So bullying at school, or even at colleges and universities was one of the hottest topics this year. There were quiet a number of cases – students were tortured by their schoolmates, school kids got bullied and refused to go to school – some even involved deaths. There were cases when students committed suicide because they could no longer take it. Quite surprisingly most of their parents were not aware of the bullying until it was too late but I’m not gonna go any further on that. Not this time.
I might be one of the lucky ones who have never been quite bullied back in school. I did to certain extent get bullied but nothing serious. Bullied mentally perhaps – but never physically. I don’t remember any. Perhaps I was a tough kid, or I went to schools with well-behaved students which I don’t think was quite the case because I did hear about some other students getting bullied. Even when I went to one of the top boarding schools in the country bullying did happen. I was just lucky I never got targeted. May be because I happened to hang out with some of the tough kids at school so all the bullies couldn’t find their way near to me. Or perhaps I was one of the bullies.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-bully.htm
But I remember when I enrolled at a boarding school in Keningau (my hometown in Sabah) where most of the students came from the far corners of the surrounding districts. And I was placed in a dorm with 5 other kids and they were all younger than I was. So being quite the senior at least by age since we were all in the same batch of students who had occupied the newly-opened hostel before others, I took full advantage of it by asking them to do things for me.
I’d ask them to wash my clothes, go and buy things from the canteen which was located high on the hill, carry my books, just to name a few. These kids brought their innocence with them from their remote villages so they didn’t really know how to say no to somebody who was obviously bullying them. But there was one particular kid who didn’t seem quite happy with the way I imposed tasks on them. He was beginning to show protest, bit by bit, until one day when he could no longer take it.
He kinda burst it out in front of everybody, telling me that his father had a black magic that can anytime turn my life into a misery, and that this daddy of his also had 7 gurus that ranked high in the black magic world in Indonesia. The people of the district that he came from were quite famous for practicing black magic back then so I could quite digest what he was saying.
http://www.bullyfreezone.co.uk/
But when he said that his whole body could turn BLUE when he got angry (probably much angrier that he already was, perhaps there was some level of angriness that he needed to reach to turn him blue LOL!) and that I did not want him to turn blue or ‘you’ll be so sorry you’ve ever messed with me’ as he described it, that was when Incredible Hulk flashed on in my mind. I knew right then that he was bullshitting so I jumped off my bed and kicked him and I kicked him real hard.
I don’t exactly remember what happened next but I do remember that he did not turn blue LOL. It would be a couple of months before I decided that hostel was not really for me so I sent a letter of apology to the chief warden (he helped me in even though my house was quite close to the school) and returned to my heading-home-after-school routine.
Fast forward to my uni years when I landed in KK for a semester break with a friend of mine. His parents came to pick us up at the airport and they took us to a rather exclusive restaurant in town. We ordered quite a spread of food and looking at the prices on the menu, I knew they were going to cost us a bomb. So when it was time to leave and we asked for the bill, one of the waiters came up and told us that the bill had already been taken care of. So we all went “huh??” almost simultaneously.
The smiling waiter pointed in the direction of the kitchen and we all turned to look. A young guy in a white uniform with a high toque on his head waved at us from behind the kitchen bar counter.
https://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Chef
I didn’t immediately recognize him but his wide smile looked like something that I had seen somewhere in the past. And sure enough, when I walked over to him, it was him – the guy that I bullied back at school, the one who claimed he could turn blue when he got angry. I gave him a firm handshake, and he returned it with an even much firmer one. Perhaps, he was trying to send me a message through that exaggerated handshake. Perhaps he was saying without saying that he could have done something with the food. LOL.
But judging from our little conversation that day, it was quite obvious that he had long moved on. We both had moved on. I mean, that’s how we deal with life right? We move on from the past. Heh.