all these childhood memories. somehow reading them all, one realises how much more of a childhood you get in malaysia. other countries. maybe? --there's more space, more ice-kacang men and satay hawkers; it's more traditional and time passes slower and you live more. or that was my impression.
i lived in malaysia myself, from K2 to P3. about 3 years in selangor. i remember i really hated school there; every morning i used to cry in the car. it wasn't the education system or anything like that. perhaps it was just that age, because i went to a good school and i had good friends there, and lessons were quite interesting. i remember we did everything in malay, except english. it's sad that my command of the language has mostly deserted me now--i haven't spoken it in 6 years. it's a beautiful language, you know. it has a very rounded, slow-going kind of sound. i was actually given the option of taking it instead of chinese when i came back here in p3, but i suppose since chinese is a more widely-spoken language my mom picked that option. what i miss most about malaysia, i think, is the space. the way i could walk out of the house (yes, we could actually afford to live in a house there) to the park--it was a big park, and a proper park with green grass and children's swings and trees--not like the things you have here with rubber matting (or whatever they use) on the ground. i miss the 4-hour drive down to johor baru, and the rest-stops along the way, especially the one with the baskin robbins ice-cream shop. i wonder if it's still there. i miss the oil-palm plantations and the excavations into the hillsides and the mountains and the fact that places like awana and cameron highlands and fraser's hill and langkawi and pangkor island were just a short flight or a drive away. sure, singapore is justs next door and our size isn't enough to warrant an extra hour tagged onto the flight/ drive, but it's different. the whole going out of the country, passport thing.
posted by 'liane @ 4:57 pm
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