Edmund Yeo

I never forgave my secondary school for banning us from bringing novels to school. That is why I constantly speak about it. Back then, unable to accept such a rule, I occasionally brought a book to school for some reading pleasure. Alas, the school prefects deemed me, a guy who was just sitting at the corner, quietly reading a book, a threat to school safety, thus my books were sometimes confiscated. I had to write eloquent letters to the prefects just so I could get them back. That is why, in some of my angry rants over the years, I couldn't stop blaming the local education system for not emphasizing the importance of literature and culture to its students, that we lived merely to score well academically, that our education was more on learning how to deal with exams, instead of preparing us properly to contribute to society. That our country is full of highly-educated folks who don't give a crap about literature. Many years ago, back in Perth, Justin (who used to con