Confessions of a Cat-holic (72)

If not Mina, I wouldn't know that romance between a student and a principal / teacher was not only not forbidden, but widely accepted in an institution as "old-fashioned" and "conservative" as SPCC.

Yes, Mina went out in an official relationship with our Chinese teacher, Mr Lee Chak Keung. Mina was one of the best students in my class. When I said one of the best, it was no exaggeration. Only after I obtained my HKCEE certificate that I realized more than half of the class were qualified for medical school. No wonder these scholars desperately needed a "guarantee" so badly.

Mina went to True Light Primary School, together with Loretta Chu, who was also a student in the E class. I actually was quite fond of True Light, because their students were not only smart, but also ethical and sane.

Mina was handpicked by the teachers to represent the school in competing for the SCMP Student of the Year award, through which I had only come to realize whatever prizes, awards, accolades, certificates, degrees, scholarships and offers that were given to the seemingly marvelous over-achievers could all just be a trade behind the curtains.

I never won any awards in my life anyways, and going to a school like SPCC had taught me why. If anything I could take away from my three years of education at SPCC, I guessed that would be it. That would be I was not desperate enough to exchange my body for any favors. There were many qualified people in the room anyways. Why should I deserve to standout?

Then, there was Rebecca Wai.

Rebecca Wai had developed a chronic condition since the start of F4. She was constantly sneezing, which looked like she had a flu. A perpetual one too. I asked her if she had a health check up, since she looked quite uncomfortable having to wipe her runny nose every other second. I was suggesting out of friendly concerns, of course. She really should pay a visit to a family doctor to cease the worries of those around her who might catch any virus from her bodily fluids.

But Rebecca immediately refuted my idea. She assured me that was just allergic rhinitis. She said there was no cure for it, so she might just leave it that way. She told me that was the price to being privileged. Allergic rhinitis was just some rich man's problems or a clean person's disease. She embraced it with grace. Maybe we all should, too. When you went to a school where the Principal had premature cancer and his students were devastated by chonic conditions like leukaemia and chronic flu, you really could not complain.

I really wasn't sure if this chauvinism, jingoism or exclusivism, whatever propaganda to brainwash people into believing that l'enfer c'est les autres, had helped or ruined their mental and physical health.

But she was not an outlier. There was this guy whose last name was Lau, but I had since forgotten his name, because, like I said, I never interacted with any of the guys in my class for more than 10 sentences. I would call him Sancho, for the sake of naming. Sancho Lau had a severe skin shredding condition, which I believed could be a very serious case of eczema. As a result, he was bald and eyebrow-less. Not only that, his skin was also burning red with wrinkles all over his body. I tried to avoid any eye contact with him, because I could lose my appetite otherwise.

Rumors had it that Sancho Lau had a crush on Rebecca, as told by Rebecca herself. I didn't bother to fact check this scandal since Sancho himself looked scary enough for me to avoid any physical contacts with him.

Rebecca Wai invited me to her home for once, sometime in F4. I wouldn't know why. Maybe it was out of courtesy but I would like to believe otherwise. She might be just flaunting her 360-degree seaview mansion down on Sassoon Drive, after visitng my place after the ballgames. As far as I remembered, her home was three storeys high, with almost no renovation inside, as the house was a subsidized housing provided by HKU. She was residing with her parents, her brother Plato Wai, and a domestic helper.