This movie shows Singapore kids in the 90s face the same problems today

The days when exchanging uniforms were still fun.

Medha Lim| August 20, 04:05 PM

Long before your time, even older than the current adolescent hits of “You’re the Apple of my Eye” or “That Girl in Pinafore”, there was this hit product by Singaporean writer/lawyer/graduation day awesome speech giver Adrian Tan called “The Teenage Textbook”.

It’s a straight formula, comically illustrating situations school-going boys and girls of Paya Lebar Junior College find themselves in. You may find that the following scenarios from the 1998 movie are still repeating themselves in today’s schools. Especially when everyone’s new and checking each other out.

 

1. Calling each other just as friends to “set up another couple”, then surprisingly, you two are the ones who end up as a couple.

 

2. When you like the class brain who happens to be cute (!), you try to appeal to his inner kindness to help you with your tutorials. No better place than the library, of course.

 

3. Ambiguous moments where you don’t know if he’s looking at you (but in reality, he’s checking the cute girl next to you).

 

(Voiceover) Mui Ee: “What does that look mean? Is it just a ‘Hello ;)’ look, or even a ‘Oh~ Hello ;)’ look, or what if it’s a ‘Hello, I really like you’ look. I can’t tell from here.

 

4. Boy finds that friend got the girl first. Boy sad with ice cream melting for effect.

 

5. There’s always the hopeful gossip of teacher interested in teacher who isn’t interested in said teacher.

 

6. No matter where your school is, you can always make time to go down to Orchard Road.

 

7. After your date, always wait together at the bus stop for the bus to come. (check out that awesome retro SBS logo)

 

8. Sometimes, inter-personal communication fails (especially with parents who enforce curfews and kill relationships) and one party storms off from the bus stop. Cue chasing after, usually.

 

9. Going over to the potential other’s house and being An Angel by cleaning up after meals even when you’ve got a maid to do the dishes at home. 

 

Incidentally, local singer Geraldine Ho did the theme song "My Special Angel" for this show.

 

10. Ponding then, ponding now.

 

For those who haven’t watched it, for those who want to relive the funny moments via very low-resolution YouTube, or for those who missed Glenn Ong’s Ego Trip on 987FM, here you go:

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p.s. We’ll leave you with a funny easter egg moment of the Teenage Textbook author at his rightful corner.

 

p.p.s. Interesting enough, we noticed Singapore's still having the same discussion as Darryl David's Alfa Romeo driving character with Ms Boon, when he asked in 1998, "Why do you want to stay?" to her "Why do you want to leave?".