Jointly by:
Isabel Goh Ern Zi (Sr1ScB)
Thian Yi-Ming (Sr1ScD)
Ming Xuen Amelia (Sr1A)
On the 23rd of September, Kuen Cheng High School celebrated its 111th anniversary of providing invaluable and quality education since its founding on 13th September 1908. The theme of this year’s event is “川” or chuan. This Chinese character is chosen from the Chinese idiom the unending stream to symbolize Kuen Cheng’s never-ending mission of keeping the Chinese culture and tradition alive. This unique Chinese character can also double as a creative way to express the number, 111. The two strokes on the left and right can also symbolize our students and teachers who contribute to Kuen Cheng, represented by the middle stroke. Combined, the three strokes reflect Kuen Cheng’s uniquely distinct culture, our spirit of innovation and courage as well as our active contribution towards society.
Despite of the worsening haze, the students were buzzing with excitement as they came together to celebrate, highlight and remember what our school has gone through to reach its prestigious status today. Once the students of levels Junior One, Senior One and Senior Three were seated in the hall along with our school teachers, the emcees announced the arrival of our guest of honour of the day, Vice Secretary of the school board, Madam Chow Sow Fong who was accompanied into the hall by our Deputy Principal, Madam Chong Siew Fah.
Madam Chow was invited on the stage to give a speech to everyone present. In her lively speech, students and teachers alike were taken on a trip down memory lane on Kuen Cheng’s eventful and inspiring past. Kuen Cheng’s everlasting spirit of perseverance, creativity, warmth as well unity was ignited in the hearts of our school’s students from Madam Chow’s enlightening address which continued to burn strongly even after the speech had ended. Madam Chow also acknowledges the kindness, innovation, openness and willingness from all concerned to participate in new activities within the school.
Following that, another short speech was also given by our beloved Principal, Dr Chua Lee Lee. She stated that our journey from 18 students back in the old days to 4600 students now was not an easy feat and urged all our students to be grateful and thankful towards the contributions and sacrifices made by our forefounders and all those who have led to the development of our school. Students were also encouraged to preserve and spread our mother tongue, Chinese language. Madam Chua stated that the school would try their best to help students find out their strength and weaknesses as well as their interests so that they will be able to illuminate those strength in the future to support themselves and give back to society.
The baton was then handed on to the presidential team of the anniversary organising committee. The President, Wong Heng Yan together with co-presidents, Hoong Miin Rwe and Jesselnathaniel Koh Giap Hiang gave a speech thanking all teachers and clubs involved in making this event a success, respectively in Chinese, Malay and English.
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Finally, the long awaited moment has arrived, that is the opening ceremony of the celebration. Madam Chow and Madam Chua were invited on the stage once again to officiate by pressing two buttons respectively on the count of three. At the push of the buttons, cheers erupted in the hall and a short clip of our school’s history was shown to the audience.
Next up, the winners of the anniversary themed flag designing competition was announced for both senior and junior categories. All the teachers were then invited on the stage for a brief cake cutting ceremony to commemorate 111 years since the school’s founding. With strong gratitude towards the contributing members of our school, awards were handed out to those selected few who have sacrificed their time and effort to the school tremendously. Awards for the runner ups and consolation prize winners of the flag designing competition were also presented.
To help our students understand our school’s history better, a few minutes long video prepared by the organising committee was played. In the video, major developments and changes in the school system throughout the past seven years were acted out by our students with a slightly comical touch to bring the video to life. Skilful acting combined with seamless editing made the video more fun to watch compared to the plain old boring textbook style of learning history.
Everyone present was then treated to two very interesting and fresh performances. The first up was Crosstalk Show based on our school history, presented by two of our students. Through this rarely seen performance, the two performers were able to promote the traditional art of witty conversation which originated from China. The event was then ended by a short performance from a live band who presented their own rendition of two songs which were close to the heart of KCians that is the Ode to a Hundred Years and To Nurture a Person, putting their unique twist to the two classic songs.
The event was a huge success as students were able to bring home something very valuable that is the reaffirmation of the Kuen Cheng spirit in all of us KCians. From the planning to the execution, every minor detail was given attention to ensure that there would be no problem during the actual event, once again proving Kuen Cheng’s ability to nurture matured, rational and diligent students in reflection of what has been highlighted during the program flow of the event itself.
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