Once Upon A Time in Foch Avenue

July 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Foch Avenue! I wonder what it is called today. It used to be our favourite meeting place! I remembered every Saturday after work (those were the days when we were working half-day on Saturdays) Rock used to meet me for lunch! Ah! those sweet, memorable and exciting dating days in the late 60's! Hey it was cheap then compared to today's standard! It costs us only RM $4.00 for two including drinks! I was a cheapie then because she earned more than me! My salary was RM $640.00 under the Suffian Scheme for Government employees!

We used to have lunch at her favourite 'Mee Yoke' or 'Prawn Noodles' stall at this particular coffee shop 'Lai Foong'. Just a few weeks back, I took Jay there to show him where his mom and I used to meet for lunch! Well, the 'Mee Yoke' stall is no longer there but during that time it was the best in town! Heard from rock that the owner of that stall donated it to Genting Casino for keeps! Do you show your children the places where you dated? For me its a nostalgic journey back to when we were young and foolish!

The name of the coffee shop or 'kopi tiam' commonly called locally, bears the same name, looks very much the same except the surrounding structures have changed quite a bit. There was a Goldsmith Shop, Nam Yick which belongs to my uncle just across the road but today it has moved elsewhere. I went there once a month to borrow money from my uncle to survive for 3 months just when I first started working and we don't get our salary until the 3 months probation is over and we received a whole lump sum! How in the world did the Government expect us to survive for 3 months without pay??? Talking about kind, sympathetic Government! Thank God for rich uncles!

With that salary, I could afford to pay rental for a shared room with another friend, pay my car installments, give my parents RM $150 per month and the rest just squandered away dating girlfriends!!! Today, a person with an income of RM $3000.00 could hardly survive!!!! No wonder we call the period then "The Good Old Days". Our Philosophy of living was simple, study, work, get married, have children and then we do not know what else to do!!!! No ambition of climbing Mt. Everest! Aaah! once upon a time when I did not have a need for dentures and V......?!

Finding my Roots

February 1, 2008 | 23 Comments

My mom and dad came from Guangzhou China. Dad emigrated to Malaya then to find his fortune while mom stayed home in Canton. Eventually after the Second World War, my dad sent for mom and two siblings. Heard so much about the family house from dad and mom that in 1988, I made a trip to Guanzhou to look for my last remaining uncle, my dad’s eldest brother who lived up to the ripe old age of 94 then but he passed away a couple of years back. It was a business trip but I took a day off to locate the family house. all the time within my heart I was rather doubtful that I could find it. Apparantly my Great Grand Father was a land owner back in the early 1900's and when China came under Communist rule, all our family land was confiscated and became State owned except for the family house.

It took me tremendous effort to locate the family house in a corner of Guangzhou. On top of that, I do not read and write Chinese although I speak the lingo i.e. Cantonese, which really helped a lot. I managed to hire a kind taxi driver for the whole day to bring me to the district of Shun Tak and helped me locate Peng Onn Gate, just that for address which was passed on through word of mouth from dad! Well to cut the story short, after a lot of leg work and enquiries from the locals there, I managed to locate the house and to my amusement Peng Onn Gate is not a street but the name of the family house! The small entrance betrayed a huge compound inside! I was also amused that the street where the house stands bears the family surname! Wow! My forefathers must be some landlord then! My uncle was over joyed to see me in person and he recognized who I am! He said I looked very much like my dad. The strange thing was that although we had never meet each other till that very moment, there was a sense of 'family' and we chatted as though we knew each other our whole life! He knew all the details about me and my very own family, perhaps from the many letters between him and my dad and this was embarrassing because I know nothing of his! He could even name my children! Wow! I guess this is something we modern people lack, this 'sense of family' and the interest in each and every detail about the next generation or his nephews and nieces! He could even tell me when my mom and dad passed away! I could hardly recall the date now! Admiration and respect just flowed from my heart for this senior citizen.

Peng Onn Gate or Gate of Peace

It was an education coming to the place of your origins. I was so amazed that 8 generations of the family were all buried inside the compound of the family house! Took a picture of that ‘sacred place’ with my uncle and he tried to persuade me to bring my mom and dad’s ashes back there to be buried! Finding your own roots proved to be a great learning experience and I heard him talked for hours on the family history! Very interesting, bitter sweet, and learning of their struggles through unimaginable hardships brought tears to my eyes. Hearing from this old man relating the family’s story through nearly 100 over years was a lesson about life itself. Saying good-bye to him was emotional! He cried and I cried and we promised each other to meet again but alas it was not to be so! I believe he must be buried in the same place ending 8 generations! I don't think I'll be buried there when its my time to say good-bye and it sort of putting a closure to the family's story in China, to be continued in Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia, UK and Canada.

