Tales From an Old Town Dwellers

~~I wish to extend my profound thanks to four of my beloved friends for the contribution of their stories as well as the corrections made for this write-up.~~

Dawn retreated to give way to the reign of the morning sun. School lessons convened early in the morning with the Physical Education of the Standard Five A of the Methodist Primary School of Nibong Tebal of the year 1963 in the school field. While the girls were playing happily and screaming excitedly in the play field,they saw their class teacher’s girl friend was having a Physical Education lesson in the vicinity,enjoying her PE class with her secondary schoolmates. Some of the naughty ones among the girls were shouting out her name and yelling aloud, “ Mr.Rice is calling you!”

Back in the class, after the Physical Education was over, the whole class had to stand on the chair for a whole period, a punishment pursued by Mr. Rice Yatim.


The bell rang. This time round it was the recess time for the upper primary pupils at the Pai Teik Chinese Primary School. Tom Lawyer and Jimmy Cutter were of the Standard Five pupils in the year 1962. They had planned and rehearsed mentally a means to cheat the school canteen operator. Tom Lawyer was holding a ten cent coin rushing in the direction of the canteen with Jimmy Cutter followed closely behind him. On reaching the canteen counter, Jimmy purposely gave Tom a push to set him off balance. Tom fell forward and before he could regain his balance, he skilfully aimed and threw the ten cent coin right into the coin box of the canteen operator. Tom pretended to be very angry with Jimmy and quarrelled fiercely with him for the loss of his precious ten cent coin!! To put the matter to rest, the canteen operator finally refunded Tom with a twenty cent coin ,the amount which Tom claimed to have accidentally been thrown into the coin box! With that money Tom and Jimmy bought two bowls of curry noodles. Needless to say the noodles tasted extra delicious!

School was over for the morning session of the Pai Teik Chinese Primary School after half past twelve in the afternoon. After taking lunch at home, I walked swiftly to the Coffin Street as two of my classmates were staying there as opposite neighbours. They were Tom Lawyer and Cari Brown. Both Tom and I had to wait patiently for Cari to finish off his chores of helping his maternal uncle in the preparation for the evening’s business of hawker food before he could have his own leisure time with us. After Cari had finished his ‘homework’, we got down to our serious business of ‘outwitting the elders’. We had a set of SOPs(Standard Operating Procedures) to comply to. Firstly we made a preliminary survey of the prospective shops to be patronised. Any shop with the least surveillance due to shortage of man power would be our prime target. We then entered the shop, and distracted the shop assistant by asking him to show us the various items from hither and thither. While the poor shop assistant was attending to one of us, the other two would lose no opportunity to slip into their pockets whatever items that could be easily pocketed unnoticed. I for one could not remember what we had stolen. The thrill was more on the act itself rather than the value or the usefulness of the items stolen; the thrill of the kids outwitting the the adults! I have to offer my apologies now and repent for what I had done then.

Ah Tai was my primary schoolmate. He was a decent boy, always smartly attired. His hair was always neatly combed,and not a strand out of place with the aid of hair gel like ‘Tancho’ or ‘Brylcreem’. But, when I last saw him twenty years ago, he was just entirely 'another person' in attire as well as in appearance. I was told that he was not of his normal self. I did not know what had happened to him then.

Lately, I just learnt from another friend the reason for his drastic change in personality.

About thirty over years ago, he was interested in a girl staying in a neighbouring town. He was of a timid type and hence he asked his cousin brother, Ah Ping, to chaperone him during his initial dates with the girl.Finally, there was a marriage ceremony . Unfortunately,the bridegroom was not Ah Tai! It was Ah Ping instead. Ah Tai got very furious with Ah Ping for betraying the trust he had given him. He was chasing after Ah Ping with a ‘parang’ up and down the town like a magnet being attracted to a steel rod. Since then Ah Tai has not been himself; something went askew in his mind,and he had to keep on contemplating over and over again the same question of “Who am I?”

Another pitiful figure in the town was my primary school teacher whom the pupils used to refer to as Lau Chang[老张] . He was a very thrifty person. Any penny that entered his pocket could hardly find its way out. With the money he saved over the years and the gratuity he got after his retirement he was ready to venture into the business of financing & leasing. On the first day of its operation and within an hour or so, all his monies were loan out to the local big time gamblers, each acting as a guarantor for another. It was merely like 'an hungry tiger borrowing a big fat pig from a farm.' as stated in a Chinese proverb of ‘lao hu jie zhu’ [老虎借猪]. No way could he recover the monies from these hardcore gamblers. The heartbreak and the disappointment of his failed business , coupled with the loss of his hard earned money must have taken a toll on him , as he did not survive long after that, leaving behind a widow to take care of their children.
Night fell as darkness slowly enveloped this quiet town of Nibong Tebal. Most residents opted to be dream chasers in the slumberland. There were scores of cinema viewers watching old film in the Southern Talkies. Ah Guan, Ah Beng and a few others who were supposed to be doing their revision at home were found to be idling their time at the open space of the basketball court at Pai Teik School Union. They then adjourned for a stroll from one end of the town to other, patrolling the town on behalf of the policemen.This had prompted their Mathematics teacher with the nicked name of ‘White Crab’ to remark, “I believe some of you should be able to give me the exact measurement of the roads in the town after having measured them so regularly.” Believe it or not, the shadows that were casted by these night walkers were sufficient to make the tar roads look darker the next morning.