Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan: Recollections of childhood days

Residential Area, Kuala Pilah

Kuala Pilah, N.S. : Recollections of childhood days
By Wan Chwee Seng


The early years of my childhood, during the Japanese Occupation, were spent in a small village in Batu Berendam, Melaka.  After the war we followed our parents back to Kuala Pilah where father had worked as a clerk in the State Forest Department prior to the Japanese invasion. Most of our childhood years were spent in this small town and it was only after father passed away that we moved back to our hometown in Melaka.

Our house at 246-B, Residential Area,  in Kuala Pilah was a typical Government quarters of the colonial era. The white wooden house with russet, tiled roofs stood on concrete stilts.

The house at 246-B Residential Area in the 1950s

The house at 246-B Residential Area in 2010

 It had a spacious air-well which was fenced by high wooden plank walls. Within the enclosure stood a detached kitchen and a storeroom. At one corner of the air-well stood a detached, concrete toilet with the bucket system. The house overlooked a playing field and a hard beaten dirt track ran along one side of the house. The playing field, the space under the house, the side lane and the air-well were the playgrounds of our youth.   

The playing field in front of the house in 2010

In those days life was simple and carefree. Without television and computer to entertain us, we spent most of our playing time outdoor, We had the run of the whole neighbourhood and our parents were not  worried about  us being kidnapped. During the weekends, our games would often begin in the morning and end when the light finally failed.

We did not have expensive toys or sophisticated sports equipment.
We made our own tops, kites, toy guns, as well as other toys and sports equipment from materials which were readily available in and around the house. Our first hockey sticks were crafted from  branches and our hockey balls were used tennis balls.

  
Toys and games we used to play

marbles

Top spinning

Exchange cigarette packs

Game of kaunda kaundi

Bamboo toy guns

Fighting spider

I remember, during the kites season, the evening sky over the playing field would be adorned with kites of various shapes and colours as the men vied with each other to display their creativity and kite flying skill.

An evening sky adorned with kites

At dusk, the air would be filled with the squabbling cries of birds  as they seek a roosting place among the thick foliage of the stately tembusu trees or on the electric lines.

Birds roosting on electric lines

In the gloom of the gathering darkness we would sometimes catch sight of a lone, murky  figure with a long bamboo pole slung across a shoulder making his way across the field. The familiar springy steps and the pungent aroma that rose and wafted towards us, told us   it was 'wak' the itinerant Javanese satay vendor. 

An itinerant satay seller

On other nights our nostrils would tingle with the fragrance of fried sar hor fun and we knew father was bringing home our favourite supper.   Wrapped in areca palm frond ( upeh ) the sar hor fun  had a distinctive aroma and delectable flavour which have not been duplicated to this day.

Food wrapped in 'upeh'

As we sat on the flight of steps and watched dusk melt into night, the front lawn would suddenly be punctuated by the flickering lights of fireflies. Caught and bottled, we watched their golden glow until it  grew dimmer and then the fireflies were released  into the cool night air.   

Fireflies caught and bottled

When the night was fine we would sit on the  verandah with our homemade toys and enjoy the cool night breeze that blew from the open field. Father would sit on a low rattan chair at his customary place next to the main door while he read the morning papers and  the many magazines: Life, Times, Radio Weekly etc which were neatly stack next to his chair. Occasionally, he would pause from his reading to sing and tap to the strains of the oldies that drifted from the Grundig radio. 

Father reading the morning papers

At the crack of dawn, mother would be in the detached kitchen preparing breakfast for her school-going children. On a wood-burning stove a big aluminium kettle was already hissing to a boil and soon the early morning air would be filled with the sweet aroma of freshly brewed and home-grated coffee. 

Above the clink of china and the clank of pots and pans came the chatter and laughter of school children from the side lane of the house.  My brother and I would soon join our friends as we followed a hard beaten dirt track that meandered toward Tuanku Muhammad School. 

