I was born in 1974.
I see the children of today being DENIED a childhood. Perhaps that's what happened to Michael Jackson, the worst example of what happens when a boy does not grow up. But then again, that may not entirely be a bad thing.
So my uncle sends me this excerpt of Patrick Teoh's blog, To All those Born in the 40's, 50's , 60's & early '70s.
I'd like to put in my own version, and that's my experience as a boy growing up in this country.
Seeing that it's Merdeka and all, we should look back and see why we should get together instead of why nots.
1 Malaysia is a nice concept with name and all, but it only implies that our unity is already broken to begin with.
Now let's start.
Our family didn't have a maid. There was a cleaning lady, yes, her name was "Sim Bo", which literally means Thai Lady in Cantonese. Yes, she was from Tahiland.
But I did have a nanny, Ah Lan. She was this tough 60 year old lady from China who taught me how to spin tops, pick mangos with a stick and catch catfish from the big drain outside.
(Note: If you happen to see catfish in the drain outside your house NOWADAYS, please make sure to lower your intake of prescription drugs).
We had a muhibbah neighbourhood, which means Malay, Chinese, Indians and Sikhs along the same road. The children of the same age as me came out to play together, we didn't really care if the other boy or girl was of a different colour.
We simply just made friends like that. Plain and simple.
We rode our bicycles around the neighbourhood and we didn't have to fear about being kidnapped, being run down by reckless drivers/bikers.
The roads and neighbourhoods were a lot more safer then.
I could leave my front door open and walk to the sundry shop 50 meters away to get my sweets, and all the stuff in the house would still be there when I got back.
Never heard of a credit card then, but we had this nifty thing called the Triple 5 book, or 555.
The bread man used it. The sundry shop used it.
It was amazing (until my mom grounded me for runnning up a RM100 bill at the sundry shop) for me as a kid to think that wow, you could take all these stuff and pay for it later!
My father was into football and played until he got injured. Even then, he managed to indulge his passion by being a referee for the local league matches.
So, early on, I loved football.
So did my friends, especially when we could catch the World Cup 1982 on TV.
Our parents didn't care that we only waited until it RAINED to PLAY football.
We didn't get sick. My thinking is that we got USED to playing in the rain so we became "immune", unlike the kids today who catch pneumonia after a drop of rain.
To quench our thirst after our games, we didn't have nice Colemans, or thermos or "BPA-free" bottles to put our water.
We DRANK FROM THE TAP.
It could be a rusty 50 year old tap built by the British, but the water tasted so SWEET.
AND we did NOT DIE.
Come to think of it, we might have been 1 colour then. Cos' all of us got tanned from playing the whole day long in the sun!
We never heard of the Greenhouse effect, or whether the UV rays would reduce us to a piece of satay.
We would go into the bushes to look for frogs, ants or whatever creatures we could get to stage a "UFC" championship fight.
I don't know where they've gone, but I have never seen marbles for a long time.
You know those transparent "guli" with red/green/blue/yellow bands inside them.
Then you have the "real" marble. A white round piece of marble.
Objective was to smash your opponent's marble to bits.
Somehow, I discovered "coatings" through my passion for science, and somehow my marble remained "unbreakable" and I became Lord of the Marbles.
Firecrackers were another way to get ourselves killed, but somehow no one died unlike the dumb kids of today.
We would get Moon Travellers, you know, those rockety kind crackers with a lidi stick as a propulsion cracker.
We would SHOOT at EACH OTHER with these!
No one got blinded, no one got killed.
Well, it seems that when the government banned crackers over a few dumb kids, the fun ran out as well.
When we had enough money to buy a soft drink, the buyer NEVER got to drink his drink FIRST.
There was something called a Opening Ceremony, grander than the Beijing Olympics, where all your FRIENDS would take a sip first, and you got to finish what's left.
Now that's called SHARING.
Perhaps there are more dangers in the world today to children, but I suppose we should not smother nor cover them too much.
We climbed rocks, trees and fences. We fell.
We broke bones. We got sent to the hospital (more than I would have liked, but I suppose it was part of the character building).
But it never STOPPED us from having fun, the way we intended.
And if we got too mischievious for our own good, our parents would eventually find out.
First line of defence. My nanny would give me a good thrashing with the cane / rotan.
Then my parents would give me ANOTHER round.
Now, you think anyone would NOT be disciplined after that?
Look, I am writing this to tell all parents this.
Your child will be young only once.
Allow them to make mistakes.
But HELP them to DEAL with the mistakes they make.
Because you can learn almost everything from a book or when you go to school or college or university, but the ABILITY to deal with mistakes/wrongs cannot be learned except through EXPERIENCE.
There, I'm done.
Excuse me while I take Ethan and Ewan spelunking.
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