陳寶焯同學在收拾一些舊信件時,無意間找到了一頁發黃的單張,是校慶時派發給同學的講詞 ,相信已有五十年歷史,特別放上讓大家回味一下。
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開會詞 – 主席周桅
Reunion with classmate Maureen Lai
“Are you Mrs. Chan, a teacher at Confucian Tai Shing Secondary School?” asked Maureen Lai. Mrs. Chan replied positively to her question. Luckily, Maureen could recognize Mrs. Chan at an occasion although she left school forty-three years ago. Mrs. Chan hasn’t changed much even though she is now an elderly. Mrs. Chan’s voice was deeply implanted into Maureen’s mind from her teaching.
Mrs. Chan met Adrian Hung the following week and she passed Maureen’s information to him. Adrian sent Maureen an email to welcome her. He also invited Cannie Tong to give Maureen a personal call. They were very excited and happy to talk to each other again.
Robert Chu visited Hong Kong from United States. We organized a welcome dinner for him on 10th Feb 2015. It was really a coincident that we also reunited with Maureen at the same time. We then invited Maureen to the welcome dinner too!
There were 16 of us attending the dinner which included our teachers Mr. & Mrs. Chan and Mr. & Mrs. Siu. We were too happy to meet Maureen again since our graduation. Robert came to visit us quite often but this time he brought his wife with him to the dinner. Adrian presented our 40th Graduation Anniversary DVD to Maureen.
We chatted and enjoyed the dinner and didn’t want to leave. We wonder who will be the next classmate that will rejoin us.
Shenzhen tour on 13th April 2013
The weather was fine on the 13th of April, 2013 but it was cloudy in the morning. However there was sunshine in the afternoon. It was a bit warm and was perfect for outing. Siu sir invited us for a Shenzhen tour a couple of months ago. There were a dozen of classmates together with some of their spouses joining the tour. We were glad that Simon Fan from Melbourne and Peggy Wong from Toronto made special trips thousands of miles away to join our tour. It is amazing that our cohesive power is so strong that our classmates were attracted to have a beautiful day together.
We gathered at 9:30 a.m. at Futian Checkpoint at Shenzhen with Siu sir waiting for us. Siu sir was our tour guide and David Yeung was our tour leader. We settled down in a Chinese restaurant and had our dim sum morning tea there. The food was in good quality and relatively cheaper than Hong Kong.
After morning tea, we took the MTR to Lotus Hill. The weather was a bit cloudy. We took a leisure walk to the peak of the hill. Some classmates felt tired in walking up the hill. They might need some more exercises! We took photos in front of the statue of Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平). The economic development of China started in Shenzhen under the directions of Deng. Shenzhen was a village 30 years ago. Now it is the fourth largest city in China with a population of 15 million and GDP of around RMB 1 trillion. It is really unbelievable for such a huge development to have been made in a short period of just 30 years.
The scenery in Lotus Hill was really attractive and there were a lot of people enjoying themselves. Some people flew kites and a few people sang songs and played music for fun or for money. We found a place at the foot of the hill where single people put up notices there hoping to find their suitable life partners. We arrived at a fishing pond and saw a man catch a big fish weighting a few kilos.
We had afternoon tea in a cafe in a shopping centre. Some of us were rather tired and therefore they took a break to recover their strength. A few of us went shopping and bought CD’s, books, etc. Siu sir and David went to pick up Lee Shin at the MTR station. Shin finished his work in the morning and rushed to join us.
After finishing our afternoon tea, we took the MTR to another shopping mall, Central Walk Shopping Mall. We went shopping at a supermarket. We looked around for some bargains and quality stuff to buy. Simon had to leave us early because of his prior arrangement.
It was dinner time – 6:30 p.m. Siu sir led us to a decent good Chinese restaurant near the shopping centre. We ordered some good and delicious food such as Peking duck. We enjoyed the food. We talked about how to find our missing classmates and discussed another tour in December just after the School’s 50th Anniversary Dinner on 7th of December, 2013. We are expecting that there will be some overseas classmates coming to attend the anniversary dinner and it will be a good time to organize a tour for them.
