THE HAPPY GHOSTS OF KAJANG
When life ends, memories will fade and history will disappear. But not if the satay town’s phantoms can help
go on life’s long and
No matter where we and childhood winding road, our birthplace a special place in haunts will always have our hearts. them and the days
We often dream about moments that were good, that once were. About and times that were hard. readers treasured will from today offer
The towns and bustling picturesque kampung, accounts of bygone places, weekly series called of writers in a new cities from a vast pool
"Growing Up In...". of their own country gain insights into parts
We hope readers will trove of priceless writers go through their and elsewhere as the recollections. of my young life, one that planted the seed of a near-unending nightmare. A human head in flight!!
But before we examine this supernatural chapter in Kajang’s tale, let us consider a less frightful landmark.
We children heard about the bazaar from our parents’ conversations, and much did we wonder. Our little minds imagined it to be a grand place. And so we felt when we finally came upon the wooden edifice, notwithstanding its faded name proclaimed on a jaded facade.
A short road to the National Cinema and Sum Bus station halved the bazaar, and made it seem bigger than it actually was.
This creature was filled with the energy of woman and man, old and young. Along its throbbing veins sat sellers of food, shoes, toys, magazines and clothes, and tailors, barbers and cobblers. The expectant uncle-and-aunty traders, who parked themselves on low stools in front of their shops, were mainly Chinese.
And yes, there was also the town’s premier Chinese restaurant, Tai Wah, where wok clanged and pots were ‘fired up’ and waiters in constant movement and conversation. Mention must be made, too, of the ‘makan shop’ which was reputedly Kajang’s first mamak joint ever.
To this place Papa went often, scooping up his little ones to join him in the expedition. Wow! What a journey it was for Kenneth, Daniel and me, either riding on his thunderous Triumph or in the formidable Borgward Isabella.
The kids that we were loved the toy shop the best. Before the age of Toys“R”Us and computers, it was the Kajang child’s heaven. Well do I remember parting with 10 sen for a plastic car or Ultraman figurine. (The lithe Ultraman Jack was on Malaysian TV.) And perhaps a ringgit for a company of little cowboys and Indians.
Embossed on every other toy was the label, “Made in Hong Kong”. I had wondered, what clever people they were to invent these trinkets of joy. This, of course, was before Deng Xiaoping started building the real factory of the world, and before Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad put Malaysia on the road to industrialisation.
Even as boys were drawn as in a trance to the magical toy shop, men and women crowded around peddlers of an assemblage of goods in front of the bazaar. The