On That Day.....

It was a typical Sunday evening. Home then was on the 2nd floor of a 3-storey walk-up shop-house along Jalan Pasar in Kuala Lumpur. I was 10 years old then and was in Primary 3. My country just had her General Election but being a 10 year old, what did I know about politics of my country then?

I remembered sitting on the veranda and looking at the traffic along Jalan Pasar. It was a Chinese dominated area and as usual Jalan Pasar was always filled with many traffic coming and going. After all, those intending to travel to the city centre had to pass through Jalan Pasar and those coming and going to Sungei Besi (another chinese dominated area) too had to pass through Jalan Pasar. So you can safely say that Jalan Pasar was alive with much traffic and lots of things to see 24/7.

There was one cinema (Star cinema) along Jalan Pasar which showed all the latest Chinese kung fu and Chinese love movies and another 2 other cinemas within walking distance from my house.

A 10 minutes walk across the road from our house will see me at my primary school, Pasar Road English School (1), or P.R.E.S. One as it was known then. So walking was how I went to school and how I enjoyed the walks then. Just behind was a wet market, the famous Pudu wet market where many a sunday mornings was spend shopping for chicken, char-siew, fried duck, mutton, cheap flip-flops, delicious fried mee, sweets, vegetables with my mom and sister.

Not forgetting the friends that was made there, both good and bad influences that shaped my childhood memories. Where they are now, I have no idea. Some of them must be doing very well now or some of them might had passed on for all one knows.

There was also a funeral parlor just behind our row of shop-house and there was a couple of times when a dare was made between friends to see who was brave enough to go into the funeral parlor whenever there was a dead body there. An exposed dead body waiting for the casket to arrrive! Even the dead has to wait for something! You can say that was where we trained ourselves to have balls of steel, so to speak.

I remembered too that there was an 6 storey building which belongs to an association for hakkas just a few doors away from my house. Come to think of it, the whole row of apartment that was on my block practically belonged to that association so that would make them our landlord!

I also remembered that there was night classes being held on the top floors of the association and the Mandarin, English and Mathematics classes was extremely popular with the people who was staying around that area (Pudu) then.

On that fateful evening, I was sitting outside on the verenda. The same verenda where there was one Chinese New Year when I spend a large part of my ang-pow money on firecrackers and letting it all off all alone. All those moments where one does something that becomes a part of one's childhood memories.

There I was sitting on the high chair on the verenda, looking at the going-ons along Jalan Pasar and waiting for mom to take me across the street to the corner of the shop-house opposite where there was a bus stop and to take the #15 (I think) bus to BB Park, an amusement park in Jalan Bukit Bintang where there was food stalls, roller-coaster, ferris wheel and merry-go-round rides and of course, my favourite place of them all, the cinemas!

But at that moment, mom insisted on listenning to her favourite talk show on rediffusion, a now defunct cable-station that was very popular in the 60's until radio and television came about. It was while I was lost in my own world watching the going-ons in front of me that suddenly there was this commotion of people rushing down from their classes to their bicycles, motor-bikes and whatever mode of transport that was available to them that was the start to a series of events that will forever reshape the way that I will look and think about my community and my country. One can say that on that fateful day, my innocence and naviety was lost.

I was suprised and shocked to suddenly see so many people rushing off with such urgency, like they was so glad that classes was off and they was more than happy to be going back home. Then somewhere along the line, the urgency turned to panic and that was when mom, my 2 sisters and my 2 brothers joined me on the verendah and was just as shocked to see those young people stampeding off. Dad joined us a few moments later from his usual coffe shop joint downstairs and mentioned that was a new additional to my English vocabulary anda word that will always be associated with the events unfolding in front of me, "CURFEW".

At that moment, my 3rd sister was watching a movie at one of the cinema near-by and somehow she managed to sneaked her way back homw with tale of how one minute everyone in the cinema was engrossed in the movie and then the next minute, there was a huge commotion where most of the stall ownnersoutside the cinema was trying to make their way into the cinema with their goods and all at the same time too!

