My Kampung

I love my kampung. It's a very small kampung located near Kuala Lipis, Pahang called Bukit Betong. It's so small and shrouded in trees, that people can have a hard time looking for it, and that makes it even more charming, sort of like fairy tale villages of the fairy folks.

A small route leads into my kampung from the main road. Everywhere you look, huge trees of many years surround the area and the few remaining houses. At some point we will reach a bridge of many years. Probably built around the British times with red bricks that you hardly can find nowadays, the bridge is part of the railroad which leads towards my kampung house.


Through a small dusty yellow road, my house is located at the very end. It's a very big papan (wood-plank) double-storey house which is also the kampung's grocery store. Right beside the house is a store house which, in the old days, is where they store the rubber collected from a rubber plantation somewhere outside the kampung, owned by my grandfather. When I was very small, I used to hate going near the store because it stinks to high heaven there. Rubber tends to give out stinky cat dung smell.


Being the only kedai runcit (grocery store) in the area, our house sells a lot of everything. Food, tidbits, rice, rope, underwear (haha), umbrellas, nails, bolts and screws, medicine behind a huge glass cupboard, the kind of shop you would only see in history books and very old kampungs. The racks are very old, made of wood and painted over, and the sweets and candies in plastic tubes with red-colored lids. The cookies are in a big metal box, and the rice in their plastic bags all stacked neatly on top of each other according to their brand. My uncle even uses an abacus and old-style scales.






I remembered the shop being huge, the racks being high and the rice bags a perfect place to climb up and sit upon to either watch the people flow (there were a lot more people back then) or talk to a bird my 2nd uncle on my father's side caught. That bird could speak, "Apa mau tauke?", "Niao guo, niao guo, niao niao niao niao~" (which I was told, is the Hakka dialect for the bird species), and a variety of bird calls.

Nowadays the shop seemed smaller, the racks shorter than me and the rice bags fewer than before. The people flow were a lot less too since most people have moved away. The bird died too.

When we were still kids, we used to open the plasticware as we like and took as much candy as we like. And the ice-cream too! My mother used to tell me not to take too much, as my uncle still need to run his shop too. We are a huge family with a lot of kids, and if everyone took just one ice-cream...

This area, I heard, was where they used to serve people drinks. Like those kopitiams. My grandpa and uncles are so multi-faceted businessmen haha.


This area is the washing basin. The drinks are prepared here. What interests me is the basin. A totally flat basin haha. Turn on the tap too big and you could get yourself wet.


This is where there used to be a mommy dog and a daddy dog. I didn't dare get close to the daddy dog, but the mommy dog is very docile. One time she had over 10 puppies! I couldn't count the exact numbers because they were squirming and shoving in a little box, trying to secure a nipple for themselves. So I picked them out one by one out of the box, and left them crawling on the cold concrete floor (yes, I admit it was cruel of me, but being a kid, how would I know back then). They yipped for their mommy, and after about 5 or 6 of them crawling about, the mommy dog finally couldn't stand it and jumped out of the box, carrying her little ones one by one back into the box, as I continued taking them out one by one. In the end, I gave up. I could only conclude it was more than 10 puppies.


This is where the bathroom is. We used to have to boil water to take a bath here. And there was a small drain from the bathroom leading to the outside of the house too. Funny thing is, when I was still a kid, I used to come here to pee instead of the proper toilet at the back, at which reason I will show later. Just imagine my pee pee flowing through the house drain, in open air.


Oh look, the kitchen! With old-fashioned stoves! With firewood! But nowadays we use gas. Faster and cleaner. I used to hate having meals here. I prefer to eat outside at the grocery store. And another reason for no liking here is...


The toilet/ chicken barn is just near the kitchen. That's right. I hate the toilet here too, which is why I pee in the bathroom as opposed to the proper toilet here. Been here once. Imagine doing your business while the smell of chickens and their poo mixed with yours come attacking your every senses. And the non-stop clucking of the chickens! It's enough to give you a headache. Though I had a quite fun time here once. Tried to catch some chicks but mama hen got them all under her wings and puffed herself up against me. Beware the hen peck of death!


Now though, the chickens were removed to the front of the house outside, because they say snakes will come at night time and killed some of the chickens. Which left a cleaner toilet, and made my mom scared of going there ^^


This is the 2nd storey of my house. It used to house a lot of my family members as they watch chinese new year movies on the small, old television here at night time. I, on the other hand, prefer to romp around the grocery store by myself. I was kind of an awkward little kid, and still am, prefering to spend time with myself. There are a lot of small rooms on the 2nd floor. My bedroom had 2 mattresses, a desk and a mirror on the wall. The lighting was a blue bulb in the middle of the room, which throws an eerie light as we turn it on as a night lamp.


There is a huge river just beside my house. To reach it, we have to go down a slope first. It was fun back then because the women of the family would, at meal times, all gather on this huge raft made of bamboo and wash the vegetables and the chicken innards here. The river was fast flowing, so they wouldn't let us swim in it. Not that I want to. It was murky yellow. But my dad learnt to swim here. I guess it was slower in the old times.


I saw old photos of the river flooding up to the 2nd floor of my house. Imagine that! It would be like 3 floors high of murky water washing over the tiny village.

Just in front of my house is an uphill slope to where the tracks are. The train still goes through my village in the afternoon. Recently I went back and noticed it came at 2pm sharp, 3pm sharp, and a few minutes before 4pm. The tracks go over the river through this cool-looking bridge. My dad says this is another historical architecture that is rarely seen elsewhere too. I remember going on to the bridge as a kid, which an older cousin leading the way, but I don't remember crossing the river. It's a very wide river.




There used to be goats and chickens running free around the village. Not anymore. My uncle still keeps dogs though. Adorable creatures that shake their tails whenever I come near.

Somewhere up the road, is a house where an old lady used to live when I was a kid. We went over to her house which is overgrown with weeds higher than me to catch red dragonflies. One of my cousin tied a dragonfly by the tail with a weed, but later I think its tail broke because of it.

We used to have firecrackers on Chinese New Year. Villagers of other races love to watch the firecrackers too. The older cousins would get to light the long firecrackers hanging outside the house. We smaller kids were taken a safe distance away to stand and watch, with fingers in our ears. It was fun watching the firecrackers go pop, especially the last one which tends to be the loudest. After it was over, the ground would be completely covered with red paper and the awful smell would linger for some time.

It was a fun place to be, but only for 1 or 2 days because I'm a city person. I guess everyone else thinks so too, because we don't balik kampung (go back to our village) anymore. Everyone except my 2nd uncle and his wife has moved out to the big city.