They Called Him Samsing

A Samsing is a Malaysian term to classify a person as a gangster, a rebel, an outlaw, a hooligan and a good for nothing, useless fellow.

The incident happened during my very first year of teaching. I was sent to a small Chinese school in a little village, some twenty kilometers from the nearest town. The village was small but far from being peaceful and quiet. There were a few pubs here and there, as soon as the sun set, people, all sorts of people flocked in from far and near. They drank and sang, they argue and fought, and then the party would end when finally there was some bloodshed and the police was called in.

Someone told me I was sent there for being a newcomer to the teaching profession. However, as that was my first job, I was determined to survive and make something out of it. Like all other teaching staff, I traveled to and fro from the nearby town everyday; everyone thought it was safer than staying in the village.

There were a thousand and one far-fetched stories to tell about a village like that, but my story now is just simply about a young boy named Ah Mou.

I meet Ah Mou the Samsing when he was fifteen. He was a pupil in my class. Obviously he was given that nickname because he was much larger, more unruly, and the most uncontrollable among all the naughty boys in school. He sat right at the back of the class. Like every pupil in that class, Ah Mou was there not to study. They were all there to pass time.

The Malaysian education system is such that all children are given free education until they are sixteen, then they have to take a major government examination. Those who fail the examination will have to leave school, while those who pass will continue for another two years of school life. Under such circumstances, most parents just leave their children in school to keep them out of trouble until sixteen, even though they know their children were just wasting time staying there.

Ah Mou had a strong forehead and square jaws. I noticed Ah Mou because he had a pair of sad eyes. Otherwise he looked no different from other boys. Active youngsters like Ah Mou would hardly sit still in class for more than five minutes. At any one time, at least ten of them were out of class. Half of the rest in class were singing, yelling, joking, throwing things at each other, making fun of the girls and the few timid ones. I struggled hard to pass some knowledge to the few remaining pupils. They were not the smart ones, they were either too lazy to move or too dumb to be naughty.

On one rare occasion, when I walked to the back of the class, to my surprise, Ah Mou was sitting in his place. He wanted to say something, but the class was too noisy, so he shouted in his mother tongue, Kek, a local Chinese dialect, "Teacher, we are bad pupils, you must be very tired." I did not know how to answer him, so I just smiled.

Perhaps because of that one smile, Ah Mou defined me as a good person, different from all the other teachers who looked down on him, scolded him, and punished him. They are classified as bad people. His worst enemy of course was Master Kiang, the discipline master.

From rumors among the teachers as well as the pupils Master Kiang was an ex-army officer. Discharged from the army because of some grave mistake he had committed. Many considered Master Kiang sadistic and malicious as he looked as if he enjoyed punishing and torturing pupils. However, no one, not even the headmaster said anything, as no one would like to hold the post of the discipline master in that school.

Eventually I was getting through to my class. They agreed to stay quiet and let me teach for half of a period, provided I agreed to leave those who did not want to take part alone! Well, half of a period was better than nothing. So I really only taught only half of my time in class and spent the rest of the period getting to know the back benchers better. The more I knew them, the more I liked them. I realized they were not slow, their main problem was language. They were only fluent in their own dialect and that made them lose interest in the school work, as they were forced to learn and use English, Mandarin and Malay, all three major languages used in the country.

Ah Mou was one angry boy. He was angry at his parents who forced him to stay in school while he could work and contribute to his family. He was angry at the school, Master Kiang to be exact, for branding him as a Samsing and punishing him for every little mistake he had make. Ah Mou was angry because he was born poor and people either looked down upon him or pitied him. What he wanted was a fairer world, a freer world, where he could breathe the air he wanted. Ah Mou had his own share of fun. One day he asked me, "Teacher, could you give me a poster of Madonna; I want to hang it on my wall." I was shocked that he knew about Madonna.

Then it happened. I was at the canteen, suddenly I saw Ah Mou running amok and rushed in followed by Master Kiang. Then Ah Mou grabbed a large knife tuned back and started to chase Master Kiang. The stunned Master Kiang ran into the headmaster's office and locked himself safely in. While Ah Mou started to curse and swear outside the room in his dialect.

From the rest, I learnt that Master Kiang was on his frequent rounds to check the boys' hair length. When he caught a boy with long hair, he would cut one side of the boy's hair and made the boy looked absurd so that he had to go for a haircut later. When Master Kiang reached Ah Mou, Ah Mou would not let him do it. Master Kiang pressed Ah Mou down, and pulled out a few strands of his hair by force while cursing him. That was when Ah Mou started to run and Master Kiang started to chase.

Police came later. Ah Mou was taken away. He stared at me sadly before he left. I knew he was telling me, "Teacher, I am not a Samsing!" I did not have time to give him a Madonna poster!

The police case was squashed. Ah Mou was suspended from coming to school until the end of the year. Then he would graduate with the rest of the class. Master Kiang was transferred to another town, while the story of the Samsing was made famous by word of mouth.

One day I saw Ah Mou working at a petrol kiosk. I smiled and waved to him. He smiled back. We both knew, to me he was not a Samsing.

The next year, against all advice, I moved in to that little village.