Confessions of a Cat-holic (35)

Monica Go. Now what about her? Monica was my neighbour in South Horizons before she moved to Mei Foo with her husband. Her family was in the meatpacking business in Hong Kong. Her dad actually ran a BBQ vendor in Tin Hau station, selling frozen meats and barbeque equipments. The fact that her mother came from a small town in Southern China with a meatpacking shop located in Tin Hau made her have some sort of self-deception that she was in the same league as my family. Me and her were no different, that's what she would like to think. We even had the same last name. But no, you could not say that a CEO owning an office at Citicorp Center Whitfield Road was essentially the same as a butcher just because they worked in the same district and resided in the same complex.

Another thing that was quite odd about Monica was that she regarded herself as very pretty. She had some solid grounds for her reasonings. Her elder sister, Go Ting Ting, was a retired freelance model from St Stephen's Girls College. Okay, so she had a pretty sister. I actually came across her advertisements on magazines a few times and saw her human sized foamboard modelling ad in Marathon shop. I would say her sister was quite good looking. She even married another model from Raimondi College and purchased a home nearby even though she did not have a college degree. Who said that professionals earned more? I had had friends who could afford an apartment in South Horizons as a back-office staff in a bank or a nurse in STD clinic. By no means I would object to the fact that Monica's sister was hot. But that didn't mean Monica was pretty too. Monica had huge bulging eyes and she tried too hard to look good.

Monica went to a primary school I had the hardest time remembering. I had the inclination to think it was likely to be SKH St Peter's Primary School, a name which I had never heard of despite Monica's baseless pride and confidence. Why was she confident? 60% of SPCC students came from its primary school, while the rest 40% came from a good mix of estate schools on Hong Kong Island. They were mostly from schools like C.C.C. Kei Wan Primary School, St. Joan of Arc Primary School, Tung Wah Group of Hospitals Lee Ching Dea Memorial College, SKH Chai Wan St Michael's Primary School, Baptist Lui Ming Choi Primary School, well, the list could go on forever.

St Francis, on the other hand, still liked to be a local brand in Wanchai and the last thing we would call ourselves would be elitist. The students who transferred to our school were mostly mediocre students from schools like Rosary Hill, Kiangsu-Chekiang College and occasionally St Paul's Convent, all with very little intention to excel or acquire a pseudo-brand for her credentials. Rarely I encountered any newbies who claimed to be a valedictorian, let alone gifted students or early prodigies. And when they were admitted, our school took a whole batch of them, forming little cohorts in class where they didn’t feel lonely or singled out. But that didn't mean they were good for nothing. They didn't come to our school to study, that was obvious. They only wanted to fight and played around with human ladders to reach that fan on the ceiling in recesses and lunchbreaks. The prime example was Louisa Watt. She was the ugliest newbie tomboy in our year. She could uphold 6 people at a time on her shoulders. Karen Lee went out with her in middle school. She said she liked Louisa because I looked like her. Yes, my friend knew me the best. Fat, round-faced, short-haired, buck teethed with glasses on, did that remind you of a fashion terrorist?

And you could see, the admissions policies were hugely different among the two schools. SPCC aimed to enroll students from estate schools with a strong will to surpass, as well as a Christian mindset and a local background. It really was the worst of both worlds. Their English was horrible, Chinese literacy was not their main concern and to make it worse, they thought they were the cream of the crop but they were not quite there yet. The fact that they only engaged in singing choir practice and orchestra rehersals made them secluded from the rest of the band 1 circle, therefore further strengthening their faith that they were simply the best.