Green Green Grass of Home

Suddenly I feel like writing about my home town. I was surfing this website about Taiping and were taken aback for a while by the responses on old Taipingites there talking about their fond memories of the town. I came from a humble and conservative Malay family and was brought up all my life in Taiping. Since I was born, I never really did leave Taiping until I came here to Australia. Was actually offered for a boarding school when I was 12 but Mom and Dad kinda loathful me going there. So I rejected the offer. Now I know that I did not regret upon my decision back then. Boarding school clamps your mind and blocks your horizon. You only mix with the same race (Malay to be precise) and have no chance of widening your social circle. When I think back about it, I am grateful to all my friends in high school that has somehow shaped me personally into what I am today which I think I would not be who I am today if I was a boarding school product. And so I live my life in Taiping again for another 7 years.




My old school mate Raymond (I used to call him papa elephant at school) is a hardcore advertiser of Taiping. He will talk about Taiping wherever he goes and I can say that he is a truly Taipingite. I love the serenity of the Lake Garden and I savour all the profound memories of my schoolling life. I went to St.George for my primary and high school and indeed still a proud Georgian. St. George plays a memorable role in my life and the friends that I made there are indeed friends that you can rely upon. All of them now are scattered all over the world pursuing their own course of life. I cycled to school back then.



I hardly went out of Taiping when I was there but a visit to KL became frequent during my foundation year and that was when I was 18. Perth (a beautifully boring place) resembles a bit like Taiping with not so much of a traffic and the ever beautifiul Swan River remind me of the Lake Garden. Historically, Taiping was high in the list. First Railway Station, an old mining town, first zoo etc. Not so much like JB or Penang but Taiping is a place that you can unwind and let you mind wonder wildly.



My life in Taiping is very much a simple one. My first house was in Jalan Pauh, Assam Kumbang and then we moved to Kamunting. I only spent a month in Kamunting before I left for Australia. Most of my childhood was in Assam Kumbang. Love the neighbours there and my badminton colegues (one of them has passed away, may God bless him). The people there were less complicated than the people here. I never knew my neighbours here. Probably modernization is making us more selfish.

I dunno but I feel that Taiping is the place that where I want to retire and have a wonderful life with wife, sons, grandsons etc. I'd love to see Taiping as it is today and not be devoured by modern society with complex traits of mind that changes the intactness and the beauty of the town.