Heritage trail

Last week my siblings and I made a short trip (out of nostalgia) to KL, the place where we grew up. It is quite amazing that the flat that we lived in still stands, though in a state of filthy grime and debilitation. Jalan Alor more than 50 years ago where I first touched foot as a child was a quiet dead end street with a row of 3-storey residential flats. From the balcony of our 3rd floor flat we could gaze at the moon above a durian tree, standing tall amongst other trees and undergrowth in a piece of unused land across the narrow street. Jalan Alor now is a busy food street lined with food stalls and listed in TripAdvisor as one of KL's top attractions. In addition to spending time sipping coffee at a coffee shop which gave us a direct view of our flat, we also climbed the filthy steps that led to the flat and took several pictures of its front and back. We were also enthusiastically sharing with my sister in law amusing anecdotes that happened in that neighborhood.

On the coach trip back to Singapore I began to daydream as usual. I thought of my mother, the centre of our universe within that unit. I could even feel her hopes, her worries and her dreams for her whole brood that pulsated within that abode. I reflected on how we have turned out and concluded that most of her worries were unnecessary but at the same time nothing which she tried so hard to plan could forestall  some unpleasant experiences that befell us. In other words we have our own life destinies to follow.

Yet with the image of the flat lodged in my mind, I imagined what I would do to it. I felt the urge to clear the flat, empty everything in it, scrub away all the grime, suck out all the filth, pull down all fixtures, whitewash the empty walls, strengthen the pillars and rebuild a home.

Another day we also did a short heritage trail retracing by foot the route which my brother took to go to school and then continued on foot to the road where my father's shop was situated. St. John's institution still stands in all its grandeur on the hill top but in place of my father's shop is  a boutique hotel. We joked that we should check into the exact room where the shop used to be, just to relive the presence of the past. There was and still is a western colonial cafe just opposite my father's shop. I had always wondered what the interior was like. Fifty over years of wondering materialised when we stepped in for coffee last week. We examined the old photos on its walls just to see whether our father's picture is amongst those faded yellow frames. My brother then chatted with the guy manning the counter who seemed to be the boss and discovered they were from the same alma mater. We also got from him the direction to the famous Ampang yong tau fu. Before we left we asked him whether he actually owned the cafe to which he retorted, "If I am the boss, I would be like you going places and looking for Ampang yang tau fu."

We also fantasized what we would have been had we remained in KL and not come back to Singapore. "Haha I might have married a Datok and became a Datin," I jested. However given the lack of equal opportunities, being a taxi driver or a hawker might not seem impossible or for that matter a cashier helping tourists find the famous Ampang yang tau fu.

Who Knows?