A little while ago we had the pleasure to (virtually) meet our Alumnus Stephan Langmaack who attended GESS, or as he knew our school back then – the Deutsche Schule Singapur – from 1976 until his graduation in 1992.
Afterwards, he moved to Hamburg, Germany, for a two-year apprenticeship with Deutsche Bank. Then he stayed in Hamburg to work for a different bank. Parallel to working, he studied Economics and Banking in Hamburg. After a four-year stint in Hanover, he moved to Düsseldorf in 2002 and has been there since. Stephan works with a securities firm in Frankfurt, heading the Corporate Management Unit over two cities, Düsseldorf and Frankfurt. There he is responsible for controlling/financials, reporting, process management, digitisation, and generally cost management and efficiency – pretty much everything that has to do with figures, numbers and structuring topics.
Singapore and GESS have changed significantly in the last 30 years and talking to Stephan gave us an exciting glimpse into GESS’ past and the adventures of GESS students between the 70s to 90s. He shared about his own journey at GESS through words and photos and we just had to share them with you.
Stephan was one of the very first students to attend GESS all the way from Kindergarten to Abitur at that time. He started Kindergarten in the nice Black & White house on Chatsworth Road that was GESS’ home from 1973 to 1985. The Kindergarten was mostly outdoors; some parts covered and but mostly open-air.
The Preschool was on the ground level and the staircase you see on the photo below led to the principal’s office. Next to the house there were two rows of 3-4 classrooms to house the older students.
Our beloved Schultüte tradition was already a part of starting school at GESS back when Stephan started school in first grade with his homeroom teacher Frau Mutter. (Foto 79, 108)
When he was in middle school, GESS moved to the Bukit Tinggi Campus:
“I have so many fond memories! One of my favourite moments was moving from my first Deutsche Schule location which was in Chatsworth Road in Singapore – the old colonial black and white house where we spent our kindergarten and at the time Vorschul-time – to the campus on Bukit Tinggi behind the Swiss Club in 1985. That was a huge thing, moving from a small house into a large campus. I remember the building of the forum at the new campus. I remember the big crane that came and put the roof on top of the four pillars, that must have been end of the 80s. Apart from that, basically the whole time that we had amongst our classmates and the friendships we had, just before the A levels. Fantastic time!“
– Stephan Langmack, as mentioned in the video clip above
Stephan also fondly remembers the time spent playing on the sports field at the old campus and balls flying across the nets into the jungle. He also recalls the school buses supervised by Mr. Roberts who would yell “Everyone inside the bus!” when it was time to board. The buses did not have numbers yet so the students had to know and find their driver to find their bus. Many buses took the Bukit Timah Road/Dunearn Road route to drive the students to and from school. Sounds pretty mundane nowadays, but back then this could mean a water adventure with water up to the belly button, because the drainage systems were not as advanced (or present) yet. And while we now need to go all the way to Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve to see some crocodiles, that was not necessary in Stephan’s very early school days. A simple heavy rainfall was all that was needed to bring crocodiles to the Bukit Timah area. Can you imagine crocodiles splashing around in the Bukit Timah Road/Dunearn Road canals?
The adventures did not stop there. Stephan recalls some of his class trips:
The first thing that comes to mind are the class trips we had at the time. We visited Borneo, Sarawak, Kalimantan in Borneo, and we went to Bali. We had a great time on these class trips! But one of the things that I particularly remember is that there was no air-conditioning. So basically we were sweating around the clock.
One class trip to Borneo was especially eventful – being chased by wild boars and a group of monkeys destroying, eating and drinking everything that was left on the accommodation’s verandah. Another class trip remains etched in the memory thanks to the massive insect infestation in the accommodation that housed all creepie-crawlies from spiders and bugs to praying mantises. A whole bottle of insect spray solved the problem and the room was safe to enter an hour later.
In hindsight you also realise the insights you got into these cultures. I remember we spent two days and one night with an indigenous tribe at that time in, I think, Sarawak in a long house in the middle of the jungle somewhere. We couldn’t pay them in cash as they had no use for money. We had to go to the supermarket and buy food which we then gave to the tribe. In return, we had the opportunity to stay there for a night. That was a fantastic experience. So sometimes it takes a bit of time before you realise what it was worth, these memories and the value they hold.
When Stephan sat his Abitur exams in 1992 it had just become possible to do this ‘inhouse’ at GESS. Before 1989, the Abitur examiner had to come to Singapore from Bonn, Germany, to run the Abitur examinations.
Outside of school, Stephan and his friends spent their free time at Far East Shopping Centre at Orchard Road, a popular hangout place in the 80s where they often frequented the music shop on the fifth story and a McDonalds downstairs. They also ventured further out to East Coast as well as Sentosa which, at that time, one could only reach by ferry or gondola. Undoubtedly, all of these places were high on their list because of their food options, too. When asked what he misses most about Singapore, Stephan’s answer (without any hesitation, we might add) is:
The food! I love the food, I miss the food! You can get great food here in Germany, no doubt about it, but it’s not the same. There are no hawkers. The Asian or the Chinese food doesn’t taste the way it should – it tastes good, but it doesn’t taste the way it should.
In the video below Stephan shares what he misses most about his time at GESS.
“The ease of life! We had no worries, we had no Corona, there was nothing we really had to be worried about. We had great surroundings, we had great food, we had a great school. All the things that you have to do today to support a family. Childhood days were worriless as opposed to the things you need to think about when you grow older and have a normal work life.“
– Stephan Langmaack, as mentioned in the video clip above
Stephan concludes his sharing session with a bit of good advice for our current students:
Cherish the friendships that you make in school with your classmates at the time. I don’t know how it is today, but in my day usually every two, three years you had a turnover of new classmates and these friendships, lots of my friendships last until today. Classes are put together differently every two years, your network after you graduate is basically worldwide and that’s something you should hang on to in my opinion.
Thank you very much, Stephan, for taking us on this journey through time and for sharing these wonderful photos with us and the GESS community!
