Thank you for the article “We resettled Chinese squatters in
new villages” (New Sunday Times, May 6). I stayed at the teachers’ quarters
behind SRJK (C) Pandamaran during my childhood and at Lorong Polis during my
teenage years.
The former was a row of wooden houses with attap roofs and the
latter a typical new village house my mother bought. She taught at the school
until her retirement some 30 years ago. The article did not mention the airfield,
which was sandwiched between Pandamaran and the road to the port in Klang.
The airfield was abandoned after the British had pulled out.
The runway was later used for occasional joyrides by air and a favourite venue
for circuses to pitch their tents and funfairs to erect their rides and games.
The industrial area between Pandamaran and Port Klang used to
be a mangrove swamp. Land reclamation was carried out at the expense of
residents staying along the road parallel to the airfield.
Thousands of lorry loads of laterite soil were transported
from the hills to the swamp and the road was covered by spillage. On dry days,
passing lorries churned up the powdery laterite and blanketed nearby houses
like snow.
It was a spectacle to watch people dammed a big drain and scooped out
the water to catch hundreds of catfish. During spring tides, these drains would
be flooded with seawater and marine life.
I used to catch fighting fish in the water hyacinth ponds of pig farms
and in the drains of nearby rubber plantations. There were plenty of guava
fruits and sugar canes for young boys like me to steal.
Most of the houses in Pandamaran were similar to other new
villages and not like ordinary farms as mentioned in the article. The land
around the houses was planted with some coconut palms, fruit trees or flowers,
not beds of vegetables.
The compound of one house was covered with Japanese roses in
full bloom. The people living there were very poor but rich in spirits.
It was truly a sight to behold and probably contributed to the
reason why I was able to dream in colours from young.
Many new villagers reared chickens or ducks. I enjoyed
watching my ducks wolf down a can of earthworms that I have dug from
underneath some lalang-covered soil.
Gang fights were common in many new villages and Pandamaran was no
different. The Federal Reserve Unit would come regularly to sweep the town for
young men loitering in the streets or at their turf in designated coffee shops.
A owner of a coffee shop woke up one morning to find a huge dump of pig shit at
his front door. The culprits were caught in a most unique fashion. A temple
medium was engaged and in a state of trance marched from the coffee shop to the
house of a perpetrator accompanied by a large entourage. My elder brother was a
tiger general and passed away at an early age caused by beatings he received
many years earlier from gangsters and in the lockup. He was 30.
As a teenager, I cycled everyday to relief boredom and a
favourite destination was the harbour. With friends, I cycled to Morib for
camping and to Kuala Lumpur for swimming at Weld Road (Jalan Raja Chulan).
My first job was a casual labourer at the port. Together with
a friend, we were assigned to pull the barges with ropes and made sure they
stayed together.
For that, we were each paid RM5 a day. We could have easily
fallen into the sea and my friend could not swim.
When I was much younger and could not swim, I had no fear to lower
myself into the water by holding on to a sampan while a friend is rowing in a
mangrove swamp. When a schoolteacher showed me how to swim during a beach
excursion, I learnt it instantly.
In Pandamaran, I learnt to ride a bicycle before my elder
brothers could. I had burrowed a ‘cargo bike’ and with my left hand holding on
to the handle, the right hand holding the horizontal bar and the bicycle seat
tightly squeezed under my right armpit, I would pedal furiously to gain balance
while the bicycle remained tilted.
Later, I would climb on to the seat and push the pedals down
when they reached the top, as my legs were too short.
I remember a young boy shouting when I cycled passed his
house: “Look ma, such a small boy, already can ride a bicycle!” That was the
first praise I have ever received and remember it to this day. It was 57 years
ago.
I have stayed in Kuala Lumpur throughout my working life but
Pandamaran will forever remain close to my heart.
YS Chan
Kuala Lumpur
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