index

	Sign In Sign-Up

**The immediate news in Malaysia is of course the Budget announced on Friday. With it, there are many incentives and concessions that serves everyone, whether employer, employee or businessmen, local or foreign. The subject is of course adequately covered already in the papers and no doubt will be analysed to death in the coming weeks. For the moment, one can go to any of the online Malaysian newspapers for the latest on this. Suffice to say for the moment that besides the obvious savings, they present new tax saving plans that can be put in place (tax planning, not tax evasion). Anyone with any views or questions can discuss the Budget at the Interactive Community. Check out here online the Budget Speech/Appendices/Bill.

**The Victorian Business Directory is now online. There are only two entries currently as I don't have everyone's particulars and don't really know who agrees to be listed there - so email me or pass/send me your business card if you want to be listed. It is also open to families and friends of Victorians.

**We are starting another regular feature; well, as regular as you can determine, since this depends on your contribution. Victorians, families and friends are now found all over the world. Pictures tell more than a thousand words, so if you have pictures of yourselves or the place you call home now, send us the pictures and we will put them up here. If anything, it will give others an idea of the place you are at or have travelled to on holidays, a little travelogue. This week's picture comes from a shy Victorian who prefers to remain anonymous. The picture is of a place he is at/on vacation, I am not quite sure which! See below his efforts at night-time photography, which rivals any National Geography professional photographer.

VI today, through '74 eyes...

,,,last week I had the opportunity to revisit the old school together Mr Chung Chee Min, as well as the VI Museum, during school hours! The story on the part of the visit with Mr Chung is a fascinating one, and will be for later telling, but here are my impressions of the school as of October 2000...

'..nor this school just roof and wall..'

hmm..strange, but the first thing I noticed about the school was the roof and wall. First off, the compound is now surrounded by a six foot wall all round. Then, there is another building structure next to the pavilion that we know. This structure, slightly bigger than the pavilion, was built for the purpose of the Commonwealth Games, when cricket was held on the school field. It does take away the focus on the pavilion, though.

As one approaches the building proper, one can only marvel at the fresh coat of white paint and the spanking new roof for all the buildings, including the Sixth Form block.

3 West is now a meeting room - eat your hearts out, all you 3 Westers out there. On the other hand, 3 East has turned into a media room, with computers, etc. Er..much more dignified than a meeting room, I think. Long live 3 East!

The Art Room is now the VI Museum, storing all manner of trinkets and trophies of the past, including the school's scrapbook of past newspapers cuttings. There are some truly historical stuff there, but more later and in another article. Strange, the Art Room is so small compared to the time when we sat in front of those easel boards and tried to become Picassos! I tell you, it's really a small room! Oh, the painting on the wall outside has been replaced too, by some other painting. So, so much for those VI artists who painted that mural - wiped clean out of history and into the drain as so much watercolor paint water..glug glug glug..

It was interval time when we were there, and ten boys were playing basketball in the court between the hall and the library. They could have been us, except we would not have played during the interval.

The tap next to the wall somewhere in the middle is no longer there, later I saw it has been moved next to the lightning conductor.

The senior library and junior library has been merged, so there is only the senior library, as we knew it then. This has been extended onto the corridor where we used to put our bags outside. The study room next to the library is now part of the main library.

The brown wooden shelves and mahogany waxed tables are gone. In their place are less solid looking stuff. The place looks brighter and lighter, not as heavy and atmospheric as before, or is it just my imagination? One thing has not changed though - the smell of the place. of old books and shelves. I tell you, it's the same!

The swimming pool is still there, though Mr Chung told me the diving boards are gone due to old age. I tried to smell the chlorine and ammonia from outside, but it's too far away from the key hole. The furnace next to the toilet is also gone.

Do you guys remember the bookshop behind the stage? I went behind, and up the stairs to the rooms which the bandboys used to use and the actors used to makeup. If I remember correctly, the place was full of bats and guano. The bats and guano are gone, but replaced with spray painted grafitti on the wall. I wondered which is worse.

The school hall looks the same, though it too looked to have shrunk! Someone has to explain this to me - is it the physiology of the eye over time, or the bending of light over time, or of the mind?

The boards on the side of the wall are no longer updated. The tiles on the side walls and the floor have been replaced. The badminton courts part of the hall remains the old seasoned parquette flooring. Tables and chairs have been laid out for the year-end exams, and stood silently and ominously as they did in the hall twenty six years ago, awaiting the day of execution of those victims who would sit resigned and helpless at the tables on the appointed days.

The junior library and the study room next to it, where we all can remember Pork Chop Hill and The Zulus is locked and peer as I can, cannot make out what they are used for now.

The notice boards of the various clubs and societies seem fewer and those that are there don't show signs of life - maybe it's the year end and there are no more activities anyway.

The lecture hall in the Sixth Form block is locked and peering through, I think the place is now air-conditioned. BM5 classroom and the others are still there, though the chalk blackboards are now replaced with white marker boards.

The laboratories have new plastic gas outlets, no more bunsen burners of the forties.

Yes, there have been changes, but one thing remained constant though - the external air that breezes through, and the atmosphere of faint expectancy all the time, of great things to be done in the future - all within one's mind.

...nor this school just roof and wall...

Note: A picture tells a thousand words, so watch for the pictures - coming soon.

http://www.ww2wa.com - Are you curious about the Second World War? This site is a resource for this if you are so inclined. By the way, the Second World War did touch VI in more ways than one - did you know two of our very own Victorians flew as ace pilots in Europe against Hitler's army? Unbelievable?! Read all about it, brought to life by Mr Chung Chee Min, his researched article on Henry & Cyril of Victoria Institution.