Friday, July 02, 2004
If you have always thought that convent girls are
chatty, flirtatious and bitchy, well, you're right.
At least according to two "ex-Cons" - actresses Koh Chieng Mun, 44 and Irene Ang, 35. The two former convent girls will share their saucy school stories and perform stand-up comedy in Confessions of Two Ex-Cons on Saturday. Their act will also include "confessions" sent to them from other ex-convent girls.
The performance is among a slew of activities for the two-day True Blue - An IJ Arts Fest at Chijmes this weekend to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ) group of 11 schools and homes.
Said Koh: "Oh, all those traits; it's all true. You can spot a convent girl from a mile away! When IJ girls get together, you'll always hear endless chatter, loud laughter and uninhibited behaviour!"
Koh spent her primary and secondary school days from 1966 to 1975 at the then Town Convent, so named because the first CHIJ school, opened in 1854, was located at Victoria Street. The premises are now home to the dining and entertainment hub Chijmes.
Ang, who is Rosie in sitcom Phua Chu Kang, studied in CHIJ Kellock Primary from 1974-1979.
On the naughtiest things she did in those days, Koh said: "I remember, in Secondary 3, a group of six of us played hokey and went to the ice-skating rink a few times for a few months just to catch the good-looking instructors there.
"We'd ask them to 'tutor' us so we could get up close and get free lessons, too," she said, in between laughs.
That ended when the head prefect caught them and reported them to the principal.
Ang said: "I used to lie to my teacher when returning my spelling books. I said I lost them whenever I had bad grades to avoid getting my parents to sign them."
She was only found out many years later when her grandmother saw the books under her bed.
But it was the infamous Capitol bus-stop, the one where the secondary school St Joseph's Institution boys and CHIJ girls wait for their buses, that saw a lot of action and held a lot of memories for many of the old girls.
Said Koh: "We got this letter from an old girl who said she used to
open the windows of her classroom, which faced that bus-stop, and shout and whistle at the SJI boys. When they looked, she and her friends ducked. This went on for a year till the principal received complaints from the public."
Ang added: "Of course, we've got a lot of stories... a lot on the Capitol bus-stop! Things like how the girls used secret codes to meet the boys."
But these, she said rather coyly, will be included as part of the 45-minute act. The highlight of their act is a segment on the ABCs of the traits that make a convent girl.
As the cliche goes,
convent girls are either lesbians or sluts.
Ang, who confessed to dating only water polo boys during her secondary school days, reasoned: "It's a growing-up process and it's only natural for the girls, especially for those in the same-sex schools, to like someone they look up to. But it's mostly harmless and they grow out of it."
Said Koh, who admits that she was one of those who hiked up her uniform skirt: "Maybe it's because we look 'havoc'. We were overt and blatant about hiking up the skirt, folding up the sleeves and maybe a few buttons come off. It's how we 'operate'!"
"But I also think that it offered an all-round education with the moral values and the emphasis, during my time, on appreciating the arts."
humm...read the article?
well so far..loads of IJ pl are unhappy about it..
haiz..im sitting on the fence though.
but some parts are really..what...like the lesbian part..
thats too much.
` repeat-
