“Walk down the memory lane”, I guess lots of people had heard the phrase before. But, I did walk down the Green Lane instead. My secondary school is located at the top of a small hill in Seremban. In the eighties, the street’s name used to be Green Lane. Nowadays it is called Jalan Penghulu Cantek. But it’s Green Lane to me all right. Our school is surrounded by bungalows that have big courtyards. But we hardly saw anybody in or out the house. It seemed that they really treasured their privacy. The owners have expensive sport cars. And yet we seldom see any cars on the road except for the teachers’ and parents’ during the weekend. Its neighbourhood was quiet and serene. The noise would only come from us. Yes, I have to admit I miss walking down the Green Lane every day.

The hostel is still separated from the academic building like it used to be. The four buildings i.e. Hostel A, B, C, and D looks the same as it was thirty years ago and so is the dining hall and its famous stairs; ‘the Cinderella Stairs” as we called it. Looking at the hostel, dining hall, Cinderella stairs and badminton courts, brought back all the memories of five years living there. Those were the best years yet. We had to walk to the academic building. But it was quite safe to use the road all day long, be it morning, afternoon, evening or night. The academic area also did not change at all. Block A, Block B, the library and the lecture theatre pretty much looked the same, felt the same. I couldn’t help smiling remembering I used to sit between the shelves to read the classic novels in the library. Yes, too many memories that is still fresh like it was yesterday I raced my friends to the dining hall from the science lab.

Not all the building remained in the school. For instance, the Art Building where we used to paint and draw was gone and replaced by two-storey semi-detached houses for the wardens. The Art building was actually a two storey wooden house which was full of beautiful paintings drawn by the pioneer batches till ours collected and appreciated by our art’s teachers. It was situated in the hostel area. It was quite sad when I thought of the old building, gone forever. Apart from the art’s house, the skating ring which was in front of Hostel A had gone too. It was replaced by a basketball court. The tennis court behind Block A was also turned into a car park. I guess the students or teachers had quit playing tennis anymore.

When I looked at my surrounding, my mind kept repeating, “I used to play here”, “This is where I raced with my best friends”, “Hey, this is our music room”, “This classroom was where we learned English”, “I remember Mr Wong my add math teacher”, “Cikgu Juriah is the best biology teacher ever”, “Puan Hairiah was my homeroom advisor”, and so on and so forth. I had the best of five years of learning here and I didn’t regret coming back to visit my beloved secondary school here. Yes, I had to admit there had been a few changes there. But the changes that happened in my old school are for the better.