Reflecting on my memories of the 2012 Grand Reunion-RS

2025 is the 13th anniversary of the 2012 Grand Alumni Reunion at KBCHMS. It was such a wonderful occasion that everyone still talks about. My father Chong See Kui wanted me to re-share this blog entry which was written in 2013 with you all. Hopefully it brings you all back down memory lane. You can also search for ‘2012 reunion’ for other similar stories shared by other people.

Looking through the reunion photos, I was suddenly flooded with many memories and emotions of the months leading up to the event.  Early 2012, We were in Australia preparing to go back to Brunei for 6 months to help out in the family business – my Dad would always talk to me about the upcoming reunion.  He was very excited to tell me about all the people coming from all over the world and he would always brainstorm ideas to raise money for KBCHMS.  He wanted to create a display of old coins, old stamps, old cameras in a cabinet so he asked me to source some frames, photo adhesive and come up with a solution to display the photo boards.   He asked all his friends and family to look through their albums and share old photos.  When we arrived in Brunei, we started editing photos, getting them printed and ready to be grouped.  I was very amused to see my Dad creating his first few photo boards and once he knew they would work, he would go to all the Hua Ho stores to buy the fluted boards.

  Luckily Dad had Chiew  Chee Phoong and his sister Kiew Lim Pang to assist with grouping some of the photo boards.  Every day, he would work tirelessly, speaking to friends to chase photos, editing photos, printing photos, preparing photo boards, and preparing a slideshow.

In the days leading up to the reunion, Dad was full of excitement as the Chow family was coming from all over USA and would be staying at our house!  Dad is always very generous offering friends to stay at his ‘No Star Hotel’ whenever they are in Brunei.  To his surprise and to our shock, most of the Chow family accepted to stay at our house.   It was fortunate for us that my sister had just given birth to her second daughter and was having her confinement at her mother-in-law’s house, which freed up two bedrooms.  I only found out when they arrived that it was the first time in many years that this big group of brothers and sister were living under the same roof.  

The day before the reunion, we packed up the car with all the photo boards, display items and drove to KB in the afternoon.  We decided to stay the night in KB as we knew that we would spend a few hours setting up at night and a few hours setting up in the morning.  As a contingency back up, Dad asked my husband to bring a projector and screen for the slide show in case his slideshow could not be used on the school AV system.  As well as the iMac computer that his slideshow was prepared on.  As you can imagine, our car was packed to the brim.

This was my first visit to KBCHMS.  My youngest son came with us as he was so keen to see his Kung Kung’s school.  He was 11 years old and being from Australia from a relatively small school, he was very surprised at how big the school was and he was very impressed with the school hall where the reunion would be held.  He especially liked that the school was just walking distance to shops selling his favorite “char kuay teow”. 

The night before, we set up as much as we could and went back to the hotel very exhausted.  The next morning, we were back in the hall very early for my husband and son to set up the iMac computer, projector, and screen.  We had not met with the person with keys to the AV room so we had not been able to test the presentation on the school projector yet. 

Before long, people started to arrive at the hall and my son was taken by his Kung Kung and Popo to meet their friends.  He was the token grandchild representing the 5 grandchildren so he was introduced to many people.  Once in a while, he will run to find me and tell me that Kung Kung and Popo has sooo many friends! He especially enjoyed watching his Suk Kung performing magic show and he enjoyed watching all of his Kung Kungs friends wearing their scarves with embroidered badges.

He had seen his Kung Kung designing the badges on the computer and he had seen his Suk Kung bring back a few different designs and he even helped Kung Kung choose the winning design. He marveled at the big pile of multi colored scarves that his Kung Kung had collected for these awards. I remember the day he kept asking why Popo, Ku Poh and Suk Kung didn’t get a scarf but Ku Kong ( Shim Wei Shan) got a scarf.

About half an hour before the AV system.  We asked if we could test the presentation on the projector.  He asked us to come back in a few minutes so that he could start the computer.  When we came back in 5 minutes, we found him very flustered; his system was not working, and he got Joseph to help him diagnose the issue.  Meanwhile, time was ticking away, and it was drawing near to the time when the AV system would be needed.  While the school’s AV computer was being rebooted, our contingency projector and screen were used temporarily.  It was lucky that we had that in place.  Those sitting at the back were unable to have a clear view of the complete historical events. Anyway, we like to bring this Belait historical slideshow right into your handphones and iPad’s, and even better, right to your desktop computer in full-screen view.

We enjoyed the program of the reunion very much and it was very obvious that the photo boards were of great interest to everyone.  Everyone enjoyed the trip that memory lane to their childhood days and seeing photos of each other during their school days.  The group photo was so fantastic, we had never seen a gathering of so many people across all ages and it was fascinating to think that they all started in this little town, at a time when KBCHMS was just a simple school building.  These students completed studies and many went on to live in different countries to raise their families.  But here they were, they heard about the reunion and came from far and wide to reconnect and reminisce. 

It was a most wonderful memorable day and I really cherish the happiness of my parents that day. I was so proud of my father at all that he achieved for the reunion and to this day, he can still talk for hours of the memories of that very successful reunion. I only hope that one day we will get to attend another reunion at KBCHMS.

The Evening Reunion moving slide show:-

The photos below showing the three (3) generations groups 三代同堂 attending the morning and evening Reunion celebration.

WE LIKE TO EXPRESS OUR APPRECIATIONS TO EVERYONE WHO HELPS AND TO THOSE, FROM FAR AND, NEAR, IN SUPPORTING THE REUNION BY THEIR PRESENCE

This is an 11:45 mins slide show, taking you back to the 1940’s era when we didn’t have any electric supply. Suggest that you make yourself a cup of coffee/tea, sit back to relax, and press the “play” button (below) to enjoy the music as well. We also give you an option to stop the music whenever you have done, watching the slide show. By the way, the music will continue to play endlessly until you stop it.

The above photo slides shows the significant historical events of Chung Hua School from 1933 to 1950’s. It will auto play slowly so you can sit back , relax to enjoy the slide show to the end. Upon the end of the backgrouns music you can play back the next music/song “When will I see you again” while you can scroll down to see the rest of the photo presentation.

Credits & Appreciations: We like to express our most profound gratitude to the Chairman, Mr. Lau Shiew Yuen and his Board of Governors, and the Principal for providing the venue with functional facilities, & teachers, staff and students for the wonderful stage performances.

Credits and Appreciations : Many of the music and songs, photos and slides belong to the original owners used in this post. Please do let us know if there is objection of copyright, so that we will take the appropriate actions as soon as possible.

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