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| KA-RI-BEE-HOON | |||
| Editor, 12 August 2000 | |||
Editor: The writing of this article was inspired by an alumus who sent email suggesting an album for pictures. As times go on, the pictures and stories increase in values. Hope to see http://pictures.nantah.org and http://stories.nantah.org set up by Boon Kang. When I was a student at Nanyang University in the early 1960s, it was really fun. A friend who visited me recently talked about singing love songs in bath room. I seem to remember that there were no hot water supplies in hostels. How cruel it was to ask us to take cold showers and hence we had so many great male singers. KA-RI-BEE-HOON! KA-RI-BEE-HOON! This was a familiar voice at night around 9pm when it was time for a break to have KA-RI-BEE-HOON (curry laksa) for those poor souls who might not have boy freinds or girl friends and chose to study in their own rooms in hostels, and myself was one of them. The voice of this laksa girl in early teen was really sweet and charming. She would be in her late 40s now, married and with a happy family. The girl student in this episode was a daring in the hearts of many. One needed to get a number to be her suitor and this was how the legend went. When I saw the number something liked 285, to say that I was disappointed might be an understatement! Anyway, a classmate of mine was more persistent. Almost every one in our class knew that he was a great admirer of the beautiful girl student because he talked a lot of her. One evening, the girl student received a suprised delivery of curry laksa from the teen aged girl and was told from so and so, i.e. my classmate. The story leaked out and spreaded widely in Yun Nan Yen. My classmate was nicked name "KA-RI-BEE-HOON" overnight and the nick name sticked. I would still call him by this nick name when I see him. We were rather close in our first year but for reason that I could not recall, we were strangers in the remaining years. This had nothing to do with any jealousy because of the girl student. I heard that he studied theology after Nantah and finished with a Ph.D. Congratulation and hope that we meet and perhaps fight again. The episode of pink panther style happened in 1964 when I was a fourth year student in Nantah. After more than 30 years, I met another classmate who was in business in Hong Kong. This was our first meeting after graduation from Nantah. We were not that close then because we were in different side of the fence but who cares after 30 years? We had a big dinner by the road side in one evening with drink etc. with two others. The infamous "KA-RI-BEE-HOON" episode came into our conversation as you would expect. I knew the truth for the first time for so many years: "The surprised delivery of "KA-RI-BEE-HOON" to the beautiful girl student was a design of this friend whom I met in Hong Kong, a known joker then, and his accomplic. He told the laksa girl to say it was from so and so, another classmate of mine." I visited the sister and her husband in Kuala Lumpur. I saw that beautiful girl student but missed her at the lift. She might still not know that her secret admirer was not the type after all. It was all because of his mischievous friends. Home |
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