Take on posts compatible with our nature.

At the time my beloved wife got the position of senior assistant in a Mandarin-medium primary school in Kedah, we were so happy for her. We believed it could bring her even greater happiness in the field of education. I gave her my full support. As the school was quite a distance from our home and having not driven a car for many years, we looked for transport for her. So, each morning, we had to wake up earlier than was our practice then so that she could reach the home of another teacher who could take her to the school. That was an effort I gladly put in.

What we did not realise then were the type of people she could encounter in such a position as the headmistress. In time, I found out that in Chinese schools, many of the ladies who occupy the post of headmistress are hard-hearted demons who would terrorise those under them at the slightest excuse, first and foremost to ensure that the opportunities for whatever promotion that exists would be theirs and theirs only.

My poor wife was to discover that that headmistress ruled with a Chinese saying which means, 'Each competitor you kill off entrenches you in the position at the top.' Thus, she was always trying her level best to search for weaknesses in the teachers in her school and criticise them openly and severely.

I heard from another teacher in the school that a temporary teacher in a class was scolded in front of her pupils. How cruel and inconsiderate that headmistress was to take away the dignity of a person in front of her pupils.

And there was one stressed teacher who was so nervous she almost had a breakdown, yet was only allowed one day off despite presenting a medical certificate for a two day leave. I was flabbergasted to hear that. I protested that the teacher concerned should have stood up to point out that she is certainly entitled to rest and lodge a complaint on the matter. The reply was that that was tantamount to fighting the authority. According to the teacher, it could lead to serious consequences with certain suffering on her part. At that time, I could hardly believe whatever imagined consequential hardship was possible in the present civilised times. That was until my own wife told me of the misery of being under such a headmistress.

To impress my wife with her power, the headmistress gave her excessive duty despite her own light work load. In the General Orders(Is the term correct?), there is stipulated the maximum number of teaching periods a senior assistant can be given each week. Despite having to put in more time at school and struggling to complete her reports and whatnot, she did not grumble or complain as she told me she was new there and wanted very much to get along with everyone in the school, especially the head. Well, if she was willing to strive hard to please, who was I to complain especially when her action was logical although I saw injustice and bullying tactics. In fact such injustice and bullying tactics can be found in quite a number of Chinese schools if we follow the stories from teachers.

When the headmistress wanted my wife to write a letter, sometimes in the Malaysian Language and sometimes in English, she does not want to look at a drafted letter, even when her opinion and the wording of the letter must be as she desired them. She would make my wife type the letter on a typewriter in school before she looked at it. Then, she would change the words and demanded that it be typed again before she did another possible change to the letter. In this way, it took my wife a number of changes to have just one letter approved. And she was no authority on the Malay Language or the English Language. Yet, she had corrected a word rightly used with a wrongly used word in both the languages more than once. Especially for the letter in English, I told my wife to tell her that there ought to be no correction as the word used was right but my wife had by then understood that it was useless to have such a person admit to her mistake.

Then, there was the time my wife was sent to represent the school to attend a district sports meeting in which every school had to accept a duty in preparation for the sports meet. Even though knowing that to be the normal arrangement, to make things difficult, the headmistress told my wife not to agree to any duty given. What a dilemma! Of course, she came back with a duty but the headmistress insisted that she was given orders not to accept any duty and so she has to perform the duty all on her own. Imagine what kind of a school head would do that! And the next meeting, she was not even allowed to get to the meeting on time. At that time, I was too incensed to allow my wife to bottle up her frustration. I insisted that a report had to be made to head of the district education department. We were directed to the head of the Chinese schools there who happened to be the headmistress' friend. Oh, my gosh! Of course, nothing came out of that complaint. It only brought the wrath of the headmistress on the complainant, certainly not what we hoped for.

All these caused my wife to be depressed. As her depression got worse, I personally lodged a complaint with the state's education department, pushing my way to the top man, demanding that I be heard. As a result, my wife eventually got a transfer to another school but the stress and strain was beginning to tell. She weakened and finally came down with stomach ulcer. Upon being operated, she was infected with a virus which has no cure. This was followed by Cushing Syndrome. Weakening through many months into her hospitalisation, she succumbed to pneumonia.

I believe it was the stress that brought on the ulcer. Before that she had always been healthy. Perhaps she was not tough enough to face the cruel treatment meted out. To this day, I regret being so happy to encourage her to take on that post.

Looking back, not every post is suitable for us even when we have the capability and talent to work hard at it. So, should the workload becomes too much of a burden, too stressful, then we should not wait for sickness to make and stop and think of helping our body get out of the situation. I have seen people with cancer recover faster and better when they take a long leave from work, perhaps one year, to give their body a chance to recover. Perhaps, our nature is such that certain posts may present problems. When faced with such a situation, save yourself from further damage.

P.S.: I think this also applies to relationships and marriage. I have seen examples of this and so may write about it another day.)