What I missed about Taiping?

Even though I have been living in the city of Kuala Lumpur since 1983, my old hometown of Taiping is still in my heart. I used to go back home at least once every month for several years. Since my mother had passed away in 2009, I seldom go back now and I missed Taiping very much.

 

What is that about the town that I miss very much? Plenty! Let’s see if I can list them all down.

1.       The walks at the beautiful lake gardens.

2.       The serene Bukit Larut (Maxwell Hills).

3.       The easy-going life of the town.

4.       A dip in the cool waters of Burmese Pool.

5.       Ansari’s cendol and rojak.

6.       Food at the Casual Market – satay, popiah, murtabak, nasi campur, pasembor and the nyonya kuih.

7.       Eat roti canai at the Bismillah Restaurant.

8.       The Matang bakau forest.

9.       Seafood at Port Weld.

10.   The ais batu campur and bobo caca at the Bangunan Larut-Matang.

 

Well, that’s my list of 10 things that I miss about Taiping.

KEVII School Old Boys Reunion Dinner 22June2013

That hazy Saturday morning, I drove to my hometown, Taiping, to attend the King Edward VII School Old Boys reunion dinner. I was glad that the hazy condition was cleared after I passed Ipoh. I arrived at the hotel by about 3.30 PM. After a short rest, I went to the school field to watch the Annual Sports Day.

As a I walked to the school padang, I heard someone called my name. I turned to look and realized it was my old classmate, Karunamurthy. I thought we could hang around the padang together but Murthy said he was about to leave. He also apologized that he would not be at the reunion dinner that night.

After Murthy left, I went to the school hall to have some refreshment that would be served to guests and visitors as usual. While picking the Roti Jala and Mee Rebus, I looked around for any familiar faces. I saw one old guy that looked very familiar but I could not recall who was he. As I went over to get a seat, then, I recalled that he was my former English teacher, Mr Foo Eng Guan. He was with another former teacher, Mr Maniam (who taught in the school in the 1980’s). We were joined by a few other former students and chatted for a while. It was good to have met Mr Foo again after all this years.

After we parted ways, I went to the stall that was selling school t-shirts which I bought one. I watched the sports events for a while and left the school field by 5.00 PM.

The reunion dinner was held at the same hotel where I was staying. This year, many of the regular blokes from KL did not come to attend, except for Ramli. In fact, only very few of us from the 1978 Fifth Formers attended the dinner. Other than myself and Ramli, the others were Ban Heng and Illengoven. I noticed that the largest age group was from the boys from the 1990’s batch.  Of course, the remaining major group was those above age 65. The entertainment for the evening was by a “one man keyboard band” who strummed up many good oldy tunes of the 1970’s and 1980’s. Those old songs brought back many fond memories of our old school days like – Santana’s Black Magic Woman and Broery Marantika’s Widuri.

I was glad to be able to attend the reunion dinner despite meeting just a few of my old friends. I just hope more could attend this function in the next years to come.

Perhaps, people are just being too busy to realize that old friendships are hard to find. We should cherish old friendships whenever such an opportunity comes rather than have much regrets later when we reach our deathbeds.