Lasan Taberd

(Lasan Taberd is the name of an old Catholic school, built during the time period when France invaded Vietnam. It is now both a junior high and high school reserved for students who are gifted in different subjects, with English and Chemistry making up the largest numbers. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend it during my junior high years, which was in 2007.)



Suddenly, the memory just came back to me.


It was a steamy Saturday. Of course, if you didn't belong to a team or an afternoon extra class, you wouldn't be dumb enough to stick around and enjoy all that melting heat around you. Fortunately, I was a member, so I enjoyed every ray of heat the glaring sun pointed at me.

Since class wasn't going to start for another two hours, I decided to go sightseeing. Quite a bit ashamed to say that I had never left the classroom to explore those old, mossy and antique-smelling walls of Lasan Taberd during my first two and a half years at that place. Passing by the old ninth-grader floor, which changes every year until today, a couple was kissing passionately between empty wooden doors.

Now, you have to understand that kissing in a school environment in Vietnam was basically...taboo.

Yes, you are allowed to show your love through holding hands, saying "I love you" to the other, or writing each other letters, but openly showing your love through any other physical contact other than your hands will earn you a tea-drinking session with the supervisors. All of you who never went through an education career in Vietnam or anywhere close to it probably can't comprehend such a thing.

But that never meant it had stopped anyone from doing what they desired to. After all, it's human nature to seek for the banned fruits, the things locked up behind bars of secret, is it?

And so I walked off, part blushing, part feeling funny, which ended in me bursting into laughter spontaneously (which is something I tend to do a lot.)



I never saw the couple again after that day.

Oh junior high, I couldn't like you after what you did to me, but I could never hate you enough.
You're old and crumbling day by day, but your stories will never fade in the corridors of my mind.

Oct 15.