Stories from My Childhood
The other day I was scanning my old photos on a newly bought scanner after years of neglect and in danger of fading into oblivion. I had planned to do it for quite some time but never really enforced unto myself any definite deadline. But I had lost a lot of my old colour photographs. Over time the chemical used in processing the photos reacted with moisture in the air and slowly eating up the colours. All of my secondary school days memories captured on camera are now gone. So are those of my undergraduate days in London back in the late 80s and early 90s. Now I have to visit my friends during those years and look at their pictures hoping that I am somewhere in there if I wanted to glance back into my younger days. Fearing the same fate would befall the memories of my research days, I decided not to put the photos in albums. My decision proved to be right as most of the pictures of me riding my bike to the turbomachinery research lab are still untouched. I hope my new scanner will save the day and whatever is left of my photos will be preserved for my children to see.
As I was flipping through the dust covered photo albums, I laid my eyes on a black and white photo dated around early 70s. Perhaps because of different chemical used on the paper, it was not affected by the same process that had destroyed my other colour pictures. It was a picture of me at about four years old sitting on a mengkuang mat, looking down with my left hand touching my little sister. The day was hot and the photo session took place in front of a coconut tree just outside our wooden house. I was shy of the camera but my little sister stared straight into the lens. My mother made me wear a worn out shirt and shorts, probably the best my parents could afford at that time. Draped around my sister’s neck is a locket attached to a gold necklace. In those days it was not just mere ornament but more importantly a means of survival to be taken to a pawn shop whenever we ran out of rice. And I imagine my family must have lived through days and months without the necklace during rainy seasons when my parents could not work on the rubber trees. It must have been tough living through the days when our daily survival hung on that piece of gold kept in a pawn shop. Sitting on the mengkuang mat, I could not look into the camera even with constant request from the cameraman. I remember the cameraman was a travelling photographer who went to our village from house to house selling his service. I imagine it must be an unnecessary indulgence to get a family portrait in those days considering the same money could be used to buy the family dinner. But I am glad my parents made that decision. The memory is still with me and I will be able to pass it on to my children.
I have moved places quite a lot since the picture was taken more than 30 years ago. Some years ago, I visited the place again. The kampong is now barely recognizable; it’s now part of the rapidly expanding township. The sight of buffalos bathing in mud ponds in the paddy fields is now replaced with rows of terraced houses. The old sawah padi, which used to fetch a few hundred ringgit a piece is now going at tens of thousands. The piece of land on which my family’s wooden house was built is now taken by TNB for the National Electricity Transmission Grid. Whole neighbourhood had to make way for the Grid. It was not my parents land; it belonged to my uncle. We were allowed to live and work the land, but the land title was not in our name. The places where I had spent my early childhood are now covered with bushes and shrubs spanned by long overhead cables carrying high voltage electricity. Unless you are an archaeologist out on an excavation trip, it’s hard to notice even traces of past human activities there. No sign that families had actually grown up there. I walked up to an old man cutting grass for his cows and introduced myself to him. He did not recognise me but said it rang a bell when I reminded him about my father. He asked about my father who was waiting in my car parked close to the main road. I told him that my father was not well enough to walk up this far. The man sent his best regards to his old friend and neighbour and I left him there to continue reaping grass for his cows. I continued to walk, trying to find traces of our old wooden house. Later I realised nothing existed anymore except in my own memory. I took a long deep look at my childhood playground, snapped a few pictures and slowly headed back to my car. As it turned out, it was the last time I took my father to visit his old farm and the place where he raised me as a small boy. His health condition never improved and he died a year later.
The place in the old picture is no longer there. I don’t know what eventually happened to the necklace. Perhaps, there were times when things got so tough that my parents had to just let it go. The mat probably became so worn out later that it had to be thrown away. The shirt and shorts that I wore that day probably met the same fate. But the picture somehow survived to tell stories from my childhood.
Kajang
8 September 2006
As I was flipping through the dust covered photo albums, I laid my eyes on a black and white photo dated around early 70s. Perhaps because of different chemical used on the paper, it was not affected by the same process that had destroyed my other colour pictures. It was a picture of me at about four years old sitting on a mengkuang mat, looking down with my left hand touching my little sister. The day was hot and the photo session took place in front of a coconut tree just outside our wooden house. I was shy of the camera but my little sister stared straight into the lens. My mother made me wear a worn out shirt and shorts, probably the best my parents could afford at that time. Draped around my sister’s neck is a locket attached to a gold necklace. In those days it was not just mere ornament but more importantly a means of survival to be taken to a pawn shop whenever we ran out of rice. And I imagine my family must have lived through days and months without the necklace during rainy seasons when my parents could not work on the rubber trees. It must have been tough living through the days when our daily survival hung on that piece of gold kept in a pawn shop. Sitting on the mengkuang mat, I could not look into the camera even with constant request from the cameraman. I remember the cameraman was a travelling photographer who went to our village from house to house selling his service. I imagine it must be an unnecessary indulgence to get a family portrait in those days considering the same money could be used to buy the family dinner. But I am glad my parents made that decision. The memory is still with me and I will be able to pass it on to my children.
I have moved places quite a lot since the picture was taken more than 30 years ago. Some years ago, I visited the place again. The kampong is now barely recognizable; it’s now part of the rapidly expanding township. The sight of buffalos bathing in mud ponds in the paddy fields is now replaced with rows of terraced houses. The old sawah padi, which used to fetch a few hundred ringgit a piece is now going at tens of thousands. The piece of land on which my family’s wooden house was built is now taken by TNB for the National Electricity Transmission Grid. Whole neighbourhood had to make way for the Grid. It was not my parents land; it belonged to my uncle. We were allowed to live and work the land, but the land title was not in our name. The places where I had spent my early childhood are now covered with bushes and shrubs spanned by long overhead cables carrying high voltage electricity. Unless you are an archaeologist out on an excavation trip, it’s hard to notice even traces of past human activities there. No sign that families had actually grown up there. I walked up to an old man cutting grass for his cows and introduced myself to him. He did not recognise me but said it rang a bell when I reminded him about my father. He asked about my father who was waiting in my car parked close to the main road. I told him that my father was not well enough to walk up this far. The man sent his best regards to his old friend and neighbour and I left him there to continue reaping grass for his cows. I continued to walk, trying to find traces of our old wooden house. Later I realised nothing existed anymore except in my own memory. I took a long deep look at my childhood playground, snapped a few pictures and slowly headed back to my car. As it turned out, it was the last time I took my father to visit his old farm and the place where he raised me as a small boy. His health condition never improved and he died a year later.
The place in the old picture is no longer there. I don’t know what eventually happened to the necklace. Perhaps, there were times when things got so tough that my parents had to just let it go. The mat probably became so worn out later that it had to be thrown away. The shirt and shorts that I wore that day probably met the same fate. But the picture somehow survived to tell stories from my childhood.
Kajang
8 September 2006
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