My journey....

I was inspired to jot down the life journey that I had travelled this far, after reading some thought-provoking blogs. Mind you, it'll be a very long long post.

At the same time thinking that I will be leaving this country soon, (well just crossing the Causeway only) in 6 weeks time.....I plan to write something that will makes myself smile when I looked it back at it after, maybe 10 or 20 years.

Here it goes...

All my life has been evolving around this harmonial country and I'm sure gonna to miss it very much, especially its food, people and surroundings. The farthest place I went was the Golden Triangle in Thailand, shared border with Laos and Myanmar.

I began my life somewhere in Perak in a very tiny new village, with around 100 houses. My childhood was definately a cherishable one as living in this new village, I was introduced to tree climbings, kampung games like 5-stones, kunda-kundi, bang-bang (hide and seek within a few houses range), kick the condensed milk cans, masak-masak and the best of all, the kite flying. I used to have a hideout somewhere near my house compound, the laici tree and coconut tree.

I have 9 siblings and am the fourth child of the family. According to my ma, I'm the only child that she delievered prematurely via operation. Like she always said, I caused a cut and leave a mark on her stomach. Oops... I was considered a naughty child in my family, reminiscing the fightings with my sisters (pulling hairs, punching, slapping and kicking), I was also once in a while rewarded with caning and chasing by my ma out of the house when I did something wrong. The place that I go after being chased out...my hideout. I can play on top of the trees for many hours, picking the leaves, did some foldings or pluck their flowers and start experimenting. When it came to dinner time, my ma or my sis will called-out "jong ng seh tak fan lei ah' simply translation, 'still don't want to come back to the house ah". Then I'll happily climbed down from the trees and joined them for dinner.

My family is not a well-to-do family. With so many siblings, we have to divide tasks betweeen of us based on the seniority. Both of my parents are working (rubber tapping, farmers) and they were earning money to feed us, thus no time to do household chores and cookings. All these were carried out by my elder sisters. The elder sisters will do all the washing in the house eg, clothes and pots. The younger ones will do on some minor and easy tasks, like sweeping the floor, cleaning the windows, pick up dry leaves outside the house, etc. I started to cook the first pot of rice when I'm standard 1 or 2, a loyal assitant cook to my sister whenever she prepares meal, mop floor and do other house chores when I'm just in standard 3 or 4. This applies to the sisters younger than me too.

At the age of 5 or 6, I loved to follow my parents to the rubber estates...the main reason was...not to help around but to taste the superb and delicious maggi mee that was cooked with fire wood and in the forest. I still remembered the scene vividly. I will follow them to the estate at as early as 3 am. My parents went tapping while I slept in the car. After the dawn and I'm awake, they will start a small fire and start cooking the yummy noodle. Whenever I missed the chance to go to the estate with them, I will starting crying and shouting around. Sigh...ha ha ha

At the around that age too, I like to sing a lot. My father, used to be salesman liked to tag me along to their persuasive product-buying seminar. After the seminar ends, I would sing the company song in front of the aunties and uncles. Surprisingly, I was not shy at all! I just keep singing and singing....I guessed at that very young age, I still didn't know the defination of shy...malu nyer..

I started to know the existence of God when my grandma brought us to the little chapel and attended the mass there, a kilometre away from my village. What I did not forget was that I always fall asleep during the mass and slept on my grandma's lap, since there is no chairs but benches in the chapel.

Well, that's all I remembered for my childhood, before the schooling period comes along....

To be continued....