My Blog

Yesterday, my colleagues and I talked about things we ate as a child.
Milo powder.
Have you tried that before? Just scoop it and eat it.
I used to scoop the ‘kaya’ too and enjoy the creaminess and sweetness of the coconut milk and sugar, just like caramel.
Whoa… Syioknya.
Guess I’d learned it from my grandpa
And my granny would ’scold’ us,
"Thiew nia seng, nei sam gor khai dai… fatt dai yeet jing jau sei lor "
(Literally translated as, “F*ck your Ah Seng [God knows who is that pathetic Ah Seng!], you 3 buggers are gonna die from ‘heatiness’!” )
HAHAHAHAHAHA….

Those were the days… I miss those days…
Back there in Sri Pulau Pinang flats, we’d always be up to some mischief.
We were never allowed to go out and play with other kids, only watching them from the living room window, as they yell and run all over the place like ‘sakai’.
Grandpa and granny never allowed us to go out for fear that we would be influenced by them and neglect our studies or be ‘tainted’ with all sorts of foul language – well, we did ‘learn’ a thing or two from granny and grandpa though.
HAHAHAHAHA…..

We stayed there till I was about 7 (Cousin Marie is 5 years my senior, and cousin Melwin, 2 years my senior) before we moved elsewhere, but granny continued staying there, and rented out a room to a Chinese couple.

The 3 of us would bend over a bowl of curry laksa and dip in our forks (we were not good using chopsticks and even now, we still fumble with them!) and with one forkful of noodles, another hand would be holding a glass of water to douse the spiciness!
(Guess what? We still haven’t conquered our tolerance for spiciness yet! Damnit…)

Back then, there was this laksa lady who would come with a rod hanging over her shoulder, laden with curry laksa+soup, and benches. But we usually ta-pao home to eat. Nice…

And there was this Indian man who would carry huge metal basins on a rod, with kuih sembilan lapis and all sorts of colourful, sweet and savoury cakes. That was my favourite an-neh-neh (oops… sorry… No racial slurs here….)

When the ‘roti’ man came, we’d be too lazy to run down from the 3rd storey. So, down goes the plastic pail with a string attached to it and some loose change in it for our bread and what-nots
I can still recall that there were some round bread, with cards of Batman, Robin, Penguin & the Joker inserted inside the packaging.

Kepoh-chi Carrie would tag along with granny to the market as Marie was in school and Melwin still sleeping at home. Greedy Carrie knows that if she flashed a cheery smile and greeted the butcher, she’d get a nice piece of barbecued pork (Char-siew) to munch on.

Same goes for the auntie selling sundry, who would generously give me rock sugar to suck on Hehe….

Granny would buy me my favourite woon-chai-gou as well. Yummy.
It’s the only woon-chai-gou that I like and even now, I still return there to buy it sometimes, but the auntie making it is old and white liao

We also ‘operated’ on a baby shark that granny bought us from the market (as if there was nothing better to play or do! – We had our Playmobil – anyone knows what is it? Check out Wikipedia wooden swords, soft toys, game&watch, Matchbox cars, etc…

The Star Wars action figures, M.A.S.K. action figures, Transformers, Barbie & Ken dolls, double-decked game&watch, remote control cars, etc all came after we moved from Sri Pulau Pinang)

Hahaha!
Melwin was the surgeon, whilst Marie and I looked on and ooh, ahh all time.
Out came the baby squids, baby shrimps, etc…
Wonder why we din puke at the stench
Well, we threw away the carcass after the ‘operation’, declaring the shark dead
We were actually expecting something more inside after stories of gold rings, earrings, etc were found inside sharks/crocs which our granny told us (in her bid toget us buggers to finish up our rice…I was, (ahem!) naturally the fastest of the lot! HAHAHAHA…)
And we were disappointed that there were only shrimps and baby squids…
Kena tipu time and again by our dearest Por-por

Love you loads, Ah Por….
Miss you loads too! :’(