It was around 9 p.m. after dinner and we had to return to Hong Kong. Thanks to Siu sir for guiding us in Shenzhen. We had a very enjoyable day.
Click here to download and watch the Shenzhen tour video
Contacting three female classmates
Irene Ko kept a forty-year old classmates contact list. The phone numbers were changed and the number of digits increased from six to eight. This didn’t affect Irene’s idea to use the old phone numbers in which these numbers are traceable. Although the classmates had moved homes, their family members might still be using the old phone numbers. Hence, we could possibly obtain the current contact numbers of our classmates.
Irene called the classmates using the old phone numbers. She was excited and found two female classmates’ families, Ms A Ho and Ms B Ho. A never answered Irene’s call. B spoke to Irene a few times. However, B spoke frankly that she didn’t want to reconnect with us since her graduation. Whenever we had gathering, Irene invited B to join us but she kept refusing our invitation. She almost came to our welcome dinner for Johnny Shum on 16th Dec 2012. She said she had sore legs and Adrian Hung offered to pick her up from her home and Cannie Tong suggested escorting her. B changed her mind in the last minute and to everyone’s disappointment, she did not show up. Irene was most frustrated.
Ms Wong was a civil servant. She sometimes appeared on television concerning some health issues a few years ago. She is now retired. We searched for her name on the Internet and found one with the same name but we couldn’t identify whether she was our classmate.
Adrian Hung wrote to the committee members:
Can you recognize Ms Wong in the photo? She was the Superintendent of HC Association but retired on Oct 2010. Please advise if you think she is our classmate.
Simon Fan replied to the committee members:
The facial profile looks like her, although I would not be able to recognise her like a lot of our good classmates. It is not surprising that our friends like to dedicate their efforts to the charity organisations. The only chance I met her was in the street in HK while she was studying in the health/research field. She was interested in the water purifying system located at the Castle Peak Hospital.
Simon offered his help to check this out although he was still in Melbourne. We gave Ms Wong’s previous employment phone number and email address to him. He sent an email to her colleague to confirm whether Ms Wong was our classmate. A few days later, we were disappointed that she wasn’t our classmate.
Later on, we learnt that Ms Wong was living in Lam Tin. We tried to put a notice in Park’n Shop there hopefully she could read it. To our disappointment, there wasn’t any notice board in Park’n Shop where we could post our notice. Eventually, we obtained her email and home address which had yet to be verified. Adrian Hung sent her an email and also a letter to her home but to no avail.
Our next step on these three ladies — we would be glad if you could give us some ideas.
Found two classmates from North America
Search for CS Shum
Irene Ko sent an email to the committee members on 23rd Nov 2012:
This morning, I recd a long distance call again. It was from Vancouver CS Shum.
I feel great. After a few months’ try, CS replied eventually.
He is married with a daughter who just got her second degree. He is retired already. He plans to visit to Hong Kong around Dec 11-Jan 13.
Thanks to Irene for her best effort to search for CS Shum. She used an old name card and called CS’s former company. A lady said she would forward Irene’s message to him. Irene waited for three months and got no response from CS or that lady. Irene called the lady again and reported the case to us on the committee meeting on 21st Nov 2012. CS called Irene two days after the meeting.
We were excited to reunite with CS. He made a special trip to Hong Kong to visit us and we had a welcome dinner with him on 16th Dec 2012.
Reunite with TK Wong
There is a little story of how TK Wong found us. His sister at Minneapolis searched for info and pictures for her old address in Hong Kong from the Internet. She clicked onto our Google advertisement and visited our website:
http://TaiShing1971.com
She then called TK for him to visit our website. TK called Irene Ko and connected with us. It is really wonderful and we are proud to have TK reunite with us.
