Class of '89

Before - 1978 - Then, when we were 6 years old

After - 2010 - Now, when we were 3X years old


Last Saturday my family and I made a trip down to KL, mainly for my high school (Class of ’89) gathering. We made a stop at Kampar, picked up my dad and off we drove to my sister’s place for a 3 days 2 nights trip.

When one of my friend (Gek Soon, wonderful guy, thumbs up to him and the rest who chipped in to arrange things for this gathering) posted on FB that the gathering is on, I was a few early birds that actually clicked “Accept” to the event invitation. Soon after many who were aware of the event also clicked “Accept” and in 2-3 months time we have over 20 who confirmed their presence and on that day itself almost 50 turned up (some with spouse and kids).

As hubby dropped me at the hotel lobby and I took the lift up to the venue, I’ve mixed feeling, it’s like every step I took leads me down to memory lane.. 38, 37, 36 and when the lift finally opened and I stepped into the private hall I was 17 again. Truly it was like 17 again. I began to see familiar faces and as I walk further into the room it was like back in the good old high school times. We hugged, shoke hands and exchanged those familiar nostalgic smile with one another, it was awesome and amazing.

It’s really nice to know that those who turned up are doing well and in best of health, of course after some 21 long donkey years, appearance wise some have gone bald, some double the size, some never change with their ever famous hairstyle but deep inside everyone I could see, feel and smell the 17 year old in us that night.

I would say we all made it, maybe not exactly what we inspired to be in our younger days, we all turned out to be fine individuals contributing to the society in one way or another and most of us are raising kids of our own.

Well, I don’t actually get to catch up with each of them but seeing them that night was truly magical. When we got back, posted our photos over FB, from the comments posted, it seems that we could not get enough of each other, 4 hours that night was really too short for us.

So we are planning for the next big one, some suggested that we have it on the 31.08.2014 (that will be our 25th Anniversary) and the venue will be in Kampar, our dear hometown, that would be wonderful. I’m imagining us walking through our school compound, lying on the big field, taking “loh shue fun, chee cheong fun, loh mai fan etc…” and with a wide grin on our faces.

Class of ’89 is surely a great gang. Long live all of us so that we may be able to gather years after years. God bless all of you.

To catch some of our photos (now and then), please click here… and try to spot me :D

My "tim chai"

Over the radio this morning, the DJ invited callers to call into the station and shared about their memories of the good old grocery store in their neighbourhood. The topic arised due to recent government’s effort in wanting to help owners or potential owners of such enterprise to improve their business as I believe they have difficulties making ends meet due to the mushrooming of the giant retailers out there.

Well since I won’t be calling the radio station, I decided that I’ll blog about it – my very own version and fond memories of my hometown grocery store.

Situated a few doors away (less than 100 meters) from my parent’s home was our “Seven Eleven”store back then. Owned by two brothers, the elder one we used to call him “fei loh” – fat man in Cantonese because he’s short and fan and the younger and more handsome brother “eng jek” – his last name is “Eng” and Jek is the term “uncle” in Hokkien, yet to know the origin of the Hokkien name as majority of my hometown are Cantonese and Cantonese is the dominion linqua franca of those days. We used to call our store “tim chai” or little shop back then.

Being the youngest I serve as the “mooi teng” – “little servant” in Cantonese and was usually assigned to order/buy stuffs from the “tim chai”. So a common assignment will sound like below:

My mom : Wai Wai, go to tim chai and tell fei loh or eng jek that we need ………..
Me : What is??? And what is ??? (Clarifying her orders)
Me : That’s all? What about the money?
My mom : Tell fei loh “oh tang” first, means “hutang” or on-credit first and ask him to write on the little book.
Me : Hah? What is “oh tang”?
My mom : Just said “oh tang, write on the little book” and they’ll know what to do.
Me : Oh.. Okay

So, down I run to our little “tim chai” and carried out my duty diligently. I was pretty surprised that I actually get to bring stuffs back by saying “oh tang” every time and guess what, the little book is a credit book with “555” printed on top of its cover. My first lesson on credit buying, see we were so advanced back then, everybody trusted everybody. I still remember my mum will confirm if the goods were packed my fei loh or eng jek because mum commented that eng jek is a more honest businessman.

Of course I patronized the tim chai (more than once) on my own everyday to buy junk food (my favourite satay fish, packets of cruncy and spicy ikan bilis, twisties, po-po muruku and a whole lot more) and tried my luck on the “lucky board” game where you pay 5 cents, choose a number/paper and see if it comes with a price in which often times it doesn’t (must be fei loh cheating!).

When mum cannot find me, 99.9% of the time I’ll be at the tim chai and mum will shout from the main gate and I’ll sprint back. As some of you might be brought up from small neighbourhood or kampong, you would agreed with me that back then we have care free lives, everybody knows everybody and our parents never worried that we will be snatched away by bad people as everybody is on the lookout for one another.

Besides mum, I’m also the “mooi teng” for my elder brother and sister, God knows how they abuse their seniority on me! And I’m no free labour cause I’ll demand some form of tips or wages from each trip, it could be 5 cents, a free snack or something else (Clever, I guess Emily inherited my wisdom, LOL).

Sad to say our tim chai has closed down, I think quite some time back, still see eng jek (but now fatter than fei loh) whenever I go back to Kampar. I really hope the government can actually do something for such micro enterprises, revived the business and really carried out their promises, it’s very much a part of our lives and I hope kids nowadays get to experience what we used to, back in the good old days.

Long live our “tim chai”s.