Dead Man's Tales Chapter 2 Talking about Money

"Dead Man's" Tales.

Chapter Two  Talking about Money

I was never born rich or what they so say born with a silver spoon in the mouth.Without a doubt I was brought up in a poor family.Rather I was born in a family where the family fortune had dwindled away. 

It happened during the Japanese occupation,I and my other siblings spent our childhood days in a wooden attap house along Anson Road,Telok Intan,Perak.That was the last remaining property of the once great Cheah clan.Our dear grandmother held on to it on her dear dear life,clinging on to it ,though there were pressure for her to sell it away for their own gains but she flatly refuted them,sending them away empty handed..

Though we were poor  but all of us survived on.True money were scared those days.Initially we lived on some of Granny's savings but those never lasted long,so our dear mother was forced to work as a rubber tapper.The meager income she had barely sufficient to keep us going but we went through them 

Our dear father was not able to secure any proper employment.Jobs those days were scare and difficult to come by.Should there be any the payment was extremely low.Our father had only a secondary education,that which he never complete as well.So where to find suitable employment..

.As far as we remember he did some timber trading from our house's compound.That was actually nothing accept a  few pieces of planks and beroties.His daily sales were insufficient for his daily tea time with his pals..My grand mother simply refused to support him further.In actual fact she was damn right -as it was pointless.

Then he got joined as a home guard during the emergency,stationed around Kampar in those old tin mining fields.When I was about seven years old he took our  whole family to view his place of work.That day we also visited Ipoh for the first time.With him in  employment and our mother working as a rubber tapper locally our lives improved slightly.

As a child we never had any used for money.Anything we required were provided for,especially when our  grandmother was around .Those days along Anson Road not much used of money accept for occasional passing hawkers catering with beard and cakes etc. Not much to choose from really.

It was only when I was slightly older that I knew the importance of money.So when I and my brother required some pocket money.I would slowly sneaked behind our house and  climbed up one or two  coconut trees. 

Our plot of land was about one and a half acre partly planted with some tall coconut  palms.Just imagine those tall palm as tall as 30 feet high and I scaled them, at my age of six or seven.It was actually dangerous encounters and one minor mistake could be very fatal. The climbing down surely scaled my bare chest.It really hurts for quite a few days but no choice I had to do it for some pocket money.

Thereafter to concealed my wounds on the chest I had to put on a shirt all day long for a few days  instead of running bared body.I would do the plucking and my kid brother would guide me which to pluck from the bottom.He also served as a look out for our parents.

The "Kanchang putih" fat Indian man gave us ten to twenty cents each,depending on the size.Real exploitations indeed  but what can we do?. He was the sole buyer we know those days.We had plenty of other fruits behind our house then.There were sugar cane which consumed almost daily.Other fruits were Guavas,papayas and water apples.

Should we feel hungry at times we just simply go digging for sweet potatoes in that piece of land.Roasted  sweet potatoes surely tasted very nice t hose days.Roasting in the field made them more tasty.Firewood were readily available - for us the old coconut leaves.

Those potatoes were actually planted   by paternal grandfather whom had them planted whenever he was around our house.Those potatoes also provided us with  green vegetables.Of course he also planted other types of vegetables for local consumption only.Nothing was for sales.

Of course,those plucking of coconuts happened whenever our maternal grandmother or parents were not around.Should they be around there was no need to do that.Then when we initially went to school we had about ten cents per day.Those days ten cents you can easily purchased a bowl of soup mee at the school canteen.

That money stopped when our father had no more job.His services as a home guard was terminated with the end of emergency.His troop was disbanded and he became jobless.Later our uncle gave him a job selling sawn timber at $ 5.00 per day.

After a year or so our uncle gave up that business.Our father thought that was a really good time then to continue that business so he pestered our dear grandmother to sell that final property away.With much persuasion  our grandmother reluctantly surrendered that piece of land.

It was sold at an extremely low price of fourteen thousand ringgit.We were really exploited by the buyer.But there was nothing we could do as those there no other buyers.Part of the money was given our father to continue the timber trading business.Our dear father never a good business man .I was about thirteen years old then.

The share he got did not last very long as he never invest all those cash into it.He slowly spend them away on leisure and gambling mahjong..A really sad tale in fact,no need crying over split milk.In any case he never was a good businessman.When he was trading we were forced to live at hos work site in a tiny room.In fact it was office cum room.

When we had no money there were times that we did not have food on the table.Fortunately there was a nice teenager who worked as an illegal number runner  helped us out a little by purchasing some rice for us.Our mother was forced to return to tapping rubber in Sungei Nibong.We know because we do helped in the cleaning of latex cups those days during school holidays.

