In His Story...
Location: In this time period? Umm... November 22nd.
Mood-of-the-day: It’s more real to remember a person’s life.
It was in the 1920s when a male infant of Javanese parents was born in Pontian Kechil, Johor. He grew up to be a good man but under the old British rule of Malaya, he could only reach the education level of Standard Six. But he never gave up his love for learning. Between being a teacher and tapping rubber trees, he often lend his voice for those who demanded rights for higher learning from the British.
Eventually he was chosen to go for a new learning institute in Perak, part secondary school, part university, all proof of a better chance at living. It was a great honour, for after the imam, teachers were the most respected job in any community at that time. But soon came the Japanese and he had to leave his friends and his last year of school behind. But even his home wasn’t as safe as all the British had left.
Other than behind sent working in the fields, the Japanese gave many teachers an intensive 3-month course for them to teach the new occupier’s culture to students. Even in his old days, the man could still speak the language. But it was when the Japanese had all gone when he returned to his old school to continue his studies, saddened by the very many of his year who did not return.
Eventually, he did return home to his family and continued teaching school kids up to being a headmaster. In the account of his eldest daughter, headmasters also taught in classes and having one with a reputation for strictness was daunting. If you didn’t understand it while at school, get ready to go face it again at home. But he was mostly kind and patient and all who grew up in the community knew him well.
He also taught working folks to read and write and so he was a highly respected even long after he retired. He remained fit and healthy, with a mischievous streak. Bicycles and bull-carts filled the streets when he first drove so he never had patience for those who were slower than him. His manual Perodua Kancil had the window sticker "Cili Padi" and a "P" for inexperienced drivers, though he had been driving for over 50 years.
He was never a man of inactivity, so a time after his wife had passed away, he remarried and continued his work with the local mosque and public communities. Even after he moved to be more accessible to his families, he spent his time growing vegetables, reading the holy book and writing the words to paper and memory. He had very few health problems until tuberculosis struck on October 2004. He passed away and was buried on the day before Aidilfitri.
This is as much as I knew about my grandfather’s history and that I can honestly say that he is a great old man and that he left peacefully, surrounded by his family. He was the pinnacle of the extended family, often telling us jokes about our parents, such as how he would chase my uncles out of the neighbours’ rambutan trees or their making of bamboo cannons so it produced the loudest noise in the village.
He always looked as my earliest memory of him, a skinny but amazingly strong guy in shirt and belted pants with a skullcap and a shovel in hand or full baju Melayu with white turban and Al-Quran in hand. He had lived forever. As I remembered how I watched my second nephew tear across the living room in a tricycle without regard for people whom he expertly nearly collided and they were calling out for him to slow down.
The kid would never knew his great-grandfather, yet he seemed to have inherited Yayi’s driving skills. I guess that’s why despite the hole I had, I kept feeling like Yayi’s still around. I just have to find it in everybody he loved. Then maybe I can find him in me.
Signed: *Ophie, who’s making no bid for the excellently maintained Kancil because she can’t drive a stick.
Mood-of-the-day: It’s more real to remember a person’s life.
It was in the 1920s when a male infant of Javanese parents was born in Pontian Kechil, Johor. He grew up to be a good man but under the old British rule of Malaya, he could only reach the education level of Standard Six. But he never gave up his love for learning. Between being a teacher and tapping rubber trees, he often lend his voice for those who demanded rights for higher learning from the British.
Eventually he was chosen to go for a new learning institute in Perak, part secondary school, part university, all proof of a better chance at living. It was a great honour, for after the imam, teachers were the most respected job in any community at that time. But soon came the Japanese and he had to leave his friends and his last year of school behind. But even his home wasn’t as safe as all the British had left.
Other than behind sent working in the fields, the Japanese gave many teachers an intensive 3-month course for them to teach the new occupier’s culture to students. Even in his old days, the man could still speak the language. But it was when the Japanese had all gone when he returned to his old school to continue his studies, saddened by the very many of his year who did not return.
Eventually, he did return home to his family and continued teaching school kids up to being a headmaster. In the account of his eldest daughter, headmasters also taught in classes and having one with a reputation for strictness was daunting. If you didn’t understand it while at school, get ready to go face it again at home. But he was mostly kind and patient and all who grew up in the community knew him well.
He also taught working folks to read and write and so he was a highly respected even long after he retired. He remained fit and healthy, with a mischievous streak. Bicycles and bull-carts filled the streets when he first drove so he never had patience for those who were slower than him. His manual Perodua Kancil had the window sticker "Cili Padi" and a "P" for inexperienced drivers, though he had been driving for over 50 years.
He was never a man of inactivity, so a time after his wife had passed away, he remarried and continued his work with the local mosque and public communities. Even after he moved to be more accessible to his families, he spent his time growing vegetables, reading the holy book and writing the words to paper and memory. He had very few health problems until tuberculosis struck on October 2004. He passed away and was buried on the day before Aidilfitri.
This is as much as I knew about my grandfather’s history and that I can honestly say that he is a great old man and that he left peacefully, surrounded by his family. He was the pinnacle of the extended family, often telling us jokes about our parents, such as how he would chase my uncles out of the neighbours’ rambutan trees or their making of bamboo cannons so it produced the loudest noise in the village.
He always looked as my earliest memory of him, a skinny but amazingly strong guy in shirt and belted pants with a skullcap and a shovel in hand or full baju Melayu with white turban and Al-Quran in hand. He had lived forever. As I remembered how I watched my second nephew tear across the living room in a tricycle without regard for people whom he expertly nearly collided and they were calling out for him to slow down.
The kid would never knew his great-grandfather, yet he seemed to have inherited Yayi’s driving skills. I guess that’s why despite the hole I had, I kept feeling like Yayi’s still around. I just have to find it in everybody he loved. Then maybe I can find him in me.
Signed: *Ophie, who’s making no bid for the excellently maintained Kancil because she can’t drive a stick.
Imagination shone on 11/22/2004 01:02:00 PM
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