My primary school

Shih Chung Primary School

I spent my first 3 years of school at Shih Chung Primary School.  Shih Chung translates to Time in the Middle, or a timely education for all.  It is situated in Love Lane, in Penang.  Another famous school, the Saint Xavier's Institute is just down the road.  My two older brothers, Siew Loon and Siew Kai, went to Saint Xavier's.  I broke the tradition and started the tradition of our siblings going to Chinese school.

Shih Chung is a one building school. It used to be a rich man's mansion. The front yard you see here is paved with cement. Back in my days, there were only two or three cars parked in the  front yard.

The teachers' room and administration office is in the front part of the building, upstairs. Behind the office toward the back of the building are three classrooms upstairs and three downstairs.  Facing the classrooms is a big sky well.

The classrooms were airy and cool, with tall ceilings. My first year classroom was upstairs, just behind the teahers' room.  I remember my first year teacher was Miss Chong.  She drives a big Ford sedan. I like her and usually volunteer to clean the blackboard for her after school.  One day, after I cleaned the blackboard, she said it was late and she will give me a ride home.  I got to sit up front in her big Ford. I was very thrilled, and admired all the equipment in her car. 

For recess, we usually play in the front yard. We ran around, chase each other or what not. In the parlor of the building, there were two ping pong tables. Some of us learned to play ping pong.

The canteen is right next to the gate, at the position where I took this picture.  It is a very small room, probably the gatehouse of the mansion.  There they sell flavored ice water for 5 cents, or noodle soups for 10 cents. They also sell candies and other small items.  I don;t have allowance, so I don;t use the canteen.

The school is small. I spent the first three years here. For grade 4 to grade 6, I have to go another two miles to the Branch school on Northan Road.  The school is now abandoned, but not demolished, because it is a historical building.

Penang Street Art

Penang Street Art

Street arts in Penang is a tourist attraction. You can find interesting and amusing artworks on the streets in Penang.  Here is an example: the picture drawn on a wall of a little boy in yellow shirt, stepping on a broken crate trying to reach a hole in the wall. The hole is real, and the crate is real, but the boy is a wall painting. There is another hole next to this first hole in the wall. 

Tourists try to imitate the little boy. They will reach for the hole as well. The girl in the picture is Trish Saw. She is part of our tour group.

This is another example of a street art - two children on a bicycle. The boy and the girl are drawn on the wall, but the bicycle is real. This give you a three dimension effect, a bit closer to reality.

Tourists like to sit on the back of the bicycle and have their pictures taken.

Another street art of children on a swing. A tourist playfully joined the children and had a go at the swing.

There are many examples of street arts in Penang.  I found the last one from Google.

Durians

Durians are in season in June. By now, one week into July, the season is slowly winding down.  There are still many durian stalls on the streets.  Most of them are selling the regular, unbranded variety of durians. The most common is the "Green Skin" durians.

Ann and I made a trip to Ayer Itam, a small town near the middle of the island, to sample the famous Asam Laksa - a fish soup based noodle soup.  We took a walk around town after eating the soup, and found a few durian stalls along the street.  The first stall was selling Green Skins, at 10 Ringgits a box. The durians have extracted from the fruits and the meaty inside scraped into plastic boxes, so the customers do not have to open the durians themselves.  In the picture above, my mother is eating from a box of D14 (name brand) durians.

We bought two boxes and immediately ate them at a local food court.  They were so good we decided to buy some for home. We bought about 6 boxes of various types of durians.

My mothere is a durian fan. She loves to eat durian. We try to limit her, because durian is a very rich food, and may not be good for her digestion.  Actually, mom only took two pieces of the meat, and put the rest in the refrigerator.  It was good to see her enjoying it though.

Sisters

Sisters

We visited our fourth aunt, Aunty Peng, at the nursing Saturday.

My mother is the one in the dark blue sweater, and aunty is in the lime green shirt. We visited the last time I came back to Penang, and Molly and Peter will usually visit aunty once in a while.

My maternal grandparents had six sons and four girls. Grand pa died early, leaving grand ma to raise the ten children. She went through a lot of hardship taking care of these ten children, but sadly, the children did not grow up to be very close knit.

On the girls's side, the oldest girl, our first aunt, married to a merchant in Sarawak. She was very generous, and used to send us care packages of clothes, and food. I remember seeing her in one of her visits to Penang, and remember she was very nice.  There are some old pictures of her when she visited. I may show that sometime, when I can collect them for the blog.

My second aunt, Ah Yee, never married.  She dedicated her life to taking care of my grand ma and died about 10 years after my grand ma died.  Very nice lady, and a good seamstress. She used to earn money sewing dresses for customers.

My mother is the third girl of her family,  She met and married my father during the second world war and was only 19 years then.  My parents have seven children - five boys 2 girls - and we are close knit. We still write to each other frequently, although nowadays, it is on the cell phones instead of computer emails. My dad died in 1971, and mother took over raising her children.  We went through a lot of hardships, but grew up happily. 

