A SEVENTEEN step to a bitter-sweet PJ corner
SEVENTEEN. It’s not about a birthday or the numbers 1917 or 2017 but a special and sometimes bittersweet corner, known as Section 17, in Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
For many students from the Borneo states studying in Kuala Lumpur in the 1970’s, whether on scholarship or self-funded, it was a peaceful abode for a year or two of purusing higher education in the peninsula.
In the 70’s, Section 17, Petaling Jaya ( PJ), was made up of semidetached and terrace houses, bungalows, shoplots and even wooden houses with mud floors.
These offered twin sharing or single rooms to ‘out of town’ students who needed lodging for failing to ‘qualify’ to stay in residential colleges of the University of Malaya.
University accommodation was limited in those days, so only those with extra curricular points and scholarships were given priority. Off campus student-tenants Undergraduates from Sarawak and Sabah in West Malaysia found living in a new place and the cultural shock a little daunting.
From the comfort of their homes, they had to rent rooms from Indian, Hakka, Cantonese, Malay and Hailam landlords. These rooms were no home away from home.
To many, the rental terms were harsh.
If they rented a room for only RM60, they could not use electric coils to boil water for their Maggi mee or watch TV or use the washing machine.
They had to observe a ‘no noise’ rule after a certain time at night and were also not allowed to hang their underwear or even socks anywhere in the house and had to send everything to the launderette.
Rent must be paid at the beginning of the month and no friends could sleep over.
But the terms would be different for groups of students renting a whole house. Chinese boys and girls, for example, could rent a three-room house, shared by up to nine students.
Each had to only pay a portion of the RM600 rent. It was easier for Chinese students to rent as more often than not, the advert displayed on the gate would reportedly specify ‘Only for Chinese students.’
Forty years later, in PJ, the rent for one cubicle, created from dividing a room, was RM450 per month and the mono- culture rule still applied. Fire was always a hazard if the electrical wirings were faulty.
But not all landlords landladies were mean people.
Former student G Wong said in 1972, a landlady rented out three upstairs single rooms without cooking facilities.
He and his friends paid RM80 each for their rooms. They had a good relationship with the owner and her family.
There were some restrictions – like no TV and laundry but overall, the landlady was accommodating and generous. Wong remembers at or the end of the month, she would treat them to a scrumptious homecooked meal.
He and his friends did well in their studies and to him, that was what really mattered. Off- campus student Lily Tang ( name has been changed) stayed for two years as an off- campus student. Later, she accumulated enough points to move into an MU Residential College – albeit for only one year.
She found life a bit difficult, especially during the second and final years of her degree course.
Besides sharing a room with a course mate, she had to make sure both had a similar timetable and went home to Section 17 together on a bus.
Sometimes, they missed the bus and had to walk half an hour home.
Tang’s irregular meals caused pimples to break out, and she also fell sick from frequently getting caught in the rain. Memories of meals However, Tang said seeing other university students in the evenings in Section 17 and exchanging news of home in Foochow made life more bearable.
“The food was okay but we would really have liked some Foochow chicken soup after having been away from home for several months.
“All the food served seemed to be Cantonese. But we were often in a hurry and weren’t very fussy.”
The economy food stalls in the New Section 17 are still the same. Back in those days, a plate of economy food was RM3 – very affordable, especially when it came with free iced Chinese tea.
“Most of us would have rice with a scoop of steamed egg and green vegetables. Any extra portion of meat would cost more. In fact, many university students lived on RM100 to RM150 food allowance per month. So our budget was rather tight,” Tang recalled.
She added that it was good the ‘Cow Shed,’ the students’ Arts Concourse canteen, offered 15-cent kopi O and 10-cent curry puffs.
“That saved our lives. Of course, we could not ‘ hutang.’ All food served was COD. Regardless, we have very fond memories of eating cheaply at the Cow Shed.”
According to Tang, meal times were quite tough for off- campus students, especially if they did not have their own motorbikes. But for those who owned cars, they had more choices.
“Besides struggling for an education, off- campus students also had to juggle their ringgit and sen.
“Most Bumiputera students had the benefit of Mara sponsorships for scholarship and non-scholarship holders, including the provision of lodging like flats or hostels. In fact, some states gave special loans to their bumiputera scholars,” she said. New Section 17 Even though times have changed, many familiar places are still around.
The tyre shop is still there, a place where friends from Sarawak used to meet. Next to it was the bus terminus which is now gone and new shoplots have sprouted in its place.
There used to be an open space but that too has been built up. And the old, albeit small market, selling all sorts of goods and veggies, has also disappeared.
“Perhaps, some of the old hawkers have moved to other places in Selangor while some are operating at the sides of the ‘Seventeen’ block,” Tang surmised in a stroll down memory lane.
“Our favourite laundette is also gone. There are more trendy shops amidst some of the remaining old lots – and a pharmacy as well. In the old days, we had to make do with a small sundry shop for their cough mixtures and Panadol.”
The old drains and the old roads like 17/36, 17/22/ 17/21 can still be seen. The roads have become narrower. The houses are run down and can certainly do with a new coat of paint.
To spend a memorable time in Section 17, Tang said they went for their favourite char kueh tiaw, chicken rice and kopi O for brunch in an atmosphere of familiar sights, smells and sounds, transporting them back to their student days.
She marvelled at how time has stood still for some of the houses where old bougainvillea shrubs, seemingly untouched by Father Time, continue to sprinkle colours on a somewhat quiescent residential pad with their bright and pretty petals.
The huge ‘Seventeen’ building towers above everything, casting a long morning shadow on a landscape where highrise structures have sprouted.
And yet in every sense, this halfold and half-new place is still the same Section 17 where she used to live and interact with Malaysians from both sides of the South China Sea as well as university students chasing higher education on a shoestring budget.
Tang said if she had the time, she could have talked to the old stall owners about the struggling Sarawakian students who only ordered char kueh tiaw with a fried egg, adding that some of the food operators were so old now that they might not remember.
“We left Section 17 with bittersweet memories – the university days and the pursuit of higher education that prepared us to find the meaning and purpose of life,” she said.