The desire to improve knows no barriers.

Once upon a time there was a little boy who desired to improved himself as he saw the advantages of education in the knowledge people possessed, the clarity with which they could explain things, the jobs people had, the money people earned, the food people ate, the clothes people wore, the vehicles people used and the understanding people mastered.

However, in those days education was not free. There were fees to be paid. There were books to be bought and such things were comparatively expensive. Many of the children of poor families had to drop out of school as a result of inability to pay for education. One of his friends, Sathasivam, had to stop schooling even though he was one of those bright students who had made it to the Penang Free School, the school where only the top students of the state were chosen to continue their secondary school education.

Each year's end saw students gathered at certain places to resell their used books so as to collect sufficient funds to buy the next year's textbooks. Sometimes, the money from such a sale was insufficient for the purchase of required books and this could lead to a number of problems. If luck was on your side, there were kind souls from better financial families who could lend you the books. However, this was not always the case. One such kind soul was Ong Keng Kok who was also a Penang Free School boy then. (Hope you are still around, Ong Keng Kok, to read this to know how appreciative this guy is. Your kind deed forty-eight years ago is remembered to this day.)

There was hardly enough cash for books, what more magazines and newspapers. The one important factor in the improvement of any language, other than an environment conducive to its learning, is interesting reading material. So, as a child from a poor family, where can interesting reading material be found?

Of course, the library is a good place to get interesting reading material. However, when one is too young to venture into another part of town where the library is situated, what can be done? Newspapers contain a lot of interesting everyday affairs but if the family cannot afford them, what can be done?

Well, I was that little boy who, in my primary school days, wanted to read so much but could not afford the purchase of newspapers or books. So, what did I do? I read old newspapers. Well, old newspapers were used very often in those days to wrap food and other items purchased. Upon reaching home, such newspapers are thrown away, left on tables and all over the place. Whenever I found such clean old newspapers, I would read them and in my hunger for words, I would read everything printed, even advertisements. That was good as advertisements gave a lot of adjectives and there were ways with words to illustrate ideas. In fact, reading of such old pieces of papers help my improvement so well that I was able to confidently converse with British tourists. An uncle noticed my capability and the next time I saw him, I was presented with a dictionary, my first new book.

Later, when I was allowed to walk to another part of town alone, I went to the library, I borrowed books from the USIS library in Beach Streer(the United States Information Services Library) and the British Council Library in bishop Street where memberships were free.

My love for books has given me greater understanding of almost every aspect of life. Today, besides the library and subscibed magazines such as The Readers' Digest, I venture into the internet where almost everything is available.

And knowledge is so vast with so many new discoveries that there is no fear that it can run out. There is still so much to learn and experience just as medical science and outer space has so much more to explore and understand. Humans are still confronted with so many problems which have yet to get solutions. Life is indeed full of adventure as new knowledge leads one to greater understanding and joy in life; understanding and joy which could have prevented an unwanted incident in our lives.