Tuanku Muhammad School 1946

Tuanku Muhammad School 2010

Meanwhile, my two younger sisters would walk to the nearby Chung Wah Chinese School.


There were hardly any cars on the road and even the adults either walk or cycle to work. Father too cycled to work on his faithful Raleigh bicycle and he was always attired in his neatly pressed and well-starched white shirt and long trousers. 

During the weekends, we would sometimes 'borrow' father's Raleigh bicycle for our cycling lessons which were conducted on the  front lawn of the few row of houses. As the bicycle's seat was too high for us, we had to find a creative way of managing the bicycle. Often we would fail to brake in time and find ourselves among the bamboo hedge at the end of the lawn which helped to break our advance and cushion our fall. 

Learning to ride a bicycle

The small town of Kuala Pilah had little to offer in terms of entertainment and so the government officers usually spent most of their free time, playing tennis or billiard, at the Ulu Muar Club. From our house, across the field, we would sometimes hear our father loud and infectious laughter, as he and his friends played billiard and stopped occasionally to take a slow sip of their setengah.

The Ulu Muar Club, Kuala Pilah
Photo credit: Devamany

Occasionally, the local residents would be entertained to a free film show which was screened at the playing field in front of our house.. They were usually feature films about economic development that had taken place after the war  and documentary films on the communist insurgency in Malaya. 

Watching documentary films screened by the Malayan Film Unit

In the early 1950s, the Majestic Theater was constructed to cater for the entertainment needs of the local residents and nearby towns and villages.

The Majestic Theater in 1950

Sometimes, the silence of the morning would be broken by the sputtering of an engine and we would rush out of the house to see a low-flying plane skimming the tree tops and dropping anti-communists propaganda leaflets. 

A plane dropping propaganda leaflets

Of all the fond memories of my childhood days, the memories of our childhood home at the Residential Area, Kuala Pilah are among the most precious.

Photos credit: Some  photos are sourced from Google while others are contributions from Mr Peter Yong. 

Blues Gang _ Apo Nak Di Kato
  

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In days past 





Gifts from a stranger

A remembered fragrance

A remembered fragrance    

                         By Wan Chwee Seng

Its fragrance reached us, long before he set foot in the house. Maybe, it was the night breeze that carried the fragrance from the playing field in front of the pre-war government house  to the sitting room where eight of us, kids, sat reading or playing on the hard wooden floorboards, while mother kept a watchful eye on us.

A picture of the playing field in front of the house in 2008

My brother and I  at our childhood home in Kuala Pilah. ( Photo: 30tn Dec. 2008 ) 

As soon as we heard the familiar cough and the sound of the soft footfalls on the concrete steps, one of us would rush to unlatch the door.  And the sight of our father, baba, standing  in the dim light like a huntsman just back from a hunt, filled us with joy and gratitude. But, instead of a spear and a game in his hands, baba held a billiard cue stick in one hand, while hooked to a finger of the other hand was a creamy white package.

Baba standing in the dim light

 While mother helped to carry the package, we all rushed for a seat at the two benches that were placed at each side of a long wooden table.

We waited in anticipation as mother’s deft fingers untied the dried reed string that secured the upeh  ( arecanut leaf sheath ).

An arecanut tree

Upeh ( arecanut leaf sheath )

As soon as she lifted a flap of the upeh, the tantalising aroma of fried kuih teow ( later we learned it was called sar hor fun ) wafted out from the upeh and assailed our nostrils. Ten pairs of chopsticks were soon ploughing through the flat noodles and picking at the choicest ingredients that suited our taste buds. Above the clicks of chopsticks, we listened in silence, as baba informed mother about the latest local news and his evening at the Ulu Muar Club. The Club was located just across the playing field in front our house and during most weekends baba would join his friends from the Residential Area, Kuala Pilah for a game of billiard and enjoy their usual stengah ( a mixed drink from half measure of whiskey and soda water, served over ice) at the club.

 Sometimes, through the tranquil night air we would hear baba's spontaneous laughter and, knowing he was safe and well, a look of relief would light up mother's anxious face.

