Episode 1 : I was a teenaged Star Wars Geek

I was only Primary 6 when ‘Return of the Jedi' was released and trust me, my eyes would momentarily flutter when I hear the stories from my classmates who had watched the movie like countless times. Sadly to say, I was one of the children who could only HEAR about Star Wars . I was not allowed to even catch a glimpse of the blockbuster movie in theaters. The stories from my Primary 6 friends chatting away during ‘assembly' period were totally unbelievable and it made my imagination start down an incredible path.

“ The opening scene was the huge Star Destroyer dropping off an Imperial Space Shuttle , followed by two Imperial Tie Fighters…. ” was the prologue for those chatty boys' discussion behind the class. The storyteller, an obese friend who nevertheless reminds me of Yoda, was telling the story like our green little friend from Dagobah. Till this day, those words still linger in a hidden corner of my adult brain.

I don't remember the first time I saw Star Wars, as the first movie I ever saw in the theaters was ‘Aliens' ( Some friends and I went to catch it immediately after the last paper of our O'level examinations, but that's another story…) .What I do remember was that I turned into an incorrigible geek, almost overnight! Characters like Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Greedo, Jabba the Hut, Bobba Fett, Artoo and Chewie would be in my mind, having their own little Andrew's adventures. Building stories for them would mean having to transfer these stories on a medium. Exercise books [ that's what we called them during that time right ?] were used to draw comic strips of the adventures these characters would have. Some stories were of course reminiscent of the actual movie but the emphasis I would like to make is that those exercise books were supposedly to be used for Chinese spelling and compositions! Definitely not for homemade, pencil drawn, comics !

The teachers informed my parents when my Primary 6 Chinese spelling was deteriorating; countless Chinese tuition teachers were fighting the war for me. “Evil was everywhere” , as George Lucas wrote in the opening crawl of his latest movie.

Nevertheless it was dark times for a 12 year-old me, and soon Primary school days came and gone. The only thing worthy that I had gotten was an ‘A' for English. I almost failed Chinese.

Even though I was an incipiently tortured child, who was wearing teeth braces and had crushes on most of the girls in school, I finally found my Mrs. right and we were married in June 1996 , after which, we went to Australia, Perth to pursue a Degree. Somehow my passion for story telling still followed me like a Wookiee dogging around with me. I decided to take Advertising and Marketing for my double Degree Major. Thessa, my wife, chose another Degree Major. It was a period of Star Trek reruns and Star Wars VHS, aka videotapes during our University days.

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