Boy, oh boy

As a guy growing up from a kampong in the seventies, I’m still admiring the simple livings of kampong folks after so many years working and living in town. Whenever I travel outstation while working, I always stop at small villages just to get the feel of the olden days. Those days when I was still young and everything seemed so simple and less complicated as what it is today. People were so accommodative to each other, respected each other unlike nowadays, people is so intolerable, only thinking of their own.

While travelling back from Endau Rompin, I stopped at Kg Lanjut when I saw a signboard pointing to the Lanjut beach. I thought that it was a beautiful beach but to my disappointment, it was just a beach with a few simple wooden shops and no visitor. I walked on a jetty by the seaside, and that was the time I saw a boat approaching the jetty. I could hear some young kids laughing and cheering, even louder than the noise of the motor boat. There were ten over young children coming back from school, wearing school uniform and carrying school bags. I asked one of the boy where were they coming from. He said they were just coming back from school which located on the other side of the beach at Rompin. These kids were around 8 to 10 years old but the way they climbed up from the boat and the way they running up to the jetty you will be surprised at how brave these boys and girls were. Perhaps to them, it is already a way of life, riding a boat to the schools without life jackets and so on even to us that was somewhat dangerous.

One of the boys ran down to the beach from the jetty. He dug and dug and dug. I was wondering what the boy was doing. Finally, the boy stared up to his school mates walking on the jetty and laughing cheekily. Then he threw something to the rest of the boys and girls walking slowly on the jetty. Some of the girls started to scream, some of the boys laughing and then I had a closer look at the things and there were two sea worms with a lot of spikes. A boy then picked up one of the worms then threw it at the girls and the girls started screaming and running again. I was so taken aback and my minds just flying back to those days when I was as small as this buggers doing a lot of naughty things like they did. I asked the boy what was that, he told me it was ulat bulu meaning hairy caterpillar. The boy apparently being stung by the caterpillar, he seemed painful. The girls were then laughing at him and said that he got what he deserved for his naughty work.

When we are young, we are innocent even though some are always naughtier than other. Somehow, as we are growing up, our hearts are gradually filled up with all sort of nonsense, hatred especially, dirty politics and slowly losing up our innocent. And we start wondering why the world has changed so much as compared to our younger days.