The Last English Train Has Left When I Arrived

The last English train had already left when I arrived as village boy at the door of the country's education system.

So I'd just hopped in on the bandwagon of the new education policy and embraced the systems, not knowing whether I should have questioned them or whether I had missed something important.

When I was in Form One, my seniors of three years still had their lessons taught in English, except for Bahasa Malaysia, that is. They had their mathematics, science, history, geography, even arts and literature in English.

I could still remember them talking to each other very fluently in English. Some with British accent.

Somehow, somewhere, sometime in the past, the Malaysian government decided to do away with English as the medium of instruction. When I started Primary One, the medium of instruction had already been switch to Bahasa Malaysia and the English system was all but gone for a couple of years already.

Ah, I had missed the last English train. Things could be different if only they had delayed the train's departure just so that I could hop in and join the ride. Things could have been different today.

Things could not have been this hard. I could have been a man of letters already!