MY CHILDHOOD IN KUCHING I

Somehow my mommy could talk for my subconscious mind!

Nagged by Little Money’s Mom

When my younger sister quarreled with me, usually I would be lazy to response, as she always wanted to win for everything, e.g. she said she wanted mommy’s 100% love and demanded mom that she could only lavish me 30% love or else she would get very angry like the angry bird, she asked mommy to give her 10 kisses but didn’t allow me to kiss mommy.

  

   My little sister is very childish; I would usually reply her, “Meow!” That mean I treated her like a puppy, as I noticed that the little puppy always loves to bark at the cat for attention!

My mom said those boys in my classmates talk like adults; they are almost as tall as my dad and could talk to her more mature than my dad! She also said that they could become a father without a problem; I wonder what she was talking.

   Then Aunty Annie came to scene, she told my mom, ‘Don’t get disappointed of your childish son, he is very smart, you don’t know what those moms fed their boys, do you notice that these days amongst the most talented, most artistic, most eligible bachelors are mostly not straight? You notice that our old days boys only started to know what is called studying until form 5 or form 6?’

   Anyhow my mum still think that I am stupid, she said those teachers and friends of hers whoever said that I was smart must be as smart as me, so don’t you think she was hinting to me that those teachers and her friends are stupid like me?

You know I hate to memorize those BM compositions, Chinese compositions, luckily there is no English composition yet.

   During exam, I hated to keep writing those repeated A to Z letters composition, instead I chose to draw cartoons or turn those ABC into different fond, which were a lot more fun.

   My Ann EE’s graphic designer friends all thought that I am a genius, I love to hear it but my mum’s face turning black whenever she thought I would become a “go bald headed” advertising executive, she said if anything goes wrong that I don’t want to have a girlfriend then my “Chinaman” dad will curse her even she goes to live in 11th dimensional hyperspace.

Anyhow, my life was changed completely after I moved to Kuching 4 years ago, my mom used to be a career woman, she didn’t need to worry if my dad didn’t send her our monthly expenses in the middle of a month, but now I often heard her cursing at "someone looks like me" at weird hours in the morning when something went wrong especially when she couldn’t get help from anyone.

   Mom didn’t allow us to mess up the house, she would wipe the floor four times a day, so whenever I spitted something on the floor, usually I would secretly wipe it off, but she still found it out, because of stickiness.

   She said if I wanted to cheat, better cheat and tell lies smartly of not being caught, she said my cheating and lies reminded her of "someone looks like me", don’t you think she meant that’s the person who contributed me the Y-chromosome?

   After four years studying in Chinese primary school, finally I can speak Mandarin better than those banana-cousins of mine in NZ, Australia and USA, and I can read Chinese comics and newspapers too, but during exam, my Chinese is still the last in class like the rest of my subjects, my mum said except my English was a bit better than the rest or else for sure I would sure score the last in class.

   She said that's why she regretted to get married, she was slow, she only started to know what was called studying when she was 18 years old, and she met an as equally slow dad except his mouth was always faster than his brain and his eyes, that's why she got unlucky and hooked, I wonder what mom was talking.

   Anyhow, she concluded that that's why I am an ultra slow person as the result of the slow biproducts, she told my dad, "Don't expect yourself to become a grandpa when you are 70 years old! The average age for your son likely to get married will be at 38, that's the added and divided result of our marriage age!"

My favorite task is always catching grasshoppers after school inside the school compound and my classmates always complained to my mum, 'Aye, he is catching grasshoppers again!' Anyhow, my mom never forbid me, she would come late to pick me up after school that gave me suffficient time to catch the grasshoppers, she said I was merely looking like her, because she was a "grasshoppers-catcher king" when she was a child.

I caught the grasshopper-brother and its little sister too

 

One night right after 9pm, when mom flickered her fingers softly over the 88 keys, suddenly we heard pebbles dropping sound and followed by loud curses that we all couldn't hear clearly, anyhow mom said luckily we didn't hear clearly so that we didn't need to get angry at childish people. Then the following night when there was no dog's barking, mom told us to expect the annoying alarm sound, true enough, mom was like a witch she could tell what would happen! She said in life, when people thought that you were not threatening enough to them, they would bully you, but she said sometimes it is not neccessary to retaliate, as dog barked at cat, dog would be harrassed by naughty kids, naughty kids would be scolded by their parents, weren't she hint me not to make fun of my Teacher Yu's Hu Lee Dog?

 

Mom got angry, she said this was the SILENT LANGUAGE of how my classmates OSTRICIZED me in class. She said this is usually happened in Chinese school as they placed academic results as the most important of all activities. She said if I was not the top three counting from the bottom then I wouldn't be treated this way. She said this picture will be an evident, if I turn into somebody in the future, then the whole Malaysian education system has to change its instructional methods, but if I turn into a nobody, that must be caused by the overdosing of antipressant when I was in her tummy, she said that's the most regretful thing she did in her life was to swallow antidepressant when she was not depressed, she said usually pregnancy makes women more stupid and indecisive, I wonder she was talking senses or not, only one day if I become a scientist to figure it out!
Note: One day I peeked my classmate Megan's Chinese composition, she said she wished that I would be transferred to other school!

 

Mom said every morning after sending us to school, she would be caught in traffic jam where no police would come to regulate the heavily jammed traffic along this poor men street, she said jams in rich men streets or other lane would usually move fast except on this poor men lane!

Mom said this lane is like the little China, to proof this is the poor men lane, she said just needed to observe if the motocycles are more than cars!

She said rich men never could fathom how poor men live, rich men would think that they are born to be superior and they would usually think poor people are stupid and lazy thus why they deserve to be poor! She said not many people would realize that rich men would keep an eye on poor men to make sure they don't get rich to gain a new rival to them. She said big fish eats small fish to get fat, but never small fish gets fat by eating big fish but small fish would eat smaller fish to get bigger!

 

Mom said it is just a few kilometers lane, but the jam would usually take her twenty minutes to reach home

 

She wondered why police never would come to regulate traffic jam in the poor men lane.

 

She said just a little way up from the poor men lane to Jalan Alwi, the road was named after one of the richest man, I heard that he was once my grandpa's classmte who once owed the most lands in Kuching, thus she called that as rich men lane, where Lodge International School is along the way.

 

Mom said all these cyclists wish that they have cars too, look at the way they risked their lives to ride in between the double lane! Amongst all those mom's nags, I still really don't understand what mom was talking!