Mr Lee Soon Ching

Mr Lee Soon Ching was a Chemistry teacher. Apart from that he was also the coach/advisor to the school basketball team.

Personally, I have to say that Mr Lee Soon Ching was one of the teachers who played an important role in my career path.

He was our Chemistry teacher for form 4 and form 5. Whe we started learning Chemistry as a subject (instead of part of Integrated Science when we were in form 1 - form 3), he really developed my interest for Chemistry. He was indeed a great Chemistry teacher. The covalent bonds, the ionic bonds, and the electron layers that he described with their orbitals involved, really got me into Chemistry that when I went to Australia, I decided to take up a degree in Chemistry. Even though I eventually got a degree in Applied Mathematics, my passion for Chemistry did not fade. I went on to do my 3rd yr Chemistry (Physical and Inorganic Chemistry, that is) together with Applied Mathematics until I got my BSc (general degree). It was only for the honours year that I had to be more realistic (I always did better in Maths than in Chemistry, no matter how hard I studied for Chemistry) and pursued my honours year in Applied Mathematics instead of P&I Chemistry, even though I was offered to do my honours by both departments.

Now, back to Mr Lee.... I remember how I impressed him when for his first test (form 4) i scored the highest mark of 96% (I got one mistake out of 25 MCQ). From then onwards, I was his favourite student, all the way to form 5, but not for too long....

Form 5 was not my good year. I was faced with so many personal problems that my academic performance started to decline. Chemistry was no exception :-(

I remember I paid less attention in class, and more often than not, I was caught dozing off in class (I couldn't explain myself... I thought I had enough sleep, but somehow I just couldn't focus in class, sigh...).

Then one day, Mr Lee caught me sleeping in class again. He was so angry with me that he threw the chalk towards me and hit my glasses. Everybody in the class went silent!!! Mr Lee actually did that to his favourite student, that was what many thought then.. I was so embarrassed! (But then again, if I was him, I might have done the same thing!). Since that day, I was no longer the model/favourite student ( I don't blame him..). I would try my best to stay away from him.... I don't think I did that badly in the subject, but I was never the smart student anymore.

In January 1986, I started teaching in Penang but in April when my husband was posted to Ipoh, I managed to get posted Sek Men Teknik, Persiaran Brash, Ipoh. Soon I found out that Mr Lee was teaching in the neighbouring Sek Tunku Abdul Rahman (STAR). For the 1987 Chinese New Year I sent Mr Lee a CNY card.

One day, right after school, I saw Mr Lee in my school!! He came to meet the x-student who sent him the greeting card!! I was so happy to be able to meet him again, and I was pretty sure he felt the same way.

I sent him a few more CNY cards, until I was too busy to send any greeting cards... Sadly, now we are no longer in touch. Once I googled his name and found out he was still teaching in Perak. I tried to google him again today, but I only managed to get links to information on the books that was written by him (or someone else of exactly the same name).

If anyone who's reading this blog knows his whereabout, please let me know. I would love to be in touch again with my greatest Chemistry teacher!

I will try to put up his pix later, if I can find any...