Took another makan sutra trip to KL over the weekend, gorging the finest char siew and the heavenly but sinful black KL Hokkien noodles amongst others and others.
Next year 2009 will mark the 40th anniversary of my return to Singapore. 'Return' because I am a Singaporean who spent 10 years in KL as a child and then returned to Spore as a teenager in 1969. A mere 10 years and it has a solid place in my heart; for this land often beckons. Those 10 years were not rainbow coloured blissful existence. Quite the contrary they were rough times of anxiety filled moments at home and rather miserable primary school days; but yet this land always beckons.Why?
Apart from indulging my palates, I get delight in recognising and remembering, recognising places I used to go as a child, remembering food I used to take and recalling events that happened. First of all the very block of flats where I lived is still standing, albeit extremely run down. So is the wet market where I used to watch live chicken's throat being slit and thrown into a deep barrel for their final kicks. So is this coffee shop, that old tree, this chinese book store, that kaya stall, etc etc. Get the drift? It is the permanence and the certainty, that no matter how long I am away, these places are there to great me when I return. Herein lies the value of things that last.
So whilst I now live in a country that values change and progress, I go back often to a land where that sorry looking state of the flat I lived in 40 years ago beckons and provides me a dose of stability and rootedness.
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