The AMK days...

During my time at the Instituition, I learned that I was the only privileged one to be from a neighborhood primary school out of the Singaporean bunch. I recount loads of fun I had when I attended a dyfunct primary school in AMK.

Growing up in AMK, I remember two types of violent activities. First one, I call academic violence (AV); that’s basically gang fights within school compounds. The second I call, extra curricular violence (ECV); that’s feuds with other delinquent juveniles on the streets.

AV is more controlled as your opponents are usually about your age and the skill-level of the fighter is proportional to the alphabet of his class grade. For example, a student from 5-A is probably not as good as fighter from 5-C and of course the normal stream students are trained mercenaries and thus you always know what you are getting yourself into before the fight. ECV can be more dangerous as participants can be of any age group, skill and psychotic levels, bar none.
Since I was trained in Tae Kwan Doe in primary school, I belonged to the distinctive category within the A-group, almost an underdog. However, I had an upcoming AV event with SB from the coveted B-group.

I prepared two referees, both my good friends for the event. The showdown was finalized at a void deck one afternoon. Being an astute fighter and I applied Sun Tze, “if we are able thus to attack an inferior force with a superior one, our opponents will be in dire straits”. Thus, I had a superior force to be unleashed upon my hand signals; my two referees were to turn into my fighting sidekicks; 1 becomes 3 and 3 becomes 1.

Racial harmony was well demonstrated that afternoon; we had representatives from the malay, Indian and Chinese communities among the 4 of us. Things turned out differently from anticipated, SB started whooping my rear-end in the duel. My fearless, faithful minions joined in the clash on my signal. To my horror, the situation did not alleviate. SB had no difficulty taking on three of us. He was not from the B-group for no apparent reasons.

What happened next was just a complete change of fate; a phenomenon where an AV transition to an ECV. A bunch of neighborhood AMK pai kias (thugs) caught the exhibition of martial skills prowess of SB from afar and decided to partake in the challenge. As Sun Tze told me, my side-kicks and I made a wise decision to “split and regroup if enemy is stronger”. SB, lacking knowledge of Sun Tze, though compensated by brawn, recieved a hefty serving of good spanking. Another uneventful day went by in the AMK new town.