To Sir, with Love (Reevaluation after a Decade)

A decade ago, on a fine spring morning in my sunny little hometown known as “the big mountain”, I was first introduced to that garage as my new classroom. As I recall the very sight of that little garage, every sweet memory of it comes pouring down as a sequence in a colorful motion picture flickering through the back of my brain.

Meeting my teacher,whom all of us addressed as “sir”, for the first time naturally gave me an excitement and joy before plunging into the world of the unknown. I was a fifteen year old clean slate back then. That same day marked a significant turning point from the seemingly endless years of sufferings, as much oppressed and freedom-deprived as one could ever imagine to be, being a high school student to a more self-reliant man of character who can think for himself.

Most importantly, “sir” was the one. The one who broadened my view of the inextricably haywire world, the one who gave me a kind of distinctiveness in the crowd, the one who taught me to be feisty but respectful and confident but humble. He is the one—the one who somehow managed to make me fall in love with the language that I cherish the most.

Yet the respected and highly spoken of sir’s classroom was far from being grand and glamorous. It was a mere run-down garage filled with what seems to be a century old dining table together with an old table clock on top of it and wobbly benches on the sides large enough to barely accommodate five students on each side.

Despite the physical condition, what I received from sir’s run-down garage was the utter truth, the unspoken honesty, the castle of knowledge, the invaluable and immeasurable personal asset for life.

To this day, every time I come across shabby old garages or well-worn dining tables, I smile. I smile wholeheartedly as I remember the tiny classroom from the other corner of the world— I smile as I remember the tiny classroom that I once was in and the tiny classroom that radiates rays of hopes and dreams—situating on top of that big beloved mountain that I once passionately climbed...