Was in Brunei for 10 days. The hot sun and eating out were part of my daily routine. After eating breakfast, we went home. After a while, we go for lunch. Then back home again, we go for dinner. It felt like time passed fast in Brunei. I am also tired even though I don’t do much work. I gave my Dad RM2.5K. My dad gave RM4.7K to my brother to pay for my Dad and sister house loan. The house in jb like still half way to go. Felt like everytime I gave my Dad money, it was given to that.
Dad is 1 year shy from 80. Still working. He has been in Brunei since 1970s. There bounds to be people he knew everywhere we went. He stayed in each district for some times in the past before settling in our current house. He has nothing when he reached Brunei. Only a motorbike and a few hundreds dollars. He did odd jobs, and only like last week I knew he has two gf before my mum. We went to Sungai Liang for his birthday for breakfast. It was an old road side restaurant which was there since he first came to Brunei. It was really really old like going back in time. Dad said it was still the same. He met his acquaintance who is from the chinese school board. He gave us a treat. Funny isn’t it? also met another person who is a relative but we don’t know who. It is from my brother-in-law side. Then another was my father’s previous employee’s sister who recognised my dad straightaway after seeing him from the back. Surprised also the employee already deceased. He was a drunkard though. I also remembered this employee. Sometimes he can go missing for weeks before coming to work. When he came, mostly is to borrow money… Then go missing a few days to few weeks again. There are times he didn’t go missing. Maybe there was a sober time.
I also get a little bit used to driving in Bandar area. Normally, I just get to shops which was within 5 minutes of walk. After moving house, I drove more to get around but I seldom go beyond the compound. Home, buy groceries and Miri to study. We used to move from places to places. I think I have moved 3 times. Once was near a car workshop or they called it the bread factory. We have a small shop for selling stationery and books. Dad also deliver things. I forgot what he delivered. That time I was a toddler. I remembered going to a friend’s house which was behind. They wanted to increase rental and the living conditions were bad. Noisy and gambling neighbours. Then we moved to the hill top. I think that was the shortest stay. I have some memory or dreams about the long hallway. I was jumping with the sarong for my younger brother. Our shop never moved though. The shop besides like to give me snack food to eat. We then moved to another place which was newly built. Everything there was new and closer to supermarket. We rented three storeys and the ground floor was our shop. We stayed on the 2nd floor. We went back to eat dinner. It was so run down. We watched it changed from a new building surrounded by trees, lakes and swamps to more buildings and even a hotel and right now, nobody maintained. The roads were full of holes, the walls was last painted when I went to Uni. That was like 20 years ago. I remembered the owner’s son bought the paint from us. It stayed that way throughout and with the washed off paint now. Walls cracked. Mostly rented by foreign workers now and no shop opening. Some moved to better places and some passed away already.
Times were much harder back then. From nothing to what we have now. I was like helping my dad to cut metal pieces for windows, fixing frames from the age of 8. I was a cashier too. Back then, I don’t really need calculator to find back change. It was like instant. One time I passed by a car workshop, a kid was telling me things then I realised how it felt like to see a kid selling things. I felt how my customers felt. After school we helped out in the shop. Some holidays or Fridays or Sundays, I helped out in the factory. Sometimes we worked overnights because there were too many orders. Like few hundreds of frames to be cleaned and fixed… I was in the shop sometimes speaking nonsense with customers. Studying for pce, pmb and o levels. I made stuff out of the leftover materials. I arranged paints according to their numbers and lined them up properly. I climbed the rack with was a wall full of 5L paints. Cut car’s side mirror for the first time for a police officer. They were regular but mum wasn’t around to cut it. Usually my eldest sister was cutting it and when she left, mum took over. I told them my mum wasn’t around but they both needed them. So I cut one. I managed to get it done. I didn’t know how to fix it to the side mirror frame. I used up a lot of glue and plywood and the officers just said it is fine and even helped me. Hope it never fell off. They were regular customers though. Always get tools from our shop and I don’t remember they come back ever since or after that I went to Uni in Miri or College in KL. Couldn’t remember when. I couldn’t be more than 20 years old. I remembered spilling a yellow color paint in the shop too. The whole tin fell to the floor. I have some memory but not like the whole situation now. I remembered we played football too. With each shop from the other side as the goal. One of us break the cabinet glass. We played roller blade, bicycle, hide and seek and cara duduk?? can’t remember the game name in Malay. The whole place was full of memory. When mum chased me out of house, I slept on the garden’s bench. It was concrete so it was hard and cold. I ran up 3-storeys. I saw the hard-works mum and dad put in. Sometimes full days and sometimes full weeks. Those were the happy times. We shared two bedrooms only. Each room 3/4 pax. Finally during my Uni days, we managed to get a house. Only then I have my own room. I left for Sg so my eldest brother and his family moved in. Sometimes, those times were the best. We even have parties at the factory.
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