TK resides in New York and has just suffered from Hurricane Sandy. In fact, Sandy severely affected Long Island, NYC, and NJ, causing a lot of flooding and power failure. He survived the hurricane but was unable to get to work in downtown Manhattan for the entire week due to the impact. His house on Long Island is fine with the exception that a couple of roof shingles were blown off by the high winds. This hurricane caused a lot of problems to many people in the Tri State area (NY/NJ/CT) but was really nothing to him if he compared it with the 911 attack because he was working at the No. 2 tower on a high floor at that time.
He migrated to the USA in late November 1980 and stayed with his family in Minneapolis for about 2 years. In April 1982, he left for New York and has been residing on Long Island since then. He is married with 1 son.
TK was very eager to meet his old classmates but could not visit us immediately due to his heavy workload. We finally will visit us in May and we will have a welcome dinner for him on 15th May 2013.
Search for MO Hui
Based on the information given by the classmates, Cannie Tong and Adrian Hung searched for MO Hui in all the bamboo and furniture shops in Queen’s Road East, Wanchai on 23rd May 2012. However, no one recognized him. We obtained further information from William So and Irene Ko that he resided in Hang Hau, Junk Bay about forty years ago. His home was close to a circular road junction and next to a church. Based on the information, his home was likely at Hang Hau Road. Irene also gave us a forty-something-year-old photo taken near his home. Adrian used Google Earth to check on every house in Hang Hau Road. He found one of the houses looked similar to Irene’s photo. See Below:
Back: 沈正成, 張運來, 蘇榮坤, 區彭深, 黎鉝榮
Front: 葉金榮, 許文安, 范榮洲, 黄念本, 陳建輝, 楊來發
We formed a team to search for MO on 18th July 2012. Team members included William, Irene, Clara, Cannie and Adrian. Although Hang Hau changed tremendously in these forty years, we found the place easily using advanced technology. We knocked on the doors of some of the houses, however, none of them knew MO. We were lucky to meet the Chairlady of the Incorporated Owners of the Village. She told us that there was a resident with a similar name. We exchanged our phone numbers hoping that she could give us good news.
We dropped notes and letters to some of the houses hoping MO would catch us up. We drove to visit Hang Hau Village and had our late lunch at East Point City. We talked about our old days.
William told us that a classmate of ours, S Chiang, married a pretty wife soon after his graduation. He worked very hard as a taxi driver in the day time and as a house caretaker at night. He bought a flat at Mei Foo Sun Chuen and enjoyed his romantic life with his beautiful wife. However, good days did not last long and life didn’t work out as smoothly as he planned. Chiang got kidney failure and died soon after.
In the evening Clara received a call from the elder sister of MO. We were too sorry to hear that MO passed away in February, 2011 due to gas poisoning while taking a bath at his home at Huanggang, China. Clara wanted to pay tribute to MO at his graveyard with a few classmates. However we could not have access to the graveyard without valid document. Unfortunately we couldn’t contact his wife up to this moment.
Clara wrote:
亞蘇:
你還記得這個稱呼嗎?
許xx姐姐告訴我, 她感覺你是他口中的亞蘇, 和其他的同學。
他的家人有太太, 2個女兒; 8歲和 1歲半
現在她們返鄉—雲南探親,將在八月尾返回深圳近機場居住。
許xx靈位安放在: 深圳市布吉 ……..
如要探訪一定要由其家人同往, 因為她持有效証件(該館發証)
所以我提議在九月初才再與他姐姐聯絡!
….
Search for WL and WH Cheung in May 2012
Search for WL Cheung
William So told us that WL Cheung is a Christian and is now a pastor at a Church in Wanchai. Clara took up the task to search for him as she is also a Christian. Clara’s friend told her that if WL is a pastor, his name can be easily found on Internet. Thanks God, she was able to find WL’s phone number. We then had Irene Ko to give him a call. We were glad to reunite with WL.
