36. Growing Up and Having Fun

Our parents loved and cared for us very much, and they made sure we were happy and have fun while we were growing up. The Chinese New Year is the most important and joyous occasion of the year. Our parents usually gave us new clothes, new shoes, and ang-pows to celebrate the occasion.

On the second day of new year, we would go and visit our relatives and friends. Mother had many relatives and friends in Aulong, and we would visit one house after the other, stuffed ourselves with food and drinks, and collected the little red packets that contained money. Though each packet contained only a few cents, usually 10 or 20 cents, they added up to quite a lot of money in those days. Maternal grandma Lee usually gave 4 cents in her ang-pows but the significance was not in the amount of money it contained but rather it was a symbol of celebration and good fortune which she wanted to share with her loved ones.

We would then visit our granduncle Chan and his family in Kamunting. Grand-auntie Chan's Chinese New Year delicacies, peanut cookies, and crispy love-letters or kueh kapit were the best. During the school holidays, some of us would spend a few days with them and enjoyed the country-side. We would run around bare-footed, climb trees, play in the sand dunes of the former tin-mines, fish for Tilapias in the mining ponds, catch fighting-fish in the swamps etc. We also get to enjoy grand-auntie's tasty nyonya curry prawns, sambal belacan, and acar or spicy mixed vegetable pickles. She would cook rice using a saw-dust stove which was quite popular then as there were many saw-mills in this area.

Sometimes we would stay over at our maternal grandparents' home in Aulong where we get to experience a farm environment, and Hakka food especially grandma's delicious glutinous rice dumplings that were shaped like little pillows.

Going on out-station trip was another enjoyable experience our parents gave us. During the school holidays, father would arrange a car from his friends to take us for a day trip to Ipoh or Penang. I recalled visiting the Japanese Garden and Sam Poh caves in Ipoh, and the Kek Lok Si Temple in Penang. We visited mother's elder sister in Kampar. We also went to many other places such as Sungai Siput, Lenggung, and even Sungai Petani in Kedah to visit our relatives and friends.

While our father had a very good memory for telephone numbers, our mother had a very extraordinary talent for remembering places she had visited. She could direct you to the same spot even though it had been years since she last visited it.

Mother Lee Mooi loved to travel and she would visit us and the children as often as possible whether it be in Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya, Teluk Intan, Bukit Mertajam, Butterworth or Terengganu. She also loved to go to Singapore to visit grand-auntie Chan and uncle Lee and family.

In November 1992, uncle and auntie Loke took our mother for a holiday in Sydney, Australia and also attended auntie's daughter's wedding. In May 1994, she got to go on a boat cruise sponsored by Anchor Beer. It was a free trip which I won in a competition. It sailed up and down the Straits of Malacca for two nights and back to Port Klang. It was fun with lots of food, entertainment and also casino. Sweed Lean and family took her on a holiday trip to the United States in June 1997 and they also visited See Kun and Gigi in Maryland.

There was also one special trip that I get to go with father and his friends. It was to shoot big fruit bats known as flying-foxes. These bats fly out from their hiding places in the evening and cover the skies in the hundreds in their search for food in the fruit orchards. The hunters would shoot them down with their short-guns and as the bats fall to the ground, I would hold them by the wings and knock them dead with the back of a heavy knife. I learned how to skin them and to cook delicious flying-fox porridge.

During the weekends, our father would take us for matinee shows either at the Lido or Cathay cinemas. We watched all kinds of shows such as western shows especially cowboys and Tarzan, Hindi shows, Malay shows etc. The tickets cost less than half the normal fare, the cheapest costing about 25 cents, and as we were small children then, two of us could get into the cinema with one ticket.

Our mother Lee Mooi preferred Chinese movies which were normally screened at the Carlton and Rex cinemas and sometimes at the Lido cinema. She would take us along to watch many of her favourites especially Shaw Brothers movies starring Lin Dai, Ivy Ling Po etc. The ones we liked most were Wong Fei Hung and kung-fu shows. We also went to the smaller cinemas such as the Sun cinema and the open-air Loh Thean cinema located inside the Coronation Park.

At the Loh Thean cinema, we pay only 10 cents to sit on the cement floor and watch the show projected across a big wooden screen. If it rains, we would open our umbrellas and continue to watch the show. This park was a very popular entertainment centre at that time. It also had children games and rides as well as joget for the adults. The men would get tickets at a counter. As the music start to play they would approach a group of pretty ladies seated beside the band. The ladies who were given the tickets would follow the men to the dance floor and they would dance until the music stop. The ladies would then return to their seats. It was great fun watching the antics of some of the dancers.

Mother Lee Mooi also loved to watch Chinese opera shows performed on make-shift stages erected besides the temples. These shows were usually held during religious festivals. The ones held at the Kuan Yin Temple beside Kwangtung Association were her favourites. She would go with her friends and they would carry wooden stools along to sit on and umbrellas to shelter from the sun and rain. Sometimes we tagged along and she would explain the story to us. The first show is always performed without an audience, and she would tell us it was meant for the deities and spirits. The performances would last for several days depending on the story that was being told.

We did not have the telephone until the very late 60s. I recall the many occasions when father or mother had to rush over next door or across the road to our neighbours' phones to answer calls. Sister Sweed Cheng had started working after returning from the UK, and brothers Chu Tai and Chew Pheng and myself had also started our own careers. It was out of necessity rather than luxury that a telephone was installed to help us get in touch with one another.

Our parents did not have a TV set until the mid-70s though RTM 2 was established in 1969. It was a small 14-inch, black-and-white set which became the main source of entertainment for our parents. When TV3 was established in 1983, it was replaced with a bigger colour TV set provided by brother Chew Kiat.

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