Miss Ng was my English teacher back then. At just five feet tall, with short, straight hair and thick glasses, Miss Ng was a secondary school icon her students would never forget.

My top impression of Miss Ng was that she rarely smiled during the first few days of my secondary school life. She always looked strict in front of us. Not until the end of the school term did I realize she was in fact compassionate and kind-hearted.

From my school’s alumni network, I learned that Miss Ng passed away a few days ago. I was astonished.

I always feel grateful to have Miss Ng as my English teacher, although I haven’t seen her in quite a while.

Miss Ng built a strong foundation in my English. Unlike my son who came to Canada at a very young age, I didn’t find learning English easy at all when I was a child. I was never a native speaker and had little chance of using the language. It was a coincidence that over the past few days, I recalled how I learned the language in Miss Ng’s class when I was twelve.

So, what did Miss Ng ask us to do? And, what did I learn?

Miss Ng realized many of her students came from modest families and may not have had much exposure to English outside of school, so she encouraged us to practice English as much as we could. A good way was to read an English book for at least fifteen minutes a day for leisure. It could be a novel, a comic, or anything we liked. She simply wanted us to get used to the English sentence structure (which is completely different from Chinese) and how ideas were expressed.

Three decades ago, families rarely used the internet. Miss Ng urged us to build our vocabulary using our dictionary. Instead of just looking up the direct Chinese translations of new words, Miss Ng encouraged us to learn them by digesting their meanings through their English definitions.

Miss Ng’s lessons were not only about the English language but also about life wisdom. There are two Chinese sayings that her students should never forget.

“己所不欲，勿施於人” – Don’t impose on something that you don’t want. Treat others the way you want to be. Life and relationships should be built on mutual understanding and respect.

“身在福中要知福” – Always feel blissful about what you have in life. A glass can be half empty or half full, depending on how you see it.

Miss Ng still had a significant impact on how I worked in my future studies and career, and on how I encountered ups and downs.

Reading is no longer chaotic. It is enjoyable.

Everyone should work extremely hard to get to their destinations.

Trust and goodwill do not come naturally. They do not just come from how confident I look or what I say. In fact, trust and goodwill are more about respect: how I treat others and how I work with them.

That is why no matter where I am, who I work with, or what I work on, I always do my best because that is what I should do.

Finally, be happy all the time.

Rest in peace, Miss Ng. I will remember you forever.

Vincent

I am Vincent Kwong, a seasoned consumer planner with nearly two decades of market research and business planning experience on both the agency and client sides. Currently, I am Director & Partner of Intuit Research, a research agency specializing in multi-country market research projects. Companies that I have served in my career include McDonald’s, Diageo, PepsiCo, Estee Lauder, Heineken, GSK, Pizza Hut, Lenovo and HSBC. I am also a part-time instructor at Schulich School of Business, York University in Canada.

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