At thet time, all thought of going to BB Park was forgotten and although things was getting pretty excited to me then all I had no notion then of how dangerous the situation was to me or my family. I had no notion then of the upheavel that my country was undergoing at that time. Such was my naivety then.

In time to come, the TV programmes was filled with announcements that the whole family glued to the tv and commenting after 4 words was announced. In no time at all, the Prime Minister himself came around and made a very serious sounding announcement that had everyone locking up all the doors in the house. Then the electricity supply was cut off and all everyone could do then was to gather round the bed and talk.

I remembed then that I won't need to go to school anymore. For how long, no one could tell em but frankly speaking at that moment I was more worried about missing my school band practice. You see, P.R.E.S. One had this well-known marching band and I was proud to had been a member of the band and just imagine, in spite of all the historical happenings around me, I was worried about missing band practices!

It was much later on that fateful night that there was more action along Jalan Pasar. Police in their police cars (Alfa Romeos then) and soldiers in those high and big military trucks and occassional FRU (Federal Reserve Unit) started to pass through Jalan Pasar every now and then. Now the FRU was one of the most feared police units then and everyone had a high respect for them. It was because of the red helmets that they wore that the people called them 'hoong thow ping' (cantonese). I didn't know if it was the people fear for them that translated into respect for them but back then one then would speak of the FRU in awe.

Thugs (whom I later found out) with long iron pipes and parangs started to gather along Jalan Pasar and in no time at all, they was acting like those policemen that I see, stopping every vehicles and checking on the driver and passengers. It was much later that I found out that they was on the look-out for Malays. and then they spotted one!

I still remembered the guy was a Malay driver (by his white uniform) and he was driving those big Holden, the Mercedes Benz of that time. He stopped a few feet away from the group and started to run away from them. Somehow he slipped and fell into the drain, a rather deep drain that I remembered was more than 5 feet deep. I should know coz I spend some days inside the drain catching tadpoles!

The whole gang of thugs started to run alongside the drain started to throw their iron pipes into the drain like they was some hunters chasing after their prey that had fallen into a ditch and chasing after it! My sisters cried at the sight of this and I thought that they only cried while watching some Chinese love story movies!

Although I like kung fu movies and Wong Fei Hoong then was my favourtite movie but somehow after watching that live action drama, I ended up with a big headache and panadol was the cure then. Never realised that humans could do such things onto another fellow human being. For a 10 year old, the only thing that was going around inside my head was, "What on earth is going on?"

Not contended with the Malay driver, the gang turned their attention to the Sri Jaya bus, the #15 bus that I was supposed to take to BB Park with my mom and they started to pushed it to the middle of Jalan Pasar and in no time at all, burned it to the ground with great drama! For a 10 year old boy, I never knew that a bus on fire could burn so bright and the heat generated would be felt from our verenda 30 feet away! Later I found out that they choosed that bus because it belonged to a Malay company.

In the midst of all these, I saw a shimmer of hope and humanity when some occupants started to provide shelter (and safety) to some Malays in their house opposite our place. It was (i think) the 3rd house on the row of shop-houses opposite us and the occupants there opened ther doors (I guessed they must had been watching the going-ons behind their metal folding doors) started to pull a few Malays into their house, thus providing them with safety, the only commodity that was priceless then.

All these was happening in front of us and there we was, the whole family watching the whole drama unfold in front of us, live and uncensored.

Ultimately a few army trucks came and the soldiers started firing from their guns at anybody or anything that was moving on the street. That was the cue for everyone of us to make our way back to our rooms abandoning our verenda.

I remembered my sister had stopped crying then and mom was talking something about food. But the excitement and horrors of the past 4 hours of high drama took a toll on me and in no time at all, I dozed off to sleep

..........on Sunday May 13th 1969.