An Endearing Recall

My masseur is a Malaysian young lady from Perak. We usually engage in some small talk at the start of the body massage before I fall into deep relaxation.  She shared about her trip home during the CNY holidays and that her mother touched 4D (lottery). Her mum went to buy 4D after a quarrel started between her brother and his wife. I was puzzled. Firstly, why was her mum in the mood to buy 4D when family members were quarreling and what 4 digit number arose in her mind. My masseur laughed when I enquired about the later. "Just get the number from Tua Pek Kong (God of Prosperity), " she quipped. In a few moments I had a flashback of me as a child in Kuala Lumpur flipping through a little pink booklet with many little drawings, each drawing had a 3 digit number. Each page of the booklet had about 20 boxed drawings arranged in 4 rows.  The drawing in each box can be that of an object or an activity with descriptions in both Malay and Chinese words. So my masseur's mum must have looked for the picture depicting a quarrel to get the 'inspired' number to bet on. I remember being very amused by the exhaustive coverage of objects and activities or events including for example being chased by a dog, urinating and objects like songkok (Malay hat) and Dettol. This dictionary has 9,999 items and has been part of Malaysian life for generations. I understand that the latest version even has a number for nuclear bomb!

I then asked my masseur whether we can find a similar booklet in Singapore. She again laughed at my ignorance and replied in a matter of fact voice "上 网就有了" (available in the internet ). My brief research showed that one can download an App using android. However what is most amazing and true to Malaysian style, the Malaysian National Lottery , Magnum has on its website a sub heading called "Number Inspiration". Hitting the 4D Dictionary icon there is a search bar where you can type words  which will come up with many prompts, each with a number attached. For example when I type 'dog' an endless list of suggestions appears including: hitting a dog, pillow torn by dog, blind dog, dog eating poo, dog sleeping with cat, dead dog, stepping on dog poo and dog barking near a grave.

I had a good laugh and now recall why the book was so fascinating to me as a child flipping through it. That perhaps is one of many factors why Malaysia is still so endearing to me even after I have left 5 decades ago.