Search for WH Cheung
Searching for WH Cheung was also easy. Angela Or told Adrian Hung that she is a primary school teacher. She used to teach at a school in Shatin but Angela could not contact her through her school phone number. Adrian then searched her name on Internet and found her name in a primary school in Kowloon.
Adrian thought it would be more appropriate for a female classmate to give her a call. He met Cannie Tong on 23rd May 2012 in Wanchai before their committee meeting. Adrian invited Cannie to help him to search for MO Hui at Wanchai. Before that, Cannie gave a call to WH.
Cannie asked WH, “Are you a graduate of Confucian Tai Shing Secondary School?” WH replied “Yes!”
These two ladies tried to recognize each other but they lost their names in memories. They exchanged their contacts. Cannie then invited WH to our gathering on 29th May. Adrian told the good news to Angela and asked her to invite WH to the gathering too.
Strategies for searching missing classmates
At the 40th anniversary reunion dinner, the Celebration Committee received both moral and financial support from fellow students to extend our efforts to search for our ‘missing old fellows’. Subsequently, a committee titled “MISSING CTS 1971” / “尋昇社” was formed on 28th March 2012. Names of members are as follows:
Chairman: Adrian Hung
Treasurer: Clara Ho
Members: Cannie Tong, David Yeung, Nancy Yeung, Irene Ko, Susanna Lee, Robert Chu (USA), Simon Fan (Australia), Clarence Au and Susan Keung (Canada)
After much discussion, strategies for searching missing classmates were worked out. Advertisements would take two forms, online advertisement, Google and Facebook, and advertisements in newspapers in Hong Kong, Canada, Australia and U.S.A. David Yeung was entrusted with the important task on newspaper advertisements.
We have set up Facebook page:
http://facebook.com/taishing1971 and link with other relevant Facebook pages. Hyperlinks should be added at the relevant websites of Primary and Secondary Schools. The committee members exerted their efforts and reaped their harvest. A number of fellow students were tracked down: WA Cheung, WL Cheung, CS Shum, TK Wong, and a few others.
After forming the MisSing CTS 1971 committee, we found 9 out of 37 missing classmates, that is, 25% of missing classmates. Four of them are then actively involved in our activities, two were dead with the other three refuse to reunite with us.
Macau Tour Diary
Since our graduation 40 years ago, we have never had a chance to take a trip together. Seventeen of our classmates and spouses took a trip to Macau. We tried to recall our memories in the good old days, and reestablish our friendship again.
Clara Ho was our tour leader. We were pleased to have everything arranged by her including hotel, transport, shows, meals and guided tours, etc.
18 Dec 2011
We gathered together at Macau Ferry Pier, Central at 9 a.m. on 18th Dec and took a Turbojet to Macau. We settled down at Grand Waldo Hotel (金都酒店). We felt a bit hungry at noon and took a shuttle bus to Taipa (氹仔) for lunch. We found a Portuguese restaurant “A Tasca Do Luis”. (葡韻餐廳) and were welcomed by the owner who was quite a nice and humorous man. He recommended the best meals to us:
Roasted fish (燒鱸魚), Roasted piglet(燒乳豬), Roasted lamb’s leg(燒羊肶), Baked vegetables with Portuguese sauce (葡汁焗四蔬), Baked rice with seafood and chicken in Portuguese style (葡式海鮮及雞炒飯), Hot pot with clam(蜆煲), Baked bread (焗豬仔包) and Baked salty fish with cheese (焗馬介休芝士球). Eric Chu sponsored us two bottles of red wines.
The lunch ended up with a dessert Pudding in Portuguese Style (木糠布丁/朱古力布丁). We enjoyed the meal very much.
We continued our trip at 2:30 p.m. We visited Taipa Houses – Museum (龍環葡韻住宅式博物館) which was within walking distance from the restaurant. We couldn’t stop our classmates from taking beautiful pictures and recorded their fond memory.