Close to mid-night, the crunch of unsteady steps and incoherent voices would drift from the side lane of the house to the sitting room, as the few stragglers from the club made their way home. 
We would pause from our work or play to listen to baba's footsteps and cough. Then as the other footsteps receded into the distance and we did not hear the familiar sound, we tried to reason the worry away, telling ourselves that he was heading to town to 'tapau' some food for us. We would picture him plodding alone along the lonely stretch of road lit only by the glow of chequered lights from the row of government quarters, as he made his way to his favourite coffee shop in Kuala Pilah town.  

Government houses in the Residential Area, Kuala Pilah ( Photo: 2008 )

We knew baba would not come home from the club without bringing back some kind of takeaways: fried noodles, fried mee hoon and others that have since slipped my mind. But somehow, the sar hor fun has remained vivid in my mind. I often wonder what gave the sar hor fun its unique taste and fragrance. Was it the preparation: noodles fried in a sizzling wok over flaming wood fire; the ingredients;  the upeh wrapper; or perhaps just the imagination of a hungry kid?  

Then one morning at a family gathering at our ancestral home in  Melaka,  my siblings and I were reminiscing about our childhood days in Kuala Pilah in the 1950s  when one of my sisters said,

“Do you remember the late night when baba would come home from the club with fried ' kuih teow' ?"

"We could smell it from a distance."

"I have not come across any that smell and taste that good," she added. 

As a murmur of assent ran round the room, all lingering doubts about the fragrance of the sar hor fun was put to rest.I knew then it was not the imagination of a hungry kid. 

  

  

My siblings and I at our ancestral home in Melaka

 Today, whenever I think of the ‘kuih teow’ of my childhood days,  my nose still tingles with  its remembered fragrance_  a fragrance that evokes the memories of  caring and loving parents and the joy of sharing meals with loved ones.

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In days past

Finding our way home

Gifts from a stranger

Childhood memories of a gardener

Childhood Memories of a gardener
Story and illustrations by Wan Chwee Seng

He stood among the leafy plants,  a dark face glistening in the early morning sunlight. 

His hands, veined and coarse, began to pick tiny insects from  pest-infested leaves with deft fingers.
From our favourite haunt,  under the old colonial  house which stood on concrete stilts, young curious eyes followed his every move. He flashed  a broad smile, displaying a set of gleaming white teeth, when he caught us stealing glances at him.

We did not know his name. To us, he was just 'Ayya’.  Ayya was a part-time gardener who worked for our next door neighbour, an Indian family. The family had converted the small plot of land beside their house into a vegetable garden and within the fenced area, Ayya had planted a variety of tropical trees and vegetables. Banana, coconut, papaya, and drum-stick trees vied for the small space. Under their green canopy, vegetables grew on well-tended plots while bean plants and other creepers coiled and intertwined the link fence, veiling the garden with their thick verdant foliage. A creeper with succulent stems and purple berries that grew along the fence became our favourite plant, as we used to pinch a few leaves    for our masak-masak while  the  purple juice from their berries  became our improvised ink. From a wooden pergola, gourds hung like long, lifeless snakes, their ‘tails’ tied with strings from which dangled tiny stones.

Snake gourds weighted with small stones

“Those are snake gourds, and they must be weighted with stones or they will coil like slumbering snakes," Ayya explained to us.

While our next door neighbour could boast of a small lush garden beside their house, all we had to show was a vacant lot with a hard-beaten dirt track. Father would not allow the area to be fenced, as he believed it should be left vacant to enable the residents to have easy access to the nearby Kuala Pilah town and for the schoolchildren to take short cut to their schools. 

During his lunch break Ayya would sit patiently beside a drain at the side of our neighbour’s house with a small piece of banana leaf spread before him. Through the half-obscured mass of vegetation, we watched as an elderly lady began heaping rice onto the leaf and topping it with dhal curry. Seeing him eat the simple fare with relish,  our stomachs began to growl and we hurried into the kitchen.

