The warmth of the community | Melaka
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#Kindness
TO THOSE BORN IN 1930 – 1979
First, we survived being born to mothers who had no maids; they cooked, cleaned while taking care of us at the same time.
We took aspirin, candy floss, fizzy drinks, shaved ice with syrups and diabetes were rare.
Salt was added to Pepsi or Coca Cola and Sinalco.
We brought empty bottles to hospital to be filled with cough syrup.
When we were children, we were experts in cycling even when our feet could not touch the ground.
As children we would ride with our parents on bicycles, the richer ones in cars with no seat belts, no booster seats and no air bags.
Then we drank water direct from the garden tap and not from a bottle.
We would spend hours on the fields under bright sunlight flying our kites, without worrying about the UV ray which never seem to affect us.
We go to the jungle to catch spiders without worries of Aedes mosquitoes.
With mere 5 pebbles (stones) would be an endless game.
With a ball (tennis ball is best) boys would run like crazy for hours.
We even caught guppies in drains/canals and when it rained we swam there.
We shared one soft drink with four friends from one bottle and no one actually worry about being unhygienic.
We ate salty, very sweet and oily food, candies, bread and real butter and drank very sweet soft coffee/tea, ice kacang, but we weren’t overweight. Why? Because we were always outside playing !!!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day till streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day and we don’t have hand-phones to bug us and we were ok and we were safe.
No cell phones, no personal computers, no internet, no Nintendo games, no DVD but we had FRIENDS!
We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and just yelled for them.
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and we still continued the stunts. (A father of the President of the Taiwanese Graduates Association of Melaka told me, "I used to climb coconut trees, and I discovered that the coconuts that got the moonlight are the sweetest.)
Yet this generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
#Kindness
Though Melaka people communicated in 84 different languages once, they do not discard their heritage.
One of the many examples is kindness.
Hundred of years ago, the owners of small groceries shops, were kind people and today they still practice kindness.
I bought four key limes from a stall at the Bukit Cina wet market this morning before 9 and I forget to take it along with me.
Later on, at 11, the four key limes are still in the bag waiting for me to appear for collection when I went to buy again.
First, we survived being born to mothers who had no maids; they cooked, cleaned while taking care of us at the same time.
We took aspirin, candy floss, fizzy drinks, shaved ice with syrups and diabetes were rare.
Salt was added to Pepsi or Coca Cola and Sinalco.
We brought empty bottles to hospital to be filled with cough syrup.
When we were children, we were experts in cycling even when our feet could not touch the ground.
As children we would ride with our parents on bicycles, the richer ones in cars with no seat belts, no booster seats and no air bags.
Then we drank water direct from the garden tap and not from a bottle.
We would spend hours on the fields under bright sunlight flying our kites, without worrying about the UV ray which never seem to affect us.
We go to the jungle to catch spiders without worries of Aedes mosquitoes.
With mere 5 pebbles (stones) would be an endless game.
With a ball (tennis ball is best) boys would run like crazy for hours.
We even caught guppies in drains/canals and when it rained we swam there.
We shared one soft drink with four friends from one bottle and no one actually worry about being unhygienic.
We ate salty, very sweet and oily food, candies, bread and real butter and drank very sweet soft coffee/tea, ice kacang, but we weren’t overweight. Why? Because we were always outside playing !!!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day till streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day and we don’t have hand-phones to bug us and we were ok and we were safe.
No cell phones, no personal computers, no internet, no Nintendo games, no DVD but we had FRIENDS!
We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and just yelled for them.
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and we still continued the stunts. (A father of the President of the Taiwanese Graduates Association of Melaka told me, "I used to climb coconut trees, and I discovered that the coconuts that got the moonlight are the sweetest.)
Yet this generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
WhatsApp LRaj
Friday 10 Oct 2014
10.35 am
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