one black and one dark blue, and the dark blue one was looser and less flattering, so I'd only wear it when we had to practise on consecutive days for a performance- when I had no choice since the black one would not have dried yet.

Yes, I still keep my shirt =)

Our teacher was a short guy, married with a daughter but had pondan characteristics. We used to be super scared of him because he always wore black sandals, and if you messed up your moves he'll take off one side and throw his sandal at the floor near you (man he had a pretty good aim!). He rarely complimented us, but would shout at us all the time. I can still remember his voice barking at us- 一，二，三，四，五 (he'll always exagerrate the 五)，六，七，八，二，二，三，四，五，六，七，停 (he'll say 停 with a slight relief in his voice like, finally! You guys did it!)。Despite all that, he was very lovable and the students rarely complained about him.

We would start off with warm up and stretching exercises, then proceed with the routine dances, and sometimes the selected few would practise special performances. After practice we had to change into our school uniforms and get ready for classes. We would go behind the stage curtains to change, and it was pretty dark so we'd always mix up our shirt or pinafore or belt and come out with different coloured pinafore and belt and look ridiculous!

Only picture of the hall I could find off the internet...the same curtains we changed behind!!

There were two school teachers in charge of the troupe, not actually teaching the dancing but just coordinating and taking care of us when we went out for performances. One was this plump, fair and jovial teacher who was constantly sweating! She always carried a small black bag in the crook of her elbow and always had a tissue in hand, dabbing at her sweat. The other was the one we all hated. She always criticised our dancing and tried to change certain moves she didn't like when in fact it was none of her business, and our real dance teacher would always ask us to ignore her remarks behind her back xD

We had an unspoken feud with the gymnastics people. They had a different dance practice schedule from us, but when our performances clash, we'll all have practice everyday, so we'd be forced to share the hall and our teachers would have disagreements on the way the hall was divided between us. We had much more people than them but they use these fancy mats that roll out and take up half the hall (so their feet were never blackened like ours)! They were like the elite kids in school- they were the rich kids whose mums would stay in the hall and watch them throughout practice. And I was secretly in awe and admiration of them and would watch them and imitate their moves at home LOL.

Those days when we had perfomances, the girl with a mobile phone would be the most popular girl for the day. My parents would always come and see us perform and check up on us, no matter how far away the venue was. The grandest one I was in was the one at Stadium Bukit Jalil, for the official national day celebrations in 2003 where we could see the king in the front row. It was crazy mayhem backstage because there were all the local artistes, other dance troupes and everyone else all together. I remember squatting at the side of the walkway with 家芸(if I remember correctly), opening our lunch packs- rice with cockles and bitter gourd. At that time I hated bitter gourd, and 家芸 hated cockles, so we exchanged and purely ate what each of us liked xD

Sometimes we'd get to see our seniors in secondary school perform, and I always thought that that would be my future- dancing in sec school and probably for life. My biggest regret is not continuing dancing after we moved. I guess my loyalty to my old dance troupe made me reluctant to join another, and at the back of my mind I always thought the move was temporary and that one day I'd go back. Ahhhh I miss dancing!