Aunt Peng is the youngest of the four girls. She was a rebel, and left home in her twenties. She married to a man in Taiping, a small town about 60 miles from Penang. She has two boys, but the oldest died in his 30s. Her younger boy, my cousin Lawrence, lives in California. I visited him before this Penang trip.

I will tell you more stories when I can find some old pictures.

Sunday lunch

Sunday lunch

At the dinner yesterday, we invited everyone over for Sunday lunch. Loon and Lilian were the first to arrive. In the picture above, my mother is sitting in the seven o'clock position at table. Lilian in white flowers, black background is to her right. Then it is Siew Loon, Sui Laun, Siew Cheong, Siew Kai, Sui Fun (Molly), Peter (Molly's husband). Next is Christian Chenu and Linda Vee.  Christian is Linda's boyfriend. Next to Linda is Ronne, her brother.

The food today is simple. We have pork choke (pork gruel), roast chicken, roast ducks, and fried rice. My brother Siew Seng and wife Ann hosts the Sunday lunch almost every week, and Molly and Loon always attends. The purpose is to have a family get-together, and to see mom. The food is secondary, but always good.  Mom is not much for talking, but she enjoys the food, and enjoys listening to everyone just talking and laughing.

Loon is the oldest brother.  He likes to joke and always have everyone laughing.  He has a loud laugh and mother always say the neighbors will be complaining soon.  Lilian is not much for talking either. Sui Laun and Siew Cheong only comes to Penang when I visit, or when there is something going on in the family, like for example, they come for the April Cheng Meng (Memorial day) celebration.  Sui Laun and I like to discuss Chinese poems.  We often talk for long times about Chinese songs and poems.

My second brother Siew Kai is a very smart man. He is retired now, but he used to be a civil engineer, and has done some very big projects in Singapore and Malaysia. He doesn't contribute much to the conversation nowadays, after his throat operation. Myself, I am the third son, and I like to throw in jokes into the conversations.

Molly is the fourth sibling. She is smart and beautiful. She and Ann usually team up to tease Loon, but Loon always seem to get right back at them, in a playful way. 

I love my brothers and sisters. They are very nice, loving and generous people.

Marketplace

Marketplace

We went to the Sunshine Marketplace for breakfast this morning. This is Monday July 8 in Malaysia. It is a Heritage Day holiday, so my sister-in-law Ann is free today, no need to go into the office.

Sunshine Marketplace is in the Bayan Baru town area. The food court is large, and has 60 - 70 food stalls.  There are many tables, square ones and round ones.

Since it is very hot inside, everyone look for a table under a ceiling fan. We found one under a fan and felt the relief in the breeze blowing on us.  Ann and I each had a bowl of curry noodles, or curry mee.  We also ordered a bowl of fried flat noodles to share.  Curry mee is my favorite food of all. I like it so much, I use it as my username in Facebook.

This is another view of the food court. There are many more food stalls behind me, and beside me, selling all kinds of food you can imaginable. I sometimes get the oyster omelette, sometimes I get Char Kueh Teow (a kind of fried flat rice noodles).  The food here is very cheap, by our standard. A bowl of curry mee is 5 Ringgits, about U.S. $1.25.  A cup of coffee with milk is around 1.40 Ringgit, or 45 cents in US currency.  The way you get food is, you walk over to the stall and tell the worker or owner what you want and where you are sitting.  He will prepare the food, and bring it to you, and tell you how much it costs.  You pay him then and there, and the transaction is complete.  You eat, leave, and the owner will come back and clean up after you. 

After breakfast, we walked around the market area. We bought some biscuits for my mother. I also bought some shrimp chips, potato chips. We walked across the street and drank some Chinese medicinal tea. The same tea place also has a bakery. The worker here is making Chinese custard pies.  This is Grandma's (Paula) favorite Chinese pastry. The worker worked on the dough cups by making dough, folding, and refolding the dough before forming the cup, so that the dough is many layered. He then makes the custard by beating eggs, sugar and milk together with vanilla extract and probably some nutmeg. Then he pours the custard into the dough cups and baked them until done.    

In the baking oven, there are already many baked buns. Everything smelled so good, so I bought a dozen buns and ten almond cookies for my mother. She will enjoy these buns. We went home laden with bags of baked goodies and chips and noodles. And we were full. 

Tuesday Feast Day

Tuesday Feast Day

Tuesday, July 2, 2019.

Another muggy day. A good day to walk up the hill in the back of the house. The route is about 3 miles in total, but up a steep hill, so it is fairly hard exercise.  My brother Seng, his daughter Theng and I walked two rounds up and down the hill.  I was very sweaty at the end, and a quick cold shower revived me.

My friends Wan Soo Har and Lim Kah Wah came to pick me up at 1130 AM for lunch.  I have pictures of them following.  We drove to Balik Pulau, which means in Malay, the Back of the Island.  If you look at the city Georgetown as the front side of the island, Balik Pulau is almost diagonally opposite, across the hill in the middle of the island.

At Balik Pulau, we picked up Ong Kong Chan, and headed towards the fish market.

