Childhood memories

When I read Karen Cheng's latest post, I couldn't help but recount my childhood. Although I lived in the concrete jungles in Malaysia, I spent a lot of my time hanging off tree branches, plucking fruits, swinging in the hammock tied between two willow trees and playing with my dogs. In that aspect, I had the most fabulous childhood. I didn't need the television or computer to entertain me. I had so much more fun climbing up the papaya (also known as paw paw) trees or the local Malaysian jambu tree (jambu is also known as 'water apple'. What a silly name. Jambu sounds better!)to pluck the fruits when they were in season. I even made a little "cubby house" for myself on the jambu tree. I would balance a couple of sticks between two branches and sit there for ages reading a book, doing my homework or munching on snacks.

I grew up with dogs. I had six dogs in total. I spend a lot of time doing my homework in the garden with the dogs in my lap. We had a wooden slide in our garden. I taught one of my dogs how to climb up the stairs and slide down it like a circus dog. How adorable. Afterwards, he would sit on top of the slide for hours on end, every single day. He must have felt like the king of the world.

I can still vividly recall my very close encounter with a bee swarm attack. Once I was climbing up the jambu tree to pluck its fruits. My fingers were up in the air, ready to grab the bunch of jambus, when I noticed a huge black rugby ball shaped thing hanging from the branches, only 2 inches away from my fingers. It took me about 5 seconds to realise the predicament I was in. I quickly jumped down from where I was (luckily it wasn't a very high jump) and ran back into the house. I reported my findings to my dad who then called the exterminator. The bee hive miraculously disappeared a couple of days later.

Friday nights were my most highly anticipated night. My parents joined a church cell group which congregated in alternate homes every Friday night together with about twenty other parents. You know what this means? 20 parents = 30 to 40 kids! Time of our lives! We played 'cops and robbers' (we call it 'police and thieves'), 'hide and seek', 'ice and water' and lots of other games. Dirt and grime didn't matter to us at all. I remembered hiding in huge drains, in bushes and the best hiding place was under a car. No one could find me for ages till I gave myself up.

Sadly, one day my mum decided to landscape the garden and all the fruit trees were cut down which included, one langsat tree, one rambutan tree, one jambu tree, two papaya tree and two banana trees. Needless to say, I wasn't happy at all but now, I can see how a nice landscaped garden looked better than a disorganised fruit orchard.

And to top everything off, one fine day, our two willow trees decided to give up on us. They died of some sort of infestation. It was like liver cancer - there were no symptoms for years. By the time we discovered the internal infestation, it was too late.

But my love of nature didn't end there. I started hiking and camping in the jungles of Malaysia. We bathed in rivers and when nature called, we gave our disposals back to nature. I learned how to build fires from using just matchsticks, twigs and branches without any fire starters. I learned how to put sulfur around my tent to keep snakes away. I've encountered a wild boar, smelt the urine of a roaming tiger (the guide told us that judging from the urine smell and temperature, the tiger was just ten minutes away), navigated through mountains using a compass. I slept best when I was in jungles. A soft mattress cannot compare to sleeping on the hard ground in the middle of the jungle, free from human pollution. The air always smelt so fresh that I think my lungs would burst.

If and when I have kids one fine day, I want to make sure they enjoy as much nature as they can before the telly, computer and game consoles rob them of their childhood.