It was my privilege to have been born in the center of a village amidst the mangrove swamp where the the tidal cycles brought in water from the sea that inundated the whole village for half the day or night depending upon the cycle. I was born in my grandmother's house which was built on stilts raised six- seven feet from the ground, an all all wooden house that had no electricity and an open toilet where one can see what was six feet below while taking a crap. Every time the tide rises the pile of human waste from the entire resident of the house which housed my Grandmother and Grandfather, my aunts and uncles and their children, all in all about twenty to thirty individuals at any given time and not to mention a family five that rented a a part of the house; there below you was what came from these people. The the high tide comes in and remove them, scattering it in all directions to who knows where or in which part of the village. It is not surprising to find when the tide receded that someone's defecation has been delivered on you door steps! Here you began to learn and practice what is tolerance, no sense in being pissed as who is there to blame for all you know it was your own poop that had landed there. With all the toilet holes hanging high up in the air of so many houses it was futile to point a finger or curse anyone, one learn to accept the worse in life with an open mind; shit happens!
I have reiterated my childhood days growing up in the Sungai Pinang, Kampung Selut, {muddy village} area perhaps a number of times in this Blog and it never tires me as it was in my mind one of the most rewarding and the worse time of my life and i survived practically by the tips of my fingers. One of childhood escapades as often related by my late auntie who helped to raise me was the day she had searched all over the house for me saw the tips of my fingers clinging on to the side of the low wall of the door and below me was the water. Had she not spotted me I would have fell and drowned in the hightide as i was too young to swim for my dear life. My childhood days was filled with all sorts of adventure only growing up in such an environment could afford one as the rise and fall of the tide had so much to offer for a child who had more than his share of curiosity to explore with. The flotsam that the tide brough into my presence included anything and everything that floats from anywhere and everywhere from dead animals and broken toys and strange looking driftwood to the remains of an infant wrapped up in a bundle of newspapers! I made this gruesome find while playing with my friends jumping in and out of a canoe imagining that we were pirates. I still remember vividly how I found this bundle of news paper floating in the water and started poking it wondering what was inside. The bundle of Chinese newspaper started rolling in the water as I kept poking making it hard to pierce through and I finally did manage to tear away to soaked paper I made the discovery to my horror and the rest of the gang of pirates immediately disappeared in fright.
I grew up with my five senses put to the maximum grind as I can still smell my village especially after the tide had recede and the noonday sun scorched the debris left behind and raised the stench of dead animals and human and waste in pure mud into the air sometimes making the head spin when it got too strong. Ironically none of my childhood fellow pirates died or got sick from swimming in such filthy waters and most i found passed away from drug addiction in their young adult lives. The whole area was transformed into what it is today in the early sixties and I witnessed this transformation that took place before my childhood life as one after another of the dilapidated wooden houses were torn down and the whole area being covered by lorry loads of red earth hauled from the hillside and the stench of a different scent permeated the whole village, that of red earth; I can still smell it till this day. As children we were not happy with the demolishing of our village and we protested the only way we knew and that by destroying he concrete bricks being made for the construction workers in the day time and by night we did as much damage to them as we could; it was our way of saying that the development was not appreciated; we were too young and naive to know any better. Again the devil is in the details and the details as exciting as it was is too much to relate in this posting.
I still relate these events in my Blog in the effort to keep reminding myself of the richness and the poverty of the environment of my upbringing and wondering how it had impacted my life in my adult years; I had survived the worse of an environment imaginable. It had also enriched my sense of imagination as nothing could influence child's mind than how and where he was raised in his childhood years. What I have become today is the result of having waded through the quagmire of life that was just as decadent as it was challenging for a child of two, three to the age of five years old. Most of the fishes, crabs, snakes and birds are gone perhaps extinct a few of them as i have not found any except when I come upon a mangrove swamp somewhere along the coastal areas of the country today. It was a privilege and a blessing now that I look back to have been exposed to such a drastically challenging environment to have been brought into as i till this day remained as a fond memory in my adult life. I remember one day as I was driving my Porche across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco while in my forties reminding myself of my humble beginnings and how far I had came. The reflections of my childhood days often helped to ground me from getting trapped into forgetfulness of who I was and what i have become. Looking to one's past with a positive intention is not a bad thing even if it is said that one should not dwell in the past if one is to progress into the future.
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