I was in form two then and had to walked to school in Raja Musa quite a distance away from our house along Jalan Immigration.On the way we would dropped by our Auntie's house (our mother's youngest  sister) for breakfast,consisting plain bread with home made "kaya".It was indeed very kind of her for helping us.

We are forever grateful for her kind gesture.There were days we went hungry without breakfast especially when we saw our Auntie's husband around the house.We were too shy and shunned away without any thing to eat.Not that he would reprimand us.

No nothing of that sort, only thing was he was not smiling most of the time.He was very stern looking that was why we were afraid of him.Actually he was one of the kindest soul around.Beside us there were other cousins eating there.True our mother did pay them something but we knew very well those something were really nothing.

Those days we never had any money going to school and should we be thirsty or hungry, the taps in school and around quenched our thirst. I remembered an occasion where my brother and I went along with the boys in I Immigration  Road went all out to carry funeral banners for a dollar or so.

Actually after our service we were paid two dollars while my brother got only one for carrying a smaller banner.Many of our parents' friend saw us even though we tried to hide our faces among those banners.Following we shied away from being banner bearers in funerals.Actually there was no shame in earning honest money at least we did not begged or steal..

On receiving our money we went for a hefty breakfast,a thing we never had for a long long time.Those days twenty cents per bowl of curry mee.Oh yea we enjoyed ourselves fully.The balance we spent them slowly.Most important we never did what we did ever again.It really was an experience we never forget..

Our dear old maternal grandmother was saddened when she saw the collapse of our father's trading.She was so sad that she nearly collapsed on the spot especially when she saw the living conditions we were experiencing.The worst was she began to blame herself for what had become of us and that slowly made her lose her memories.

There was a moment we found her lying in an unsold coffin.She was lost as our shop was turned into a coffin house.We had to plead with her to come home to us.Apparently she lost her will to live on.Fortunately she listened to us when we pleaded with her.

On another occasion we found her missing from our house and we were forced to search every where for her.We spread out to find her and she was located by my brother at the "Indian jetty" a short distance away.Fortunately we located her before she really jumped into the river.Sad to admit she had to be dragged and carried home.

Somehow our dear auntie from Kuala Lumpur came to know about that and immediately rushed down to Teluk Anson  and whisked her back home without a word to our parents Our grandmother was never allowed home to Teluk Anson.

So when she yearned to see her grand children we were requested to be there during our school holidays.By then we were forced to leave Immigration Road as our father could afford to pay its rental.Luckily our mother secured a rubber tapping position in Ratanui Estate,two miles away along Changkat Jong Road..

While employed there she was allotted a one room living quarter in the plantation line sites.All of us - there were five of us including our father lived in that quarter.The room was very tiny ,so our mother  and sister slept on an old bed while I and brother slept under the bed.Our father slept along the verandah.Those the days-very rough indeed.

Despite the control of lighting etc.estate switched off their electrical lighting by 10 p.m.Poor sister she studied under a tiny kerosene lamp. Our dearest sister scored the best Overseas  Cambridge School Examinations with the best result in Lower Perak District.Those days five or six distinctions meant allot.

However before she saw her results she actually became a temporary teacher with the Convent School.With her working that eased our mother's burden a lot.It was shortlived as she was later selected to do s teachers.training course in Brinsford Lodge,United Kingdom. 

While residing in Ratanui Estate,we had to cycle to school most of the time.We never had any new bicycle but very old ones.Initially we went to school by bus and when we had no money for the fare we had to walk to school which was two miles away.Later we were given the old bicycle and we cycled to school.

I remembered those bone shakers we had .Creeking and sqeezing all the way to school.A puncture meant we had to push the bic to school or leave at at home.Whatever it was we rarely missed school.I was about sixteen years old then and doing form five.

That year I remembered dearly as in that year 1959 I met a very beautiful and charming young girl.That year I was so infactuated with her that I lost my heart.  Sad to admit after a short  friendship I was told to get lost by her family member.I was extremely hurt and I foolishly cried as I left her house. I never gave her up but promised myself to do good in future to win her back..Did that materialized?No,never,I never made it ,but my heart still yearned for her.Fate has indeed been cruel to me.

 When our sister went for the Teacher Training course we shifted away from the rubber plantation to reside in a rented  room along Pasir Pedamar Road..Our mother had left the estate for small holder for slightly better payment.Our father got a minor job teaching Chinese to some fishermen or fishermen's children for a small fee.

So I and my brother actually lived in that room for a couple of months.When I finally sat for my Senior Cambridge Overseas Examinations our Auntie still send for us to spend our holidays with her.Maybe she was still thinking of her dear mother who had passed away two years back.

Oh yes despite our poor condition we were always spending our school holidays in Kuala Lumpur as our grandmother yearned for our presence there,.So we were always there during school holidays.While she was alive we always had a marvelous time in K.L.That did stopped even after her passing.
to be continued when inspired.