My childhood Memories

I was tidying my bookshelf meticulously when an object fell off the shelf to my feet.  Its pages flung open. Being curious, I picked it up. It was an old photo album, and there they were, the yellowish photos of me when I was a baby. At that instant, I reminisced about the earliest days in my life, filled with infinite nostalgia.

I was a chubby baby back then, seventeen years ago. I can remember the day when I had my first birthday with my paternal family. That certainly gave me a shock! That was the first crowd I had ever met, as my grandparents, parents and the other relatives chanted "happy birthday", while I was held in my mother’s arms, clad in a maroon-and-white frock.

There was even a day when I first landed on the ground, toddling. I remembered strolling at the Taiping Lake garden with my mother, admiring the beautiful, natural scenery in that popular destination back then. There it was, the cold, stone bench which stood steadily beside the clear lake. That was when I first walked and enjoyed my carefree early childhood, or should I say, life as a toddler? I began to love Mother Nature as my mother accompanied me,  slowly as she guided me around the huge lake, surrounded by lush green trees and the great old rain tree which stood still and strong at the lakeside, defying its one-hundred years of age. Today, the trees are still there, but the stone benches had walked into history.

When I was three, I practised my first handwriting, which was notoriously illegible. It was really difficult to write even a letter back then as I gripped the pencil and wrote in an unsteady manner, I even chuckle today as my mind flashed the days when I fought over a colour pencil with my little sister! As toddlers, we were very eager to draw and develop our first “artistic abilities”-no, but a white paper scribbled with lines and curves in random, to tell the truth.

At that age, I even watched educational videos via the old television set. They were “Magic English”, “Kidsongs” and “English Today”. I simply enjoyed the colourful animations, beautiful music and the way the characters spoke in English. In fact, despite being born-and-bred as a pure Chinese, English was the first language which I gained access to. What was more, according ti my mother, I spoke in English when I first gained the ability to talk! I loved the videos so much that I often persuaded my parents to watch them with me till midnight, or all hell would break loose. Batter still, the educational videos were my first path towards learning English as I mimicked the way they spoke, followed by @Peter and Jane@ reading series which I had read in Kindergarten.

Those were the days when I was a toddler. I was happy-go-lucky but rather unreasonable and boisterous. I soon graduated into a preschooler when I was five. I was enrolled in Tadika Sayang, which was just a stone’s throw away from a temple. I got to know my friends, or more precisely as playmates, as we actually spent more time with the toys, sandpits and in the playgrounds rather than in the classroom. Madam Lee who was my kindi-teacher, was soft-spoken and interesting. We sat in groups instead of rows and columns, and studied our first alphabets, numbers, art lessons and sports lessons in a child-friendly, not-so-strict atmosphere. I remembered that when I was six, I wore my first "graduation robe" which was purple in colour during a Graduation Ceremony for six-year olds. Today, I still laugh out loud when I look at my graduation picture. You can just imagine- a graduate at a playground!

Just like any other ordinary child, I drove my parents up the wall and enjoyed typical childhood treats back then. I used to pester my parents to buy me a set of "Happy Meal" or waffles for supper whenever we visited the supermarket. Being quite health-conscious, my parents were initially reluctant to buy me such food as they were costly and unhealthy. However, they always managed to give in. Snacks such as "Roller Coaster" and "Twisties" were my best friends in primary school. I was so fat that my poor mom had to work extra by sewing my attire. Nevertheless, my strong passion for fast food soon subsided as I entered year Five. Mind you, I was the giant in the class then! I was well known as the fatso.

My life in primary school was rather uneventful in the first three years. Everything was just as ubiquitous- language classes, music classes, sports classes... Nevertheless, my primary school life was far more complicated than my life as a preschooler. We had to dress in school uniforms instead of casual attire. The school organization was even more organised than that in kindergarten-Headmaster, Senior Assistants and teachers. I was so slow in my homework that I was often punished to sit in front of the class to complete it. It was in Year Three, too, that I joined my first inter-school competition, which was the Malay Story Telling competition at Sekolah Kebangsaan Assam Kumbang. I won the Consolation Prize then, which was the best event in my early years in school.


Childhood experiences, yet sometimes leave visible marks on our bodies for the rest of our lives. Most of these experiences are painful. I had a particularly painful one. It happened when I was playing hide-and-seek with my cousins at home when I was six. I dashed into my mother's room to get hold of my cousin when, SNAP! My right middle finger got stuck at the door. My fingernail broke into an ugly crack and bled profusely. I underwent an excruciating nail transplant procedure that night and got an ugly middle finger for the rest of my life. Even now when I look at the awkwardly large fingernail a my right middle finger, I am reminded of the experience. Once bitten, twice shy. I learned to be more cautious from that day on.


When I was about ten, my family and i moved to the other side of town which was nearer to my alma mater. The home we moved into was indeed palace compared to my old, small cubicle. Around it there was a huge open space, where my parents planted vegetables and some spices. That was my home, and still my current home. My early childhood has ended and a new phase has begun.


Early adolescence, I entered a whole new world of challenges and woes. That was when I bade goodbye to a carefree childhood. My parents and I constantly had a great amount of disagreement between us about anything and almost everything. Thus, I am a much subdued person in their presence. Anyway, my dad is not as strict as my mom. There is always something to tell on me- my fashion sense,, method of communication, study attitude, social life... Sigh! I must behave very well at all times. By abiding to all those family rules, I am considered to have good manners and moral upbringing.


Wait! the teenage woes seem to enter infinity. Homework, friends and foes... what is next?


Life is definitely a bed of roses with thorns. My childhood was not perfect but they will remain etched in my mind forever and always. Whatever it is, I think it is high time  that I move on and leave my childhood laments behind. Let me quote Charles F. Kettering, the inventor of the electric starter: "You cannot have a better tomorroe if you are thinking about yesterday all the time".