Confessions of a Cat-holic (138)

Meanwhile, Sharon wouldn't leave me alone. Sharon and I had become the biggest rivals since the age of 6. I remembered that Sharon complained about having no friends to stand by her some time in grade 3, which was when she considered committing suicides multiple times. So ever since then, she became very sensitive when it came to inter-personal relationships. She always worried that I would badmouth her and convince others to boycott her as she grew older because she didn't want the same tragedies to happen. Even though her mother was a long time alumnus of our alma mater, but her mother seemed to share the same fate of not being liked by her peers in the school. Nobody tried to bully her, but it was just that her personality was too unlikable so everyone kind of kept a distance from her while maintaining a polite facade whenever seen around her. Her problem was that she was too calculating and manipulative, sometimes a bit alt-right. She kissed the teachers' ass like no one was around. And I believed her parents taught her into that. She liked to shop at Lee Garden, the most pricy mall in town and she made sure it was known to everyone that she could afford that. She also had unrealistic ambitions like marrying a tycoon because nobody had ever told her it was really silly for an upper middle class to break into that circle with just an excellent transcript and a habit of shopping among the most upscale fashion brands.

It might seem counter-intuitive to befriend your rivals but that was too kindergarten, like befriending your classmates with similar mindsets to fight off anyone who didn't think or act like you. As early as grade 1, our Principal, Sister S, demanded all of us to watch a good news movie produced by the Catholic Church. It was "One of the Lucky Ones" starring Alice Chic Lau Nga Lai. It was about a young girl who went blind because her parents treated her eyes with the wrong eye drops. But she was a graceful one. She turned to God and started her Christian life with a lot of support from her family and friends. She then grew up to be a happy blind girl, carefree and content despite her physical disabilities. Yeah, so ever since grade 1, we just started to stand by our rivals. Welcome to Wanchai.

So you could imagine how my life was growing up in a Catholic convent, one of the most unforgiving and fierce surroundings in town. We had been wishing each other blind before we even knew how to do basic multiplications. You could imagine the relief I found upon switching schools because life in Central was just so much more peaceful and serene. Hey, I was a kid too before I turned into an adult. I knew what was on their minds, it was just that those strategies were what I called "obsolete" before I turned 7. I often asked my mother why the hell I was born into this city called Hong Kong instead of, say like, Beijing and Shenzhen. I would rather be a new immigrant and just persistently be away from the chaos in Wanchai, the heart of Hong Kong city life. Why the hell I had to go through all these trauma and potential threats as a kid who barely learned how to read? Why did I have to live constantly in fears, fears of being poisoned, fears of being tricked, fears of being blinded, etc as early as the age of 6? Why did a pathetic fucking grade 1 student have to go through all these? What was the point? What? To get ahead in academics so I could get into HKU Law or what? But I never intended to become a lawyer anyways. Why did I have to go through all these while the Alices in Central lived in eternal bliss having it easy and happy? I was a survivor all my life. Although I looked intact and functionally normal on the outside, never forget about the survivorship bias theory.

Oh by the way, Alice Chic Lau Nga Lai went to Rosary Hill. Yes, Rosary Hill again. That school was a god damn fight factory, to which even my friends would surrender. The Catholic Church was hentai, Japanese kind of psychopathic. The thing was that none of my new friends in Central district realized how lucky they had been all their life having grown up in a pacific island, or the Capitol City of the Hunger Games.