Stories from my dad and me - the land of my childhood

From hearsay and available record, the land was bought just after the World War 2, at a guess in 1945. Two of my older brothers, myself and younger sister, were born in our first house built on it.

I do not have much memories of my younger sister (last of 10) because she passed away at age of 4 because of kidney failure (no cure then) when I was 6 years old. Just remembered the 3 of us being too young to know, were huddled into a room with my eldest sister-in-law. Just before that I caught a glimpse of something covered with cloth put into the boot of a black car, which I later knew was an Austin A40 belonging to the Taoist priest who performed the last rites.

The death of my baby sister had a profound effect on my parents, especially my dad. I was treated as the last in the family, with all the dotings by the rest. I did not realize how important I was to my dad until one day, because of my prolonged sulking, he told me that he would give up everything if I continued to sulk! “What is the point of working if you are going to be unhappy?”

Our three names (translated into Peace, Harmony and Smooth, the last as in events happening as wished), were influenced by the end of the world war. Somehow, we were treated differently from my older brothers and sisters, as though we belong to different families. For example, for a number of years, we had our pictures taken together, when my dad had his portrait taken annually on January 1st.

I have fond memories of my growing up years, living among scattered huge old rubber trees and a variety of fruit trees – durian, sour sop, rambai, mango, mangosteen, rambutan and even pulasan. They were sacrificed progressively over many years to make way for workshops.

In the ‘50s, my dad put up a row of workshops which he rented out. I could still remember one nearest our house was retained as our office cum store. We did not have a phone in the house and sometimes, we had to open a locked sliding door just to answer a call after office hours. 5 other rows of temporary workshops were added later over a number of years.

All the time, my dad had in mind, an integrated workshop, preferably with his good tenant cum friends living in one compound. He decided to put up 3 detached houses (half brick half wood) with 3 old friends in mind: an electrician, an upholsterer and a mechanic.

However, the electrician did not want to leave his mahjong ‘kakis’ while the other two felt the place too far (imagine 3 miles from town center considered so!)

One was occupied by a panel-beater cum spray painter whose 3 out of his 4 sons happened to be of same ages as the 3 of us. Naturally, we were playmates from young. The youngest of the 4 (same age as me), unfortunately, drowned clung together with a classmate in a mining pond near their school in Segambut. He was only 12. The eldest also died young, in his twenties.

Only recently, I managed to contact the only surviving son who is doing very well, judging from the address he is in: The Mines Resort. I happened to come across a name which was the same as his, in a write-up on houses comparing TMR with places like Tropicana. I remembered the name of the company he worked for 25 years ago. Somehow, just by typing the name and companies associated with it, I managed to find his, listed in one of the business directories. I wrote to his email address and got a positive reply few days later. The wonder of internet. Apparently, his daughter looks after the emailing and with the phone numbers given, I managed to re-establish contact and had about 15 minutes chat.

The chat inevitably involved who died and who are still around. His mother is around, aged 86. The score: both my parents died compared with his surviving mother. 5 out of our 10 siblings are still around compared with his 1 out of 4. His other brother died 2 years ago. Our surviving 5 include 4 (out of 6 sons) and only 1 (out of 4 daughters).

Ha Tham, a tractor repairer, was a really patient man. In spite of being told several times that my dad did not want the laterite road damaged by heavy tractors, he kept pestering him until one day my dad agreed, mainly because 2 of his good friends did not take up his offer. He promised he would place planks before the chain-linked tractors move over and he must have told Eric Chia about it! He occupied one of the 3 detached houses as well as a row of workshops.

The last of the 3 houses was occupied at different times by people not involved in repair business, including Low Woon (UMW) and my third sister and family for a number of years.