Reminisce - Makan time...

It is already getting dark, so I start to light the oil lamps, some I hang on the wall and some I put on the wooden floor. All the doors and windows have been shut so as not to allow the mosquitoes in as well as all the bad elements that are lurking in the darkness of the night. Folks are superstitious. We kids were told of the demon and the devil that would want to destroy the harmony of living, thus we must be aware and told what to do. The sound outside whether it is of the grass hoppers, the crickets or cats howling looking for its mate are to be considered to have some mystical effect and could be the devil itself and one must be careful. So if an insect especially a grass hopper enter the house in the night, one must catch it, separate the head from the body and spit on it and throw it outside. That would instantly kill the bad spirit. The fear factor is always there, especially so in a moonless night, the outside of the house is pitching black.

I took two of the lamps to the place where we are going to sit down and eat. Been the eldest boy in the family I had to do this ritual come evening and I just love doing it day in and day out. There was no dinning table. We spread the tikar [mat] made of mengkuang leaves on the wooden floor. Mother or our elder sister would place the dishes that mother had cook which are not that many. Some fried fish, a bowl of Ikan Aya Singang [Tuna fish cook in plain water with some lemon grass and galangal plus anion and green chilly] and Sambal Belacan to go with the steaming white rice. Sometimes we would have Ikan masak asam rebus or Ikan masak lemak and Ikan Bakar [roasted fish]. Chicken or beef comes only during a feast or on the day of the festival of Eid Fitri. So Rendang comes only once or twice a year. Because of the scarcity of cooking oil, most dishes were boiled thus not much oil were used except for frying fish. Even that the oil were home made from coconuts. Because time was rather hard we had to share everything on the 'table', a bit of everything especially that fried fish and Ikan Singang, my favorites. With the white rice on our plates we sat quietly to eat. The boys would sit cross legs in lotus style [bersila] while the girls in a different style [bertipoh]. Girls are not allowed to sit the ways of the boys. And as usual we drank plain water in between eating. Drinking plain water is a must when eating meals of rice. We would get scolding if we did not drink water when eating rice. The water came from a well near our house. There was no pipe water but to us it does not mean anything. Since I could remember at that period of my life, the well water was our only source of water for drinking, washing and bathing. The water from the well is crystal clear and as good as any water that we ever had.

It was indeed a very simple meal for the evening and that is the ritual every evenings. We all ate together with mother and my other brothers and sisters. Father seldom joins the dinner for he is still tending to the business at the shop where he sell foods and would always come home late after we all had gone to sleep. So it was always with mother. It is just a simple dinner but we all enjoyed it. And till this day I could remember of how I wished to have more of that fried fish but could not because what is there we all had to share. Now looking back to that scene I am choke with emotion for the kind of life we had during our childhood compare to our children and the grandchildren who always have plenty to eat at anytime of the day.

But then it was in the forties, a period where getting a decent meal a day was already good enough but for our family we had breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday without failed. The breakfast were normally of boiled banana or Lempeng [Malay pancake] if there are flours. Bread was rather scarce then and if there are any, it is beyond our reach to buy. So in actual fact we were better of then the others. Even during the Japanese occupation which is the most difficult period of the country, we still had three meals a day and we always have rice whereas others would have to resort to eating Ubi Kayu [tapioca] only. The reason for this is because father had a shop selling foods and he could get supply for his shop.

Superstition was the order of the day which I eventually got rid of it totally and raised our children to not believing in it. We have brought up our children to love every living species which includes insects, animals and plants.

Friends those were the days that are still fresh in my mind. In those days we eat to live but now it is live to eat. Image above is a scene of a ferry crossing at a river near Kuantan in the forties. Have a nice day. [Makan mean to eat].