Our Testosterone Rush and the Koro Epidemic

About 300 boys of ages 14-15 years must surely and evidently manifest strong testosterone urges resulting in growth spurts, muscular development and attraction to the girls. Alas, we are but an all -boys school and there was little opportunity for the meeting of the sexes. We can only look forlornly across North Bridge Road towards the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus, an all-girls school. Being a convent, there were very high walls surrounding that school thus shielding the girls from view.

Nevertheless this did not stop us from  the sharing of  juicy girlfriends stories, fantasies and 'naughty' pictures.

Raffles Institution is a great school which prided itself not only for its extraordinary academic results but also a superb all round education with much emphasis in sports, the arts and extra curricular activities. An intensive school programme and activities occupied the attention of the boys. It must have been so designed to divert attention from the testosterone overdrives of teenage years so that boys do not engage in sexual pursuits prematurely. The boys had to contend ourselves with the occasional Playboy centrefolds and other girlie magazines.

In 1967, something rare and out of the ordinary was going to grip Singapore and threaten the young boys with the possibility of losing their manhood, quite literally. The rumours started spreading in the kampongs (villages) and the new government high rise (HDB) apartments. There were whispers of a malady call 'Koro' which threatened to develop into a male only disease of epidemic proportions.

'Koro' stems from a Malay word which means to shrink. A similar condition was also described by the Chinese 'Suo-Yang' in Mandarin or 'Suk-Yang' in Cantonese meaning the shrinking of the penis. Wikipedia defined 'Koro' as ''a culture-bound delusional disorder in which an individual has a overpowering belief that one's sexual organs are retracting and will disappear despite the lack of any true longstanding changes to the genitals". Rumours were rampant that it was caused by eating contaminated pork explaining a predominant prevalence among Chinese males.

One can imagine that the RI boys must have been comparing their sizes at the back of our classrooms or in the school toilets. The panic became worse when it was said that this condition could result in death. It was laid to rest after the Straits Times, our local newspaper publicised an article 'The Koro Epidemic in Singapore' from the Singapore Medical Journal 10:4 Dec 1969. The condition so impacted the country that a medical task force was formed led by eminent neurologist Dr Gwee Ah Leng to investigate the epidemic.

At time of publication of the article there were 469 cases, 454 of whom were males and 15 females. Ninety-five percent of those affected were Chinese and the age group 11-20 had 208 cases the largest number. The doctors reported that the majority of the cases came from the south central town area and Raffles Institution was right smack in the heart of it. The epidemic caused quite a stir among the Rafflesians but no one that we knew was affected although if any of us were, we were unlikely to own up.

Boys will be cheeky nonetheless, during the episode someone was curious how we placed our penises after we wore our trousers? Up or down? John Quek Seng Yeow initiated a survey and discovered that preferences were 50/50. Rajan remembered that survey well and he stated that another placement was also surveyed, right or left. These kind of things were possible only in a All-Boys Class, imagine if we had a co-ed class, we couldn't have done the survey.

Although the actual epidemic was rampant in 1967, rumours about Koro started well before and hence such stories may be bandied about. Rajan and Heng Kian who were from the same Primary school, recalled that Koro stories went around when they were in Primary 5. Rajan informed that the cheeky boys were fiddling each other's crotches, the fact that the primary school was co-ed did not stop them.

The truth is that RI did have girls in the morning. When we were in the afternoon school, the Pre-U classes received girls after the Cambridge Certificate exams (now the GCE O level) from Raffles Girls School (RGS), the Convent next door and other girls school into RI. The younger boys in the afternoon could only wait for their chance to have girls when they reached Pre-U. Nevertheless we always talk about the good looking senior girls like Quek Li Lian or Susan Lim. Susan sang with the popular group Crescendos when she was still a school girl, she was on our black and white television (RTS or Radio Television Singapore) frequently. Tragically she drowned whilst swimming at Mersing Beach when she was a undergraduate, the body was never found.

So did the RI cohort of 67/69 fulfill their dreams of having girls in class when they reached Pre-U 1? NO! Word had it that Philip Liau, the RI school principal had a fierce quarrel with Ms Norris, the RGS principal. The next year, he decided not to admit girls into the Pre-U classes. Two cohorts of boys were affected, the cohort before and us. Then, he changed his mind and received girls to classes after us. Poor things we went through 6 years of education, non-coed.

It did not stop us from eyeing the younger girls in the Pre-U 1 classes when we reached Pre-U 2 in 1969. One famous girl is V... (will not divulge the name). Chen Wen remembered that Kong Soon Chew modified a physics equation, Ohm's Law V=IR to mean V=Instant koRo. Apparently V tried to charm the boys with gesticulation whenever she talked. This caused Soon Chew to cringe and to recall the Koro incident.

We can see that the Koro epidemic remained in memory a few years later. It was certainly one curious episode that occurred during our teenage years. By 1968 the hysteria disappeared altogether never to occur again. Since this is so unique we invite any of our classmates to share their recollections by adding their comments and reflections to this post.

Contributed by Lionel, Rajan, Heng Kian and Chen Wen