Eight of us went to watch “The House of Dancing Water Show” (水舞間). We took a shuttle bus to “The City of Dream” (新濠天地) to watch the show. Lee Shin, who put aside his busy work, joined us by then. It was free time for the other classmates. The show was spectacular and it didn’t disappoint us.
We met again at 7:30 p.m. at Rua Do Cunha (官也街), Taipa to take our dinner at Seng Cheong Restaurant (誠昌飯店) which is famous for its Crab Congee. Our meal included:
Crab Congee (水蟹粥), Fried vegetables (炒青菜), Mushroom with vegetables (冬菇時菜), Steam eel with garlic sauce (豉汁蒸白鱔), Deep fried prawn with pepper (椒鹽蝦), Seafood with broccoli (扇貝西蘭花), Roasted fish meat balls (炸鯪魚球). Fries Noodles(炒伊麵), and Steamed chicken with lotus leaves (荷葉蒸雞).
We filled up our hungry stomach.
May Kwok took her leave and went back to Hong Kong at 9 p.m. We appreciated her effort to make use of every minute spending the time with us. Others took a leisure walk to Venetian Hotel (威尼斯酒店). The hotel is a prototype of the same hotel in Las Vegas. Some classmates scalped every opportunity to seek for free medical advice from Lee Shin.
We were all tired by the time we arrived at our hotel but we couldn’t forget every single moment during the last two days: School Re-visit, Celebration Dinner and first day of the Macau Tour.
19th Dec 2011
We didn’t need a morning call and got up on time to catch our second day schedule.
We had a buffet breakfast in the hotel. We hired a mini bus to take us around Macau. The husbands of Peggy Wong and Christina Kung joined us. Lee Shin went back to work early in the morning.
We visited The Cathedral (主教山) at 10:30 a.m. We were able to see some landscape of Macau over there. Our classmates couldn’t be stopped from taking photos. We then visited A-Ma Temple (媽閣廟). Some of us prayed for health, fortune and others.
At noon, we went to Wynn Hotel (永利酒店) to watch The Dragon Show (富貴龍), Music Fountain Show (音樂噴泉), and The Rich Tree (吉祥樹). Adrian Hung took video of them. We were desperately waiting for his videos.
At 1 p.m., we visited Ruins of St. Paul (大三巴) and Mount Fortress (大炮台) – to see the cannons and the panoramic sight of Macau. Of course, we took a group photo in front of the Ruins of St. Paul. We felt a bit hungry and we had our lunch separately.
At 3 p.m., we gathered at Senado Square (議事亭). We then took the mini bus to the Car-racing Museum (賽車博物館), Red-wine Museum (紅酒博物館) and the Golden Lotus Square (金蓮花廣場). After we had taken a few photos, the mini bus took us to Macau Fisherman’s Wharf (澳門漁人碼頭) at 5 p.m. The place doesn’t look like a wharf although it is next to the sea. There are a lot of shops and restaurants. There is also a stadium which camouflaged the ancient times. There weren’t many people in the street. It was really a great pleasure to take a leisure walk along the street. Clara Ho walked quickly to search for a restaurant for our dinner. She finally decided to dine at Sichuan Cantonese Restaurant (川粵食府).
We chose the dishes:
Cold dish – sour & hot cucumber (爽口青瓜), Cold dish – green pepper & preserved eggs (青椒皮蛋), Cold cut chicken (白切雞/半只), Prawn with celery and lily (西芹百合炒蝦仁), Scallop and broccoli with XO sauce (XO醬西蘭花炒帶子), Braised bean curd (紅燒豆腐), Fried fish (松鼠魚), Bamboo shoot, bean curd with mutton (枝竹羊腩煲), and Soy duck(樟茶鴨). We accomplished our dinner with dessert: Sweet dumplings and Osmanthus cake (湯圓/桂花糕).
After the dinner, 10 of our classmates proceeded to the Pier and returned to Hong Kong while 7 of us continued the third day trip in Macau.
The 40th Graduation Anniversary Celebration ended but our relationship still continues and our cohesion power is much stronger.