For the first part of this blog series, click here.
TSA 120. The glorious 120th Anniversary Celebration of our dear alma mater Tiong Se Academy, the oldest in the country. One word to describe everything that has transpired: unbelievable.
Sure I have crammed myself into doing something major in the past, but I was never this tired. Now that everything is done, when I look back, I always feel it was just utterly hard to believe that we actually made it!
November. One month. Six events. Three of which I have personal involvement in the organization. The school had Student Ground Demonstration (November 8), Student Work Exhibit (November 16), Grand Celebration (November 16), Repeat Performance (November 18), and Grand Alumni Homecoming by the TSA Alumni Youth (November 30). But the most taxing for me is the TSA Historical Exhibit (which by the way is still open until February 2020) at the Chinatown Museum.
As early as 2012, when the idea of applying for the historical marker from the National Historical Commission came up, I volunteered in searching for facts about the beginning of the school. Difficulty is 100. 1899 is not a good year to start with. Very limited sources we had. Actually one of my blog posts is about that topic. Thankfully we have Ma’am Tessie Ang (she’s from Tiong Se) and extended her hand. Long story short, Tiong Se got its desired historical marker in September 2014.
So, that’s it. We got what we wanted. It’s the end. Bye old books and all that.
But perhaps the pioneers of Tiong Se Academy were still not satisfied with what we had achieved, I can imagine up in Heaven they are discussing whether we have told the entire story of Tiong Se or not.
When the present version of Chinatown Museum was in the tangible works in 2018, the museum people came up with having an exhibit for TSA (albeit temporarily), primarily to honor the historical significance of the first and oldest Chinese school in the Philippines. We say, it is a marvelous idea. It is a museum after all.
July 2019 when we started discussing the details. Hundreds upon hundreds of revisions to the e-files were made, and you know what, the actual production started only in the last days of October. For everybody’s information, the opening was scheduled November 8. Because we are working for a museum, absolute facts and pictures are priority, and to just validate each and every detail, grammatical checks and Chinese character inspection included, is very excruciating. And again, we have to do it in two weeks!
We were able to finish the input in one week’s time, the finalization phase started thereafter. I thought I can freely move by that time, I sacrificed my semestral break for this, but heck no. We were still keeping in touch with the printing team until the actual installation of exhibit hours before the opening. I and the Principal left the area 1:00AM November 8.
Seeing the exhibit in the opening day, I was satisfied. I think in the future, I can look shamelessly at the forefathers of this great institution, I am confident I did not disappoint them. It is very gratifying for me as a Tiongseian, because the Chinatown Museum has given our school its rightful place in its abode of history. For that, I am forever thankful.
It is in my understanding, that not all people are gonna appreciate the past. But regardless of what the general public is saying about the exhibit right now, THIS is my thing, to uncover history and tell as much as I can to those who are eager to listen. You know, I had the struggle of knowing the past because there is nobody present from that era to tell the story; I was just relying on the old anniversary books (some of them are written in old Chinese) and undergo a dreadful (sorry for the word) reading of their accounts about the school’s past. So here I am, truly honoured to have this kind of opportunity.
For a school that has been through a lot of struggles in these past decades, to come up with this enormous project, is just surprising. Indeed a jingxi.
For me, the efforts from 2012 up to 2019 were not in vain.
Thanks for reading. Happy New Decade to all of you! God be with you also!
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