Le Goût de la Vie: 29 Nov 07

With a pretty heavy heart, I dragged my feet to school, as it was to be the day where schools reopened (read: become unblocked). As I approached, I saw once again, the now familiar sight of a huge crowd gathering at the entrance. My heart did a little leap - perhaps they would extend the blockage?

This time however, frustration was in the air. A few members of the staff took up positions along the length of a cord wound around the pile of trolleys blocking the entrance and in a tug-of-war fashion, succeeded in removing one trolley.

That sparked off this student who rushed out of the crowd and violently prised the cord out of the hands of the principle of the university. Immediately, 2 other students stepped out to try to restrain him but he was like a charging bull that just saw red. He managed to wriggle free and hit rather forcefully, the hand of the director (still holding the cord) a couple of times. Was shell-shocked at the audacity of this student in the face of someone much more superior. This would never happen in Singapore (we wouldn't dare).

In the end, the two guys managed to calm the crazed fella down but in the end, the staff didn't manage to remove all the trolleys lining the entrance due to more opposition from some students. So, teachers led their students to another entrance at the back which surprisingly wasn't blocked and we had our first lesson in about 2 weeks!

The situation at my school wasn't that bad. I heard from some friends from the arts fac that they had to call in the Gendarme (the military police) had to come in numbers to keep the order. The situation was more chaotic as numerous students turned violent and the Gendarme had to employ their batons and tear gas to disperse the crowd. Scary. Heard from my neighbour that the principal of the school of political science (IEP) even battered one of the students with his own hands. Really shocking.

Anyway, this video from YouTube captures the pandemonium that broke out at IEP, a few metres from the central tramstop in the university domain.

After all that drama, we relaxed a little during dinnertime, where Qinghan cooked curry! All hail Qinghan! Haha. Spicy, local food on cold wintry nights... Can't think of much that can top that!