Family Scared Place

It was rather sad to learned that most of my cousins had migrated to Australia, Canada and UK! I guess life was tough living under the Communist Regime in China. Many still live in Hong Kong but from there many migrated elsewhere! I don't think that I will ever meet them! We are like strangers knowing the name just like reading about a character in a novel. I am glad that I found my roots and I intend to tell my children where their forefathers came from and the family history through time. Being buried in a family burial plot or land sounded so historical. Like in the Bible where it said 'so and so slept with his fathers' giving the story such a deep sense of richness! .

My Grands from The Ching Dynasty

Once Upon A Time……….

January 30, 2008 | 23 Comments

Two years after that tragedy, they had a new baby who came at the right time to console their aching hearts and they loved this boy very much and named him Blessings & Prosperity. Life went back to normal after this new addition and they relocated to the nearest mining town. Perhaps to escape from another fire which was so common in wooden cottages and to avoid their new born baby from being taken away by another fire. Soon Blessings Prosperity grew up to be a cute little boy.

In a twinkle of the eye, Blessings Prosperity went to college in the Capital City of Kuala Lumpur doing his Electrical Power Course. Upon graduation he was trained to be a technician in Telecommunications.

I guess by now you all know who I am writing about! Is me, bokjae! Just sharing a bit more of myself to you folks as well as see how I slowly aged!!!!! This post was really inspired by another fellow blogger at VersaCreations who asked me one day why I never blogged about my daughters! After working for a couple of years I met Rock and we started dating and after 4 years, got married. Here are some photos of us in our hay days so to say.

Not long after our marriage, I left her back in KL while I went overseas pursued my Undergrad Course in Electrical Engineering in Glasgow. By then she was already pregnant with our eldest, and because of that she could not join me in UK, moreover she had to continue teaching to support herself and the baby who was due soon. My fashion then was bell-bottom pants and long hair! Arrgh!

During my first summer holidays home, I was feeling so strange for then I was a Daddy! It took Sharlene a few days to get used to this stranger who suddenly appeared in her life. I guess no amount of telling her by Rock that her daddy is coming back soon to cuddle her could allay her fears of this total stranger!

After my graduation, I rushed home to my wife and daughter immediately and took over the role of provider to my family and soon there were two more additions to our family, Justin or Jay two years after Sharlene and Dawn our youngest daughter with a gap of 10 years!

Now, they are all grown-up, looking young and beautiful whereas we are slowly turning grey and no longer looking so great!

Our children return around November every year and leave just before the Chinese New Year! They had just returned lately to their respective places and perhaps missing them spurs this post. In life its about learning and listening to our own parent's past experiences, the history of the family and then our own turn to lead our next generation but we must learn to listen to them and learning from them the current trends and post modern culture of their generation! Joy is about listening, learning and living life to the fullest with gratitude with thanksgiving to Almighty God!

Career Beginings.

July 27, 2007 | 1 Comment

Read a very inspiring story from Jacklyn (who is into Personal Development and Empowerment) about how someone from bankruptcy, picks himself up and building a successful business now. As for me personally, never really experienced that but went through a similar thing with the company I worked for in the first 2 years of her start-up. We were threatened to be foreclosed by the Bank and it was no small matter and you really feel the heat and the pressure just to stay afloat. Thank God the company survived and grew to become quite a successful established corporate entity in her own field of expertise.

Recalled how I got the job with this company and looking back, it was quite funny really. I was a fresh graduate engineer and was dying for a job so that I could support my wife and child then. During that period of time, there was an excess of engineers plus very little openings and many of my fellow engineers were unable to get a job, not even with the Government. We were surviving on rock’s salary as a school teacher and boy it was tough! Without even a rented house, no car, no income and a forever hungry baby! We lived in a room with my mom-in-law who offered us free accommodation but we paid for our food. Remember to give thanks for parents and parents-in-law for they are a source of tremendous help and support for a young person starting life as a rookie.

I learned of this company doing something in line with my qualifications and training, so I headed to the office asking for a job. Never bothered to write-in to save time. I was disappointed for the Admin cum Personnel Manger told me that they already had 5 engineers and there were no vacancy for another! A very quick 3 minutes interview I got. Being young, arrogrant, reckless, fearless or hard-headed, I did not accept his answer, thinking to myself if at all anybody tells me there’s no vacancy got to be the boss himself! But how could I by-pass him to get to the boss? Well by way of the boss' secretary! Don't forget to give thanks for secretaries too! So I waited until lunch break saw the Admin Manager leave for his lunch, I sneaked back into the office chatted with the secretary, using all my charm and good manners, managed to get her fixed me an appointment with the boss who was away and won’t be back for a week. I did not lie to her if that was what you folks are thinking for actually I knew this boss by name but he never really know me. We were working for the telecoms before I left to pursue my degree and now he started his own company.

Of course I managed to meet him, got the job and since then had never looked back until now after retirement! Why I share this story and what it has got to do with Jacklyn’s story? Don't give-up easily, persist and persevere until you get something to start with and then advance from there. Anyway what conclusions you may have drawn or derived is not that important but starting live from scratch and from bankruptcy requires determination, focus and some tenacity and that’s my 2 cents worth.

Drowning Experience

July 25, 2007 | 11 Comments

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