Pulau Betong

The fish market is in an area called Pulau Betong. Pulau is the Malay for island, so we are now in Betong Island.

Fish stall at Pulau Betong

The fish market is small. This is where a couple of local fishermen sells their catch of the day. As we approached the market, a fisherman is pulling fish after fish from a basket in his motorcycle, and dumping them into the boxes in the fish market.  Here is a picture of the catch of the day. There are many kinds of fish on sale.  Most of them, I have seen before, but do not know what they are called.  My friend Wan Soo Har is the self-proclaimed expert on fish of every kinds.

Here is Soo Har selecting the fish we want for our meal.  He picked some flat fish (I like this. They looked like flounder. Flat and not too long.)

In high school, Soo Har was a year our senior. He stayed back a year because he failed English. He applied himself in our senior year, passed the University entrance exam, finished university, and became a teacher.  He retired as a high school principal.  His wife Soon Hee retired as a girls' high school principal too.

My friend Ong Kong Chan was my classmate in Form 4 (junior year). Kong Chan and I were the top students in high school.  He went to Malaya University to study Mathematics, and became a teacher after graduating with an Honors degree.  He retired almost 15 years ago, but is still giving Math tuitions to new students.

My friend Lim Kah Wah. We have been friends since junior high. He attended University of Science in Penang to study Biology.  He became a teacher as well, and retired as a principal of a high school.

All of us came from very poor backgrounds. Take, for example, Soo Har received a tuition scholarship to attend university but his father did not want him to attend college, because they cannot pay the living expenses. My friend Ong Kong Chan took out some of his scholarship money and helped Soo Har pay for the room and meals every month. What a great guy.

I remember when I first came to America, I have no money as well. Some of our old classmates wanted to send money to me to help my living expenses.  I declined, because I was able to get a job working in a restaurant.

Soo Har brought six boxes of durian with him. Durian  is a strange and beautiful fruit. I have a picture of it below. This is the king of fruits in Malaysia, and is becoming popular in China as well. A lot of the local production is now shipped to China, causing a shortage locally, and pushing the prices up to the stratosphere.

Durian comes in many named variety: Green Skin, Black Spikes, Musan King (Cat Hill King), Red Shrimps, D120, Du Lu and so on.  The more famous the name, the higher the price.

Durians are sold by weight. Here, we use the international system, so they are sold in kilograms (or kilos).  The unnamed ones are sold for 20 to 25 Ringgits (Malaysian Dollars) per kilo. The named brands like Musang King can go for 200 Ringgits per kilo.

The durian's fleshy meat covers a big seed. The flesh is yellow, soft. It has a think membrane skin, and the inside is mushy in texture, like a vanilla custard. It has a very strong smell. Many foreigners cannot stomach this smell. It is like heavy perfume. Some people cannot stand heavy perform.
The taste of durian? generally, I think it is sweet. It does have a high sugar content. Besides that, sometimes, they taste slightly alcoholic, like wine.

This is what durians look like. Generally round, not perfectly circular. It is covered with spikes. The stalk is usually still attached to the fruit.

Durian trees are very tall, about 50 to 80 feet tall. When the durians are ripe, they will fall down by themselves, detaching themselves at the stalk from the tree. The fall will sometimes cause the fruit to break open. It is nature's way to spread the seeds and propagate the fruit.  The farmers usually put a web of netting under the trees to catch the durian from falling onto the ground.

We bought some flat fish, a big Makekrel, some shrimps, crabs from the fish market. We brought them to a restaurant nearby. The owner and cook was a student of Soo Har and Kong Chan, so he was always happy to see us, and give us preferential treatments.  We found an empty table, and started enjoying our durians.

The shop owner/chef cooked up our crabs. This is a dish of Chilli Crabs. The cause is sweet and slightly spicy. The crabs have been opened and cut into bite sizes, so it was easy to pick out the meat.

For the fish, the chef cooked a curry fish for us. We were so happy to see it, we started eating right away.  By the time I thought of taking a picture of it, it was almost all gone. The curry was treated with tamarind, a sour fruit, so it is a spicy and sour curry. Very enjoyable.

We also called for a dish of Sambal fried Kankoon.  Kankoon is much like spinach with hollow stems Sambal is a spicy mixture of onion, garlic, chilli peppers, shrimp paste, salt and pepper.

This plate of Sambal shrimp is actually very good. As is with the local practice, the shrimps were not shelled. The sambal sauce adheres to the shrimp.  When you eat this, you suck on the shells to get the flavor, then bite into it to taste the meat and spitting out the shells. That is what they do here, so no one raise an eyebrow on the spitting out the shells.

This is actually my favorite of the meal. The flat fish (flounder) were simply deep fried until they were crunchy.  Biting into the fish is like biting into fish chips - crunchy, salty, sweet meat.



For the meal, we each had a glass of iced nutmeg juice and a plate of white rice to go with all the seafood.

The cost of the meal was about 140 Ringgits (RM) The fish from the fish market was 75 RM, and the restaurant charged 63 RM for the cooking and the drinks and rice. Total: 138 RM or about $35 (U.S.).







Dinner in town