Class 1965
Articles and News of Class 1965
Lunch hosted by John Fung. Please click the image to view the happy moments.
Andrew Zee
Thank you Adrian and all of you who attended the farewell mass to send off Father Mallin, I have no recollection of him ever teaching my class. I especially like the Prayer of St. Ignatius, it is not overly sentimental, just describes my feeling towards God that He gave us life and will receive us when our time comes. No mentioning of sins or anything religious. The Jesuits have got it right.
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James Tong
He must be the last two Jesuits in WYK when we were there. The other is Fr.. Naylor who was substitute teacher of Biology when I was in F. 3.
Fr. Mallin took over from Fr. O'Neile was chapel choir master around 1963 or 1964. He was also our English literature teacher in 1962 or 1961. I remember he said the name of the knight "front de boeuf" in French and only Benny Wu could pronounce it. He also taught us "Oliver Twist". I remember he made a wry remark how a crook and gangster like Bill Sykes could charm naive young women like Nancy to give her all, ignoring all his glaring faults. But having seen Trump and his supporters, truth is more strange than fiction.
I have copied his method to call on individual students to quiz them on passages in the previous class for around 5 minutes, a useful way of refreshing memory and get them reoriented to the class after exhilarating PT or boring chemistry.
As chapel choir master, we went on Christmas caroling and he played Irish gigs while the Columban nuns at the Ruttunjee hospitals winged their skirts and danced. An unforgettable sight. He also treated us to a Christmas dinner at Cherikoff in Tsimshatsui after a movie. I think it was "Westward to Alaska". Now I also treated my A and A- as well as international students -- Singaporean, Indonesia's, Thai, Swedish, Italians, Germans, Chinese and Hong Kong (including 李念弘's Nephew, believe it or not), and my only gypsy student (incredibly smart, both parents were Yale professors). I also treated my students to "Sound of Music" at the Hollywood Bowl, and LA Tennis Tournaments featuring Agassi, Sempra and Michael Chang. Is has made me financially poor but existentially rich. Thanks to the example of Fr. Mallin and the Jesuits.
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Vincent Lee
James, Thank you so much for your message in memory of Fr. Mallin, so rich in love and culture. I'm sure he had enriched your life and indirectly your own encounters with your students, which no doubt they would in turn treasure for the rest of their lives.
My encounter with Fr. Mallin was not much in a "cultural" environment. As I had alluded to as often as I talked about him, it was a loving and inspiring one throughout the ~10 months of one to one instructions once a week on Thursdays after school up to my baptism at Christmas 2014. It had, and still has enriched my life beyond my imagination.
I too learned to sing "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" - with the boy scouts around campfires. I remember the couple of class picnics with Fr. Mallin; he walked fast, and was chatty. The only occasion I could recall he ever raised his voice was directed to Dermot Chan for sleeping in class - probably also snoring.....!
I also recall a movie he went with us at 大華 Theatre (was it called the Majestic Theatre?), a fund raising event, name of the movie "One Minute To Zero", staring Robert Michum..... A war movie? Can't remember much about it.
I too often treat my students, in fact introduced to many for their first times ever to traditional Chinese dinners - they loved "finger foods" like Peking duck....., and the duck bone soup! and dimsum. I would also invite a table of current and past students to our clinic's annual Christmas dinners. They are not as varied as yours in ethnic origins, mostly Caucasian Canadians, often Chinese from the mainland (who came over as pre-teenage kids), the odd Blacks and East Indians. They still talk about the meals and gatherings years later when I run into them in meetings, conferences, and in missions. A great feeling I'm sure you'd appreciate when you reconnect with your past students.
It's never easy to say permanent goodbye to someone you have so much love and respect for, and indebtedness to, like a parent, a mentor, and for me Fr. Mallin and Fr. Chan. We have the hope and the assurance from the risen Lord that we will meet again!
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April 14, 2018 at the St. Ignatius Chapel in Wah Yan College, Kowloon at 10:00 am
This batch contains photos taken from a hike to Lion Rock on 2018 April 8.
In general, we take a hike once weekly, normally on Saturday
The hiking group includes ----
John Shek, Leslie Chang, Adrian Leung ( regular hikers )
Regis Lo, Francis Leung, Rod Fu of 63 ( occasional )
KC Lee, Bonbon Ho, Tony Fong ( from Overseas )
Click the image to view the album.
We were strolling on Nathan Road near Waterloo Road, and struck up a conversation with an elderly gentleman. It turned out that he lives in Brighton, UK, here in HK for a visit. Then he was so excited that I went to WYK. He said he was in WYK the first year that it moved to the Waterloo campus He was literally jumping off the ground when he found out that we were both graduates of Kowloon Tong School. He said his name something phonetically like 吳樹基. He named teachers like 長衫佬, 柴叔. What an incredible connection!