Find Mooi!
When I first arrived from Malaysia and went to high school here, there were two distinct classes of Asian kids. There was the “fresh off the boats” that me and my immediate clique of Malaysian, Singaporean, Filipino and Indonesian friends were in. And then there were the ABCs - Australian-born Chinese (and other Asians) and those who had been living in Australia since kindergarten or primary school at least.
You can easily tell us apart from the way we interacted with the Anglos. The FOBs tend to hang around each other, and those Anglos whom we usually get along with were the geekier types - we were kindred spirits in some ways. The ABCs were more confident and inter-mingled quite easily. Some were considered more cool than others, but in general they were more in tune with general Aussie humour and how things work.
In the ABC bunch, I remembered a kid whom I had a mancrush on way before the term “mancrush” was even invented. He was quite good looking, was in the school basketball team, popular with “the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads” (kinda like an Asian Ferris Bueller), and had alternated between hot Aussie girlfriends and hot Asian girlfriends. The guy was basically what every FOB, and even some ABCs wanted to be.
His hair was always immaculately coiffed in that venerable late 80s, early 90s look (so cool!). We all wore the same uniform but he always made it look good. And my day would inevitably become a good day if he talked and had acknowledged me in school. Well, either him or the myriad of girls on whom I had crushes on.
Anyways, as I got more self-confident and comfortable in my surroundings my mancrush for him lessened. I remember seeing him a few times during my time in uni. In a bigger sea of popular kids, he was just average now. And sometimes he looked it too.
The reason for this post was because I suddenly thought of him as I was drifting off to sleep last night (what the?!?!). I searched on Facebook, and I googled but I couldn’t find him anywhere. I wonder what he’s doing, and how he looks like now. I swear I’m gonna be thinking about him for the rest of the day. But yeah, I’m telling you this in secret. So don’t go telling anyone else alright? 
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15 Responses to “My high school mancrush”
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Mar 30 2008 / 4:21 pm
That must be you, the last one in the front row, with round glasses.
What were you thinking before drifting off to sleep?!!
My Thailand friend also belonged to that FOB category. His parents sent him to Australia when he was in his teens. He couldn’t speak English and had a hard time fitting in. He clung on to the other FOBs in the beginning but as time went on, he became more comfortable outside their clique. Now that he loves the Australian lifestyle, his parents have summoned him back to Thailand to help in the family business. He’s back to trying to fit in again.
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Mar 30 2008 / 7:33 pm
you, far right. front row. the man crush is 5th from right, last row ?
yeah, first when i studied in aussie, it’s so hard to understand what anglo’s are saying, because it seemed they’re talking so fast and I catch no balls. But 4 years on. I speak like that as well now !
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Mar 31 2008 / 7:00 am
blur ting: very easy to guess which one is me. And no I don’t know what I was thinking when I drifted off to sleep.
herman: nope - mancrush was not in my home room.
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Mar 31 2008 / 7:55 pm
Looked like u are either having dark shades or u have black eyes from fighting =D. Enjoy ur blog immensely. Keep it up.
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Mar 31 2008 / 9:26 pm
virtousity: just like how Hypercolor T-shirts were misguidedly cool, so were auto-transition spectacle lenses. Hahah!
And thanks for reading!
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Mar 31 2008 / 11:00 pm
oh no, are you swinging the other way?!!
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Apr 01 2008 / 4:23 am
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Apr 01 2008 / 9:03 am
school crushes are so damn schweet eh?!
i always wonder what those cool pple in school are doing years later. and how they deal with their mundane selves if they so become.
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Apr 01 2008 / 1:15 pm
It’s funny you talk about the two classes of Asian kids as it was EXACTLY the same in my school!
We had one big ‘asian group’ who were mostly FOBs (a few weren’t but they nonetheless acted like the FOBs and refused to interact with anyone who wasn’t asian). This group would very much keep to themselves and barely interact with the anglos, if at all. They would dress in asian fashions, have photos of asian pop stars on their folder, and often speak in their native tongue.
We also had the ABCs who were pretty much just like us except with asian skin. They had predominantly anglo friends, acted just like we did, and dated aussie guys.
If we talked about the ‘Asian group’ we were always referring to the FOBs and never the ABCs…we didn’t even really think of the ABCs as asian cause there were exactly like us.
Anyway, interesting….oh yeah, and I think you are front row, far right! -
Apr 01 2008 / 3:06 pm
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Apr 05 2008 / 10:52 pm
Mooi,
Is the guy’s initial KK? You just reminded me of him. Such a long tim ego. I thought he was cool too. -
Apr 05 2008 / 10:53 pm
Li Peng: correct!
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Jul 18 2008 / 10:31 pm
Hi Mooi
I like the topics you choose to write about. I also enjoy your frank, funny and unselfconscious style of writing. Nice work.
But back to the topic, I find lots of people who were super cool at high school peaked way too early. So even though I can understand your curiousity, I agree with your last statement that it may actually be better to not find out what your mancrush is doing now. I’m not saying for sure that he’s got two ex-wives, is living in a depressing bedsit and survives by doing casual nightfill at Woolies but you never know… Don’t destroy the memories!
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Jul 19 2008 / 10:32 am
nat: Hi Nat! Thank you for the kind words!
I agree about the cool ppl fading away after high school. I guess when we were kids, we evaluate coolness differently. One often wonders why did we ever think someone was cool before.
[...] I was young, I wanted to be cool. Or have cool friends. Now I realise. Being cool is superficial and pointless. Nobody cares after you leave high [...]