Jelutong Village

 

 

Whenever I am asked by Penangnites where I used to live, I would tell them "Jelutong Village". There was always this momentary look of surprise. I remember how my boss would not even dare to drop me at my village when she gave me rides home. She would stop a few hundred metres away!! You see, Jelutong was notorious for its gangsters.
The above pictures are shots of our house which I recently took when I visited Penang. This is the house where mother gave birth to a bouncy baby girl called Choo Choo. Her arrival into this world was unexpected because she was much younger than all her four siblings. However, Choo Choo's papa considered her arrival his "most blessed mistake". The wooden house stands on about 5,000 sq. ft. of land. Singaporeans would be envious of the spaciousness for they could build a bungalow on 5,000 sq. ft. of land.! Now the house is being rented out, as second brother and family have moved to their own condominium and all of us are now living in different parts of the world.

I love Jelutong Village. Although our home was humble, I guess I was the happiest kid in the village for I had the most wonderful family. Being the youngest, I was pampered by almost every relative and friend. I had never seen my grandparents and often wondered why all my friends had grandparents and I had none. But being sweet-tongued and suave, I also followed suit in addressing all the elderly folks, "Ah Ma and Ah Kong (Grandmother and Grandfather). You can imagine the amount of red packets I received during the Lunar New Year!

Papa gave us lots of freedom to run around. We played rough games like police and robber and hole in the sand where if a player got hit by a ball, he would have his face drawn with black ink with a Chinese brush! Soon there would not be enough room on his face and he would have his arms and legs painted with ink!!!

There were so many coconut trees that we could climb. In our compound alone, we had guava, rambutan and chiku trees. Second Sis was the most agile of all. Sometimes we teased her that she must have been a monkey in her previous life! Since I had short legs, I could not manage to climb very high. I could only manage the lowest rung of the coconut tree and of course when I looked up, what did I see!??

My students loved my stories about Jelutong Village. I often reminded them that they could not play tricks on me, for I knew all the possible tricks of teenagers. I guess I have proven my point because during the ten years of teaching, I was the one who tricked the students on April Fool's Day!!!

In my next article, I will tell you more about some of the interesting and unique characters in my village.