Ayya would come to our house when mother needed him to clean the drain, split firewood or mow the grass.
Whenever Ayya appeared at our house bearing a scythe with a long curved blade attached to a  wooden handle, we knew it was time to mow the grass. 
From the front steps, we  watched as he mowed  the grass with a wide sweep of the  scythe. Except for the  sound of the razor- sharp blade cutting through the grass and the faint whiff of freshly-cut grass, the morning was still and quiet.

Mowing grass with a scythe

 At regular intervals, the tranquillity of the morning would  be broken by the cadence of grating metal as Ayya paused from his work to sharpen the blade with a whetstone and to wipe  the beads of perspiration from his face.

At lunch time mother would serve him rice on  a plate piled high with rice and generous amount of food. Mother would often ask him to have his meal indoor, but each time he would politely  decline her invitation. She remembered the first time she had asked him to have his meal in the kitchen.  

“Amah, this place is good enough for me, I am used to …," he replied,  voice trailing off. 

Touched by her kind gesture,  he had accepted the food with watery eyes and sat at his customary place beside the drain, next to a standpipe.     

Often, we would wait for him to take his drink, just a  glass of plain water. The way he drank his water always fascinated us. He would raise the glass above his head and let the water cascade into his mouth, glass and human lips hardly touching each other.  He would then reach for his shirt’s pocket and fish out some kacang putih.  Tossing one nut at a time high into the air, he would catch it in his wide-opened mouth.  

We waited eagerly for the kacang putih seller to make his round and purchase the kacang putih which were neatly wrapped in paper cones fashioned from used newspaper.  We were soon putting Ayah‘s 'juggling act' into practice, but to our dismay we discovered most of the nuts landed on the  floor instead of in our mouth.

A 'kacang putih' seller

“Do you want to get choke on the kacang?” a voice came from a room at the top of the stairs.  

We looked up to see mother gazing sternly down at us and our performance came to an abrupt end.

Early one morning we woke up to the rhythmic tinkles of cow bells and the crunching of wheels, followed by a rumble like the sound of  rolling thunder. Out on the front lawn, sawn logs from old rubber trees came tumbling down like ten pins from the rear end of a tilted ox-cart. 

Later, in the evening, the silence of the neighbourhood echoed to the sound of loud, regular thuds and intermittent creaks, as Ayya began splitting the logs. We watched, enthralled, as Ayya raised the axe above his head and brought it down on the log, striking the upright log with measured precision that it split neatly into two like a knife slicing through a cucumber. 

Splitting log with an axe

   
Later cradling the firewood in his sinewy arms, he carried them to the detached kitchen where they were stacked under a concrete platform on which rested the wood burning cook stoves. 

Wood burning cook stove

Photo courtesy of Peter Yong

While Ayya slowly removed the previous month’s firewood, we  waited with a twinge of excitement and anticipation.

Were the tiny creatures there? 

Then as Ayya lifted the last few pieces of firewood we saw them. 

Scorpions!

There was a solitary, big, black scorpion with menacing claws and venomous stinger at the tip of its tail and next to it, under another piece of firewood, was a colony of much smaller brownish scorpions. Startled and dazzled by the sudden brightness, they moved around in circles,  disoriented. We cringed in fear at the  sight. 

Black and brownish scorpions

Ayya told us the black one was not that dangerous. 

"It is the small ones that are poisonous," he said.

We were not sure, but we believed him. 

One morning, as my eyes fell on the few remaining logs on the front lawn and recalling the ease with which Ayya had split them, I was tempted to follow his act. Remembering, the small axe behind the store-room’s door I crept surreptitiously to retrieve it from its secret place. I had just taken a few steps when I felt the axe slip from my grip and land on my right foot. I looked down. The fourth toe, its white tubular tendon clearly discernable,   was hanging by its skin. In a state of shock not a shout or a whimper came out of my mouth, but mother had heard the loud clang of the falling axe and rushed out of the kitchen. Mother re-attached the toe, applied some flavine and had it bandaged. Gradually, the wound healed, but the scar remained until today, perhaps  a reminder  about the folly of my youth. 

