Kindle Notes & Highlights
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December 6, 2021 - January 21, 2022
His mother was a loud-mouthed ill-tempered bitter woman whose idea of motherhood was to constantly criticize her children.
I can totally relate
The form teacher was a cute young lady called Miss Yau. She was petite and curvaceous, especially in her colorful cheongsam and heels which she wore most days. She always had make-up on and a splash of perfume. When she talked, I was mesmerized by the way her red lips moved and the dimples on her cheeks appeared and disappeared. I started to pay attention in class and do my homework to please her. For her to look in my direction, call out my name, or pat my head would make my head spin for days on end. What a difference a pretty teacher made!
I continued to do well in school even though I wasn’t in Miss Yau’s class any more, because by then I was addicted to academic success and the prestige that came with it.
The motivation for many students!
His teaching method, harsh as it might have been, effectively improved our grammar. Having your essay’s score and grammatical errors read out aloud in class would make you improve in a hurry.
The yo-yo craze was started by an American soft drink company. You collected enough of their bottle caps, and you would be rewarded with a designer yo-yo.
This reminded me of the time 'Potato crackers' chips started to give surprise plastic toys free. We had to scratch the chips packet head to find out what surprise toy will come with this packet. Then the seller would give that to us. We stored those toys like they were our best assets.
There was nothing like navigating your kite to sweep across another kite’s path and using those sharp serrated edges on your thread to cut loose someone else’s kite, and watching other boys run and scramble after it to claim ownership.
Nature has away of playing tricks with talented people and equalizing all of us sooner or later.
Drinking is the curse of the Irish; gambling the curse of the Chinese. When I was living in New York City, I was a regular in an Irish pub in Lower Manhattan. One night, some customers started a coin guessing game, and asked me if I would like to join in. The bartender said: “Of course he will. All Chinese gamble.” My response to that was: “This one also drinks.”
My wife first adopted an abandoned cat, and within months convinced me that having two cats in the house was better because they could play with each other and therefore would leave the furniture alone. We ended up with two cats playing with the furniture.
Anything in English was more prestigious.
