mujitaiping: How Did I Meet My Wife

For my two kids, well, how did I meet your mother?

During one of my Certified Professional Trainer classes, I was asked this question “How did you meet your wife?”. So, here it is, the full story of how did we meet.

In my earlier blogs, I mentioned that I had pen friends (those were the era way before the existence of the internet, emails, Facebook and whatever people nowadays use). Those were the days when you had to write letters to people faraway. I had two pen friends from England and a number from Malaysia and Singapore. The ones from England, I received their addresses from my classmate. How did I get the ones from Malaysia and Singapore? End of 1976, I had sent my picture and my address in a local entertainment magazine. It was published much later in early 1977 when I was in the Fourth Form in secondary school. Several of my friends mentioned “Hey, Muz. I saw your picture in that magazine’s pen-pal column”. Well, I had forgotten about that already. A few weeks later, I received several letters from KL, Negeri Sembilan, Kuching and Singapore.

One letter was from a girl in Kuala Lumpur. She wrote that she had lived in Taiping before her family moved to Kuala Lumpur and she asked “Can we be friends?”. I thought, why not. That was how our friendship began. Along the years, we exchanged pictures, sent birthday and Hari Raya cards.

We wrote to each other for several years and we had not met at all. I first met her in the end of 1980. She informed me that her family will move to their new house at Taman Permata, Ulu Kelang. Two of my brothers had also bought their houses at the same place. When I made a trip to KL to visit my brother, I made a point to visit this female penfriend of mine. I walked to the front-door grille(the gate was open) and I saw a glance of a girl inside. I recognized her from the picture she had sent me and I said “psst psst”. She turned around and asked “Yes, who are you looking for?” It seemed that she had not recognized me. I introduced myself, “Hi. I am Muzaffar from Taiping”. Only then, she recognized me. That was really the first time we saw each other.

When I got my first real job as a Bank Clerk 1981, that was when we met regularly, usually on Saturday afternoon (those were the years we had to work half-day on Saturday). She was doing her STPM back then, at TAR College, if I am not mistaken. We could only meet on Saturdays because her parents would not allow her to go out on any other days. Our regular meeting spots were A&W near Ampang Park, KFC or A&W Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman and sometimes at Bukit Bintang or Sungai Wang Plaza. Back then, Jalan Ampang would have the worst of traffic jams on Saturdays due to the races (the Selangor Turf Club was located there, where KLCC Twin Towers are now located). People of KL were thankful for the existence of the Mini Bus, who the “dare devil” drivers would squeeze through traffic jams to get to their destinations.

When I was transferred to the Bank’s branch at Simpang, Taiping, I would make monthly trips to KL to meet my girl. Ah! What a young man got to do for his girl. This monthly trips went on until 1983 when I got a job as Systems Operator in the Bank’s EDP Department in KL. Then, we would resume dating on Saturdays. At this time, she had already got a job as a Clerk in a company called The Yellow Pages. Sometimes, we would meet for lunch or we would go to the movies. The regular cinemas that we went to were the Federal (Jalan Ipoh), The Rex (Foch Avenue, near Petaling Street) or the Cathay (Bukit Bintang) and sometimes the Odeon (Campbell Road).

On several occasions, I would even visit her at her home at Taman Permata. On one of the visits, her father hinted when would we get married. Hmm, marriage? I answered in positive of my intentions to marry his daughter but I would need some time to save up some money.

In June 1985, we got married with the usual Akad Nikah ceremony followed by the khenduri a few days after. Many of our relatives and friends came to our khenduri. It was a simple celebration held at her father’s house. Please do not laugh where we went for our honeymoon. We spent several days in Taiping, visiting my side of the family. We also visited the “KTM 100 Years Anniversary” exhibition that was held near Taiping Railway Station. After, Taiping we spent a few days visiting her relatives at Sungai Siput and Ipoh.

When we returned to KL, we began to look for a rented house to stay. I was fortunate to be able to rent my brother’s house at Taman Permata (he was transferred to Ipoh for several years).

So, that was the new chapter of my live as a husband to the girl I never expect to meet. What started as pen-friends, writing letters to each other and then, got married.