The Rural and the Urban that I see

I was born in a rural area at a small district in Seremban. When I was a young lad in the 60's, everything was very slow, basic, every school has their own uniform, bicycles were common, a car cost only about Rm 6 to 7k, Nissan Cars are call "Dutsun", you travel from Seremban to Kl by bus cost about 60 cents, a bow of mee in the school canteen cost 15 cents, a curry puff cost 5 cents, a bus pass for a student for 1 month cost Rm 2.50 cents, a cinema ticket start from 40 cents, school pocket money only 10 cents , you get to eat chicken and drink carbonated drinks only during Chinese New Year and many more not to mention.

In this time, a primary school going child will have school pocket money of at least Rm 2.00 otherwise he will not be interested to attend school. A bow of mee these days cost about Rm 3.80, you have to eat chicken everyday otherwise you will not get to eat meat for a day, cinema tickets cost about Rm 10.00, if you still ride a bicycle, your chances to get kill is 80%, you don't drink carbonated drinks these days otherwise you will have a sugar factory in you body, at weekends when you are eating at a popular shop, you tend to have other customer staring at you until you have finished.

I migrated to PJ when I was 17 years old, like people say looking for greener pasture. First stop was at section 14 PJ, work in a British Company producing sweets, then on to work in the construction industry and got stuck until now. I now get very tired with PJ and KL as both this cities is so very fast and dangerous.

Every time when I have the opportunity I will to go away from PJ, I would go to Pertang and put a night there. There, you can walk the small town like the 60's. No cars, no cows..haha, the people there is simple and friendly. you can still get nostalgic food like pineapple cook with pig big intestine, hakka fry pork, wild bore meat and sometime other game meat, salted duck eggs in salt water.

The rural children are very curious about the cities like KL, PJ and Singapore. Soon after their secondary education, they will be sent to cities to attend colleges or other higher institutions. Eventually very few came back to their home town to run their parents hard earn properties like the Oil Palm estate, coco orchards, fish farming and other Agriculture Activities. They will then stay and settle in these cities and all cost incur will be from the parent's hard earn money like buying them houses, cars and even maintenance. The poor parents have to still continue to work in their 60s, 70's and even 80's to sustain them self and the ones in the cities as ever body also want to keep status mah when during discussion in the local coffee shop. Some parents that could not work them self eventually got to sell the properties and most of the buyers are from the cities.

To me, when I make the journey to Pertang, driving through Ulu Langat then by the Semengeh Dam and through about 40 minutes of good road with very green vegetation and kampongs, it is really very relaxing and you will forget PJ or KL immediately. During my stay in Pertang the 2 days one night outing, I feel like I am a different person, very informal, lazing around, drink only coconut water, eats whatever that is availabe and driving around the area is like you own the roads - very few cars with good maintained roads. I has been in Pertang on and off for about 4 years and looking forward to retired there.