With a princess on a slow bus to town

I mentioned on a previous post about mixing freely with people of other races when I was younger. Mei suggested I write about some of the friends I had and I thought that would be a great thing to do.

I shall start with someone I knew only briefly and whom I have not met or had any contact with since 1983. I shall probably never meet Puteri Suzanna again, but our short friendship is one I thought captures the spirit of the Malaysia I knew.

Puteri Suzanna, or Sue, joined us for the first few months of Lower Form 6 in La Salle PJ. I have no recollection of where she was from and as she did not stay long enough to have her face immortalised in our school magazine, I am left with just a few memories, especially the little story I will now share.

During my Form 5 holidays, I worked for 3 months at the A+W in PJ. It was a great fun time and I made a few friends I've thought about every now and then in the 24 years since. Working at A+W allowed me to practice my Malay even more than I had done in school so much so that by the time I arrived in Form 6 in early 1983, I was more than a little fluent in the language and very comfortable with my Malay classmates in a way that endeared me to them. Especially the girls...

Now, before you start going off on that tangent, let me explain. La Salle was a boys' school, except for Form 6 which was co-ed. La Salle had, then at least, a reputation for a very strong school spirit and exemplary academic as well as sporting performances. It was a great school to be in and the number of students from other schools who arrived to do their STPM (A-levels) in La Salle PJ was testimony to the excellence of the school.

Consequently, we welcomed a large batch of Malay girls to La Salle in 1983, and being the sociable sort and having already spent 11 years in La Salle, I took it upon myself to make friends with all of them and help them settle in. They appreciated it and I instantly made a number of friends who remained close through our 2 years together. Sue was great fun. I remember her to be a short, bubbly girl, with a ready laugh or smile.

One Friday, we made plans to meet up at A+W on the next morning, so early on Saturday, there I was with Sue and a few others (whom I forget now, such was Sue's magnetism). I remember we had our obligatory root beers and we sat around for quite some time. We talked, we laughed, we had a good time in that innocent way new friends do.

It must have been early in the afternoon when one of the girls had to leave and Sue and I decided to accompany her to town. We got on a mini bus and rode in to KL, chatting and laughing all the way. At the end of the journey, our friend alighted and Sue and I, who really had nowhere to go, remained on the bus, intending to go back to PJ. The conductor, a Malay lady, came over and told us this was the last stop. I smiled at her and said in Malay, 'It's OK, we'll just head on back to PJ. Just for fun, you know.'

The conductor studied Sue and I, figured out I wasn't Malay, then smiled as she tore off two new tickets 'This is accepted now, isn't it?'

It took Sue and I a couple of moments to realise what she meant then both of us laughingly protested we were 'just friends'.

Just friends. Perhaps we might have been more, I don't know. We certainly liked each other and in those days, there was a minute tear in the social fabric, a slight 'acceptance' which we might even have taken advantage of, at least through those formative years in Form 6.

We never found out. Sue left La Salle shortly after and I never saw her again.

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