Why am I (5 years in UK) posting this article?

Wife is a TKCIan (was in UK for 4.75 years). Daughter (still in UK - 8 years!) is a TKCian. An active member of TKC PIBG for 3 years. Biggest achievement: mooted the idea of inviting the then PM, Tun Mahathir, and wife to special dinner to raise fund and it did materialise. At the same event, the then PM stopped by to speak to my daughter on his way out of the hotel ballroom ... Ohhh yang ni yang dok menari tadi ... apaa diaaa yang kat kepalaaa tu ...

2010/05/25By ZAHARAH OTHMAN (non-TKCian)http://uk.mc516.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=zwan_uk@yahoo.co.uk
NST Life & Times (Tuesday, 25 May 2010) page 21
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First anniversary of TKC OGA UK Chapter

I TOOK a deep breath, counted to 10 and let it out: Yes, I had wanted to be a TKC (Tunku Kurshiah College) girl but I didn’t quite make it.So, there!

It had taken me well over 40 years, since failing the test in Primary Six, to say that. Well over 40 years and the closest I got to being a TKCian was as a guest at one of the mini reunions of the Tunku Kurshiah College Old Girls Association (OGA) UK Chapter recently. That was an opportunity to find out what made a TKCian tick and what gave her that unexplainable je ne sais quoi that separated her from the rest. And perhaps, if I were to be honest, to find out what was it that TKCians had that I lacked. So with a crumpled letter of rejection, a few tears of dejection at the thought of being denied the chance to study at one of the country’s most prestigious boarding schools for girls, I continued to be a Convent girl, a SAHC girl and much later, a Mass Comm girl in the 13th floor of the then ITM. I am proud of all my alma maters but I need to know why I wasn’t good enough for TKC. This unanswered question, and another (why I wasn’t chosen to be a MAS stewardess), are important especially when you are stocktaking.

As someone who grew up overdosed on Enid Blyton’s unputdownable books, especially Mallory Towers, I had romantic notions of life on boarding schools. Pranks after lights-out, skipping classes and solving mysteries loomed large in my mind while preps and homeworks featured very little indeed.

Somewhere along the way between the rejection letter and the mini reunion, I was reminded again about my alma mater that wasn’t. It was in the early 90s when we visited Anuga, the international foodfair in Cologne. Walking around, looking at foodstuffs from around the world, we were delighted to find Ahmad Tea, as it was (and still is) our staple drink. So we stopped to talk to the man in charge who happened to be the man behind Ahmad Tea, an Iranian married to a Malaysian and living in the UK.

My heart leapt with excitement. A fellow Malaysian married to the manufacturer of one of the world’s famous tea brands! “Is she working?” asked my husband, quite unnecessarily.
“What do you expect? She was a TKC girl!” came the reply that started me off on this journey to find out more about TKC girls.

It was to be almost 20 years that I came face to face with the woman beside the man behind Ahmad Tea. (It is inappropriate to say “the woman behind the man”, especially as she is a TKCian). This meeting and several others sort of answered my nagging questions.
At a mini reunion recently, Rose Karim Afshar, being a TKCian Class of 76 from Selindang Delima House, held court to other younger members such as Sri Rahayu and Idariah Idris.
So what made her leave almost 30 years ago? “Travel was my passion and I was told that the only way to get here was to apply for an engineering course. I was accepted and came here to do my A-levels.” Shortly after that, she met her husband and the rest was history.

From that answer alone, I knew where I had failed. At that age, I was still very much glued to my mother’s apron strings. Mak took me to my first temporary teaching job about 10 miles away and waited at the bus stop! Being independent then meant crossing the road to the shop in front of the house. And TKCians are articulate, stylish and have a go-for-it attitude which I personally saw and admired in the late Ruby Ahmad. Articulate is a word that I, who suffer from spoonerism, utter very carefully while style has no place in my scheme of things.

They are tireless and selfless, like Afizah Bani Hashim or popularly known as Pi Bani, a volunteer who provides moral and emotional support to People Living with HIV/AIDS. They dare to be different like Sepatu London girl Zetty Syazleen Ismail, who moved away from her comfort zone of architecture, to design and make shoes. TKC’s list of women of substance is quite impressive, starting with the wife of the Prime Minister, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, Datuk Paduka Marina Mahathir, Datuk Rafiah Salim, Puan Seri Fauzah, Datuk Zuraida Atan and, oh so many more, who readily drop their impressive titles to be just Kak to their juniors. They grace the pages of society magazines such as Tatler and Prestige but think nothing of joining the younger ones for a game of volley ball during their regular meets.

They adopt a deep culture to excel and this means extensive networking with each other — email, Facebook and whatever else social networks have to offer.

The UK Chapter was initiated by Zuraida more than a year ago and since then, many potlucks and mini reunions have taken place.

Some, like Sharifah Hanizah, are married to ex-MCKK boys, who needless to say, enjoyed the competition TKCians had with girls from Tun Fatimah. Meetings become more exciting with each visiting alumni and stories about the Green Lady and climbing the roof get repeated and drowned by laughter.

These sound very much like stories from our reunions. We had toyol sessions, in which Fatimah Abu Bakar of Akademi Fantasia was an accomplice. And I think TKCian escapades, such as hiding in lorries leaving the compound, pale in comparison to our ride in a lift that was being repaired, right up to the 13th floor.