With my brother, Chwee Guan in front of our childhood home,
Note the bandaged toe.

There were evenings when Ayya would appear at our house attired in clean, white dhoti and we knew he was going to the Hindu temple. Mother would hand him some money to donate to the temple and occasionally we would follow him to the temple which was located just across the field in front of our house. 

One day, just before the beginning of the school’s term, my sister, Janet and I had to leave suddenly for Melaka, as we had been enrolled in our new schools,  prior to father’s retirement.  
We had no opportunity to bid farewell to our classmates or to Ayya. 

Through the years, I sometimes wonder what became of Ayya and his well-tended garden.

Then one morning in December of 2008, after more than fifty years,  a few of us managed to make the much awaited trip to our childhood home in Kuala Pilah. 

We were happy to discover that out of the three houses that were still occupied, one was our childhood home. We waited on the front lawn for the house's occupant to come back from a temple across the field and when she offered us the sweetmeat from the temple, my nostrils tingled with the remembered scent of vibuthi and the fragrance of jasmine, as I recalled the trip to the temple with Ayya. 

The untended side lane in 2008

Later as we walked down the lane beside the house, I noticed with a tinge of sadness, that weeds, creepers and shrubs were slowly, but relentlessly encroaching onto the lane.

All that is left of the lush garden in 2008

 Our neighbour’s garden was no longer in sight. Where a garden once displayed its luxuriant vegetation only a pathetic-looking drum-stick tree and a few neglected coconut trees with dried fronds stubbornly clinging to their trunks, stood in its place. The front lawn where Ayya used to mow the grass with his scythe and kept it well-manicured was now covered with ankle-high grass. 

It was a dismal sight. Only three houses were still occupied, while others had already been demolished or were just empty shells. Deep inside our hearts we knew it would not be long before the remaining three occupied houses too would be reduced to a memory. 

My sisters on the front steps

In 2010, three of my sisters took a trip to see their childhood home. They came back sad and disappointed for all that was left of our childhood home was the front steps _ the steps where we used to sit and watch Ayya mow the grass.

Tuanku Muhammad School, Kuala Pilah: Reminiscences of schooldays

Tuanku Muhammad School, Kuala Pilah: Reminiscences of schooldays

by Wan Chwee Seng

“TUANKU MUHAMMAD SCHOOL!” The sudden shout that rose from the car rear’s seat snapped me out of my reverie. As the car swung through the unmanned gate, I caught sight of the school in Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan where my brother, Chwee Guan, and I had our early education in the late forties and early fifties.

Tuanku Muhammad School in 1946

The car came to a halt next to the school canteen and we set foot once again on the school-ground of our youth. Excited children were milling around the canteen, as they waited anxiously for their SPM results.
 That December morning of 2008 as our eyes fell on  familiar landmarks , they evoked a montage of memories that had lain dormant for more than fifty years.
I gazed at the hill behind the school building and my mind drifted to that day long ago when we used to start our cross country run from the top of the hill. The hill which was clad in verdant foliage was also a favourite meeting place for the school cubs. We would make dens from the ubiquitous creeping ferns and I remember the enjoyable nights when we sat around the campfire; singing, playing games and sharing stories.  

My brother, Chwee Guan, at the school's corridor

I peeped into one of the empty classrooms and my mind drifted to a particular morning just after the Second World War.

 We had risen early that morning with that typical feeling of excitement and anticipation of kids who were about to begin a new school‘s term. Out on the front lawn in the wan glow of a breaking dawn, a rickshaw puller with his rickety rickshaw was waiting for us.

A rickshaw puller waiting in front of
the house

I stared at the unfamiliar contraption with a twinge of apprehension as I recalled tales of rickshaw pullers ‘accidentally’ losing grip of the rickshaw’s shafts. The unfortunate passengers we were told would be sent sprawling backward with arms and legs flailing wildly in the air. As we clambered onto the high seat, we eyed the puller with suspicion.

