37. Leaving The Nest

By the end of the 60s and early 70s, the younger batch of siblings had finished secondary school. Chew Hong left to join brother Chew Pheng in Kuala Lumpur while Chew Kiat went to Singapore to work for a short while with uncle Lee Yong Chan before returning to work in Kamunting and later on to Butterworth. Suit Meng went over-seas to the United Kingdom to work-cum-train as a registered nurse. After her training, she returned to Kuala Lumpur. In 1975, See Kun too went to KL to work. The last of the sibling, Sweed Lean, also landed up in KL with her three sisters in 1980.

In the mid-60s, our parents stopped making the Taoist paper paraphernalia and images. By then, many of these items are mass-produced, cheap and easily available in the market. The work area in the hall was then replaced by two sets of mahjong tables. Mahjong games were very popular during those days and playing sessions usually would begin in the afternoons and very often would end late at night. It was here that we learned how to play mahjong, and our mother patiently taught us how to count the score and the many strategies to win the game. However, the only time we to get to play mahjong was during Chinese New Year reunion gatherings when we would pit our skills and luck against each other.

Game of Mahjong

The mahjong sessions eventually fizzled out in the mid-80s, and the hall, including the corridor that leads to the back of the house, was turned into parking spaces for motorbikes that belonged to employees of the Berkat Supermarket across the road. They parked their motorbikes on a monthly rental basis. Mother would handle the negotiations and the money collected was sufficient to pay for the house rent and utilities bills. The rooms upstairs were left empty, and our parents lived in the big house all by themselves until December 1996.

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