Confessions of a Cat-holic (12)

Looking at the way Sharon had to say about her "dream school", I knew there would be speculations that I wanted to transfer to a co-ed institution to meet a qualified bachelor, if only they knew the reality. Sharon obviously had not fact checked the tittle-tattle she overheard from some unknown sources. I could give you a breakdown of the demographics of the student body profiles of this legendarily transcendant school. If you were looking for a doctor-to-be bachelor who resided on MacDonnell Road or the likes, yes, you were likely to find one, out of a class of 250 students. One who was husband material, worthy, decent, diligent, religious, Christian-like gentle with no drug addiction, maybe sometimes a porno slave. There was one, as far as I knew, out of my entire year. But everyone else was either an albino, leukaemia patient, sex addict, cripple, ezcema leper with scratches and pus all over the body, all with an insatiable need for sex trades. Yes, that one guy could be the oasis mirage for everyone else desperately walking in the dead sea.

Were there any tycoon's grandsons or relatives in the new school? Not that I was aware of. I happened to know 70% of the students in my year. The biggest snob I knew from that school was just a divorced and unwanted daughter of an architect who lived in a run down complex on MacDonnell Road. We were not talking about Birchwood Place or Estoril Court. She was just living in Happy Mansion. Our girls from St Francis could easily outpass her in all possible areas. Vincy was my class' Miss Beauty Pageant who lived on MacDonnell Road but in a rather modern condo, Birchwood Place. She was born into an architect's family but she never gave me that face like she was better than everyone else. She was down-to-earth and never used her privileges to bully others. That placed her the first to get married among the girls in our year and is now a mother of two healthy daughters.

I was not saying St Paul's Co-ed was filled with new immigrants and struggling students from the slum, even though there were a few. But clearly the school has been overrated. The majority of its students lived in the shabby districts of Hong Kong Island, like Shau Kei Wan, Fortress Hill, Sai Wan, Quarry Bay, Xiu Sai Wan, Chai Wan, Sai Ying Pun, Kennedy Town, Tin Wan. The irony was that they still regarded themselves higher than everyone else, like we all lived on Lamma Island. I was not saying that they were destitutely below poverty line, but their confidence surely could not match reality. There were many equally qualified people in the band 1 circle who chose to study elsewhere and they were not as complacent as these cage-schooled students who had yet to find out the life outside their bubble.

Looking back, if you asked me if I ever regretted my decision to transfer, I would say with absolute certainty that no, not for a second. I did not transfer to a co-ed school to meet a bachelor. If for that reason alone I made my decision, I would likely find myself disappointed. Many of the students in SPCC were still single and unwedded, and some even widowed or divorced. It had nothing to do with the looks or the appearances. I was thinking it was their attitude or false hopes that ruined their lives. They were all looking for a non-existent big shot, chasing a dream that was as slim chance as winning the lottery. The chance of a realistic person getting married could be 50/50, almost beating the odds of playing Sic Bo in a casino. Going to St Paul's Co-ed could immediately turn your game to a slot machine, if conscious enough to take into account the competition among the girls who shared that same ambition. Thanks to the media, the tabloids and the over-sensational headlines that had only added more candidates and thus lowered your chance to the ultimate jackpot. All you had was a token to rely your destiny on dumb luck. You had no control over marriage and life. The odds were you might never even meet that non-existent big shot, no matter how pretty you were or how much edge you thought you had over the other girls in line.

This must have been the reason why I loved going to Chinatown so much when I studied at Columbia. The movie "An Autumn's Tale" had become a big hit internationally in the 80s for some good reasons, as it reflected reality to a certain extent. It might sound incomprehensible to forgo a Yale graduate to marry a nobody from the ghetto. But quite frankly, I had had too many Danny Chans in my life and I needed a Sam Pan just so badly.