First day in Secondary School In Hong Kong, moving from Primary school to Secondary school is an important step, it signify a child has grown into a teenage. My first day in secondary school had a lot of first time for me. September 1st, was always the first day of every school in Hong Kong. This day in 1993, was my first day of secondary school life. I woke up bright and early, while my two younger sisters were still sleeping. Mom was surprised that she did not have to wake me, as I was usually the last one in the family.
I cooked my breakfast like always; I had been doing that since my mom had to take care of my sisters. After breakfast, I changed into my brand new uniform; it looked like my old one but it had a different school patch. In my nice looking uniform and a big empty backpack, I walk across the street to the minibus stop. There were a lot of students, all with sleepy faces, already waiting there. I was both scare and excited as this was my first time taking a minibus alone. After I got on the minibus, I tried very hard not to fall asleep because I was so worry I would miss the bus stop.
As the minibus turn into the street my school is located, I shout “Stop after the turn! ”, that’s how passengers notified the driver where we get off. After I got off the minibus, I was looking at the name of the school “Chan Tai Man Secondary School” and thinking I would be spending the next three, five or seven years there. It would all depend on whether I could pass the exams at form 3 and form 5. As I was walking in the building, two rows of senior students was standing there to welcome me (I later learned that they were there to check for students’ uniforms, hair styles, contrabands, etc. . I then walked toward the bulletin board to look for my name and what class I was assigned to; I was so happy that I found out there was another person come from the same primary school. Although we were assigned to different classes, a familiar face always helps. After knowing the class room, I started walk upstairs. I found my class room and only a few people in there, I was so surprised when I see there are not only Chinese but also Indian and white. I was told this was an English school but I did not know this was an international school!
I found a seat far away from everyone, worrying how would I respond if they talked to me. I learn only basic English in primary school but I had never talk English in any conversation. Fortunately for me, no one came. While I was waiting, I saw more students came. I was delighted when I saw most of them are Chinese, not knowing many are “ABC” (American Born Chinese) and some are Asian. The school bell finally rang, when the teacher came in. The first sentence was in English, I almost fainted.
Luckily, she explained in Cantonese immediately she was just telling the “ESS” (English Speaking Student), not everyone spoke English and she would explain everything in Cantonese and English. That was the first day in my secondary school, the first time I rode minibus alone, the first time with so many non-Chinese, first time I need to communicate in English. Although it was scary at first, I found it helped my English a lot and I can accustom to my life in US much easier.
