Sunday, October 22, 2006

3Bs and a R

my sister and i like to joke that whenever my father suggests a trip out of kl/pj, it is always to one of the "3Bs": benta, batu pahat or bukit beruntung.

he enjoys going to benta because that was the first place my grandfather settled down in when he arrived in malaysia from china. my grandmother followed suit after a couple of years, kids in tow - my father, aged 8, and my uncle, who was a year younger. needless to say, the rest of the chua/tee family also settled in benta and some of my father's relatives still live there today.

batu pahat is kind of my second "hometown" (i don't actually have a hometown per se - direct family's all in kl/pj). my father spent his school years there, living with my grandmother's eldest brother. he grew up with his cousins and they remain close. one of them occupies the house my father lived in so many years ago and we never fail to pay them a visit every time we head down to batu pahat.

a couple of years ago, my father worked for the now defunct kolej aman. it was situated in bukit beruntung, and i remember the days when he had to make the 40min drive to the college every day. he didn't keep the job for too long and left for greener pastures soon after, but he still likes that place. we go there for lunch a couple of sundays a year.

well, today my father suggested we go to bukit beruntung. the groans from my sister and me were clearly audible. it was only this year that my parents decided to go a different "B" (bali) and i thought that would have cured my father's obsession with going to the 3Bs we are already so familiar with.

guess i was wrong.

anyway, usually i would opt out of these little trips to the 3Bs, citing studies and whatnot as an excuse to stay home. today, i decided to go. it's nice to spend time with my parents. i actually really miss them now that i treat my house like a hotel and hardly say three words to them every day.

when i think about it, i don't have too much time with my parents. it sounds like i am really eager to grow up (i'm not too thrilled about it actually) but really...i am going to place my studies progressively higher on the priority scale over the next couple of months and years. when i go out to work, i'll be working long shifts. if i do get married, i'd have a family of my own to worry about.

and while all of that goes on, my parents will not be growing any younger.

in the end, we didn't make it to bukit beruntung because of the horrible congestion on the highway. we turned off at rawang (hence the "R") and had a really great meal there instead.

although it was a very normal meal where my sister and i threw jokes at each other and my parents did the usual "what-are-you-going-to-do-in-the-future" interrogation with my bro-in-law, i enjoyed myself tremendously.

lishun at 7:02 PM

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