Residential Area, Kuala Pilah

Fortunately, there were no untoward incident during that morning trip and on subsequent trips. We felt a sense of relief when we were finally allowed to join our friends from the Residential Area on our daily walk to and from school.

I remember the many mornings when I would stroll leisurely with my friends, Kok Wee, Nathaniel, Leo, Chelvarajah, Subramaniam and others along the side lanes of stilt-raised colonial houses and follow a hard-beaten dirt track that meandered off towards the distant school.

Primary school classmates. Photo courtesy
of Dr. Aaron Yong

On the first morning we were grouped together with some over-aged pupils who had been deprived of an education because of the War. The War had also left the school with a shortage of desks and chairs and so we had to sit cross-legged on the cold cement floor. Our first teacher was a young Miss Wong who taught us letters of the alphabet written on a blackboard which rested on a wooden easel. We were later made to copy the letters onto a book-sized writing slates with the aid of slate pencils.

A slate board
Photo courtesy of Peter Yong

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The strident clang of a brass bell signalled the start of recess. We stretched our tired limbs and after being taught to queue up we followed timorously behind Miss Wong as she guided us to the school canteen. As the War had left many of us malnourished, each pupil was provided with two pieces of bland biscuits and a glass of plain milk.

I remember our first reader was ‘Look and Read’, which had a dark green, fabric cover. The lessons were mostly about the different occupations of the day such as the ‘Ting-Ting Man’ (the itinerant haberdasher), the fowl seller, and the cake seller. Our English lesson included spelling and dictation, and recitation of poems. We had to commit to memory the many poems and later recite them in front of the class without faltering or else a gentle tap of the ruler would land on the palm. Nobody dared to complain to their parents then as this would be an open invitation for further parental discipline. For Arithmetic besides the usual written exercises we also had to memorise the multiplication tables and we also had mental sums when we were expected to add, subtract, multiply and divide mentally. .

That December morning of 2008, as we stood on the step overlooking the field, I recalled the Monday morning assembly when we had to stand to attention and sing ‘God save the King'.

On the steps overlooking the field

“Can you see the cricket pitch?” I asked my brother as our eyes scanned the field which was covered with ankle-high grass. It was sadly missing. I remember the well-manicured cricket pitch where my elder brother and his friends used to bat and bowl while I kept score for a game that lasted from morn to dusk.

The leafy hedge that used to enclose three sides of the field and fronted by angsana trees planted at regular intervals had been replaced by a solid brick wall. Only a few angsana trees with gnarled trunks and virtually bare branches stood pathetically beside a covered stand. I remember the evenings when we used to have our hockey practice under the shade of the stately angsana trees with their thick, spreading canopy. We did not wear watches then. We played until the hockey ball was a blur in the deepening darkness and then we knew it was time to head for home.

“That’s the school’s hostel,” my brother said as he called attention to a building that stood on a low tapering hillside. While others in the group gazed at the building I gave it a cursory glance as the sight had rekindled a long-forgotten incident. One recess we were playing the game of hide-and-seek when I accidentally strayed to the back of the hostel. As I pushed through the dense undergrowth, I found myself standing at the edge of a partially covered hole half-obscured by a tangled mass of vegetation. The hole was ringed by an unusually luxuriant growth of ixora with a profusion of colours. An eerie silence enveloped the place and I sensed an invisible presence. A sudden fear gripped me. With pounding heart I scrambled and bashed through the dense thickets until I reached the safety and security of my friends. After school I related the incident to mother and was reprimanded for playing behind the hostel.

“Don’t you know that’s the place where the unfortunate war victims were buried during the war,” she said. Later as I listened to our hostel friends recounting their encounters with headless apparitions in the dead of the night, I shuddered at the thought of the morning’s incident.

As the car eased out of the school’s gate, I glanced back to take another look at the school which held so many fond memories.

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In days past

Finding our way home