When I was a kid, my parents moved to a flat house right beside the Kudat Golf Club. The scenery was beautiful, and I mean REALLY beautiful. It was breathtaking. OK, maybe that was from my child point of view because I was only about the age of 7 when we moved there. Imagine a home surrounded by pine trees. It’s like Christmas everyday! And because the flat was situated not far from the sea, you could feel the breeze blowing to your face whenever you pop your face out the window – especially if you’re living on the 3rd floor like us!
I remember singing my lungs out to the song by Sir Cliff Richards – The Evergreen Tree. The pine trees would “dance” along my song too. I swear! (OK, I thought they were “dancing” to my song.. it turned out that it was the WIND that made them “dance”.. I was only 7, what do you expect?! :P)
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Life beside the Golf Course was great. We tend to find golf balls on the lawn whenever we go down to play in the evenings. Mind you, these balls sells for RM5 per piece if you offer them to the golfers. LOL, seriously! In fact, looking for the golf balls became a part of our daily job! Sometimes the golfers’ caddies would come to the flat and asked for their “lost golf balls”. Of course we’d say “Oh, I didn’t see any.”. Hee..hee..
Can you imagine me, my brother and our cousin, David (who happened to live with us) would be busy scouting the lawn everyday for a golf ball? Hey, RM5 is A LOT that time ok?
3 golf balls = RM15 = TOYS from Love Kun Mini Market!! 
My mom’s boss plays golf too, so normally we’d sell the golf balls to him – at a higher price of course. (and he didn’t mind!) It was such an achievement for us, being able to sell those golf balls because we felt like we did something that we enjoyed doing and we earned money from it.
Now my point here is, during my childhood time, we enjoyed doing this kind of stuff. We had so much time on our hand that we filled it with golf ball hunting, burung keruak hunting, fishing at the Golf Course pond (although it has a sign that stated “NO FISHING”), building mini houses made of rocks for the frogs .. and many more.
It makes me wonder sometimes.. if modern toys are really good for our culture and our kids. With the existence of PS2/PS3, X-Box, Internet, Online Games etc.. will our kids (or my future kids) be able to really enjoy life as kids? Will they even bother to play galah panjang, buaya-buaya, main jadi-jadi (Police and Thief) and many other traditional games that we enjoyed during our childhood days?
Do they even know what main jadi-jadi means?
Give a kid a set of guli (marble), he might not know what they’re for. Give a kid a computer, he’ll happilly scream: “Let’s play Counter Strike!”
Yes, that’s the reality in today’s world. Is that bad? I don’t know. I can’t tell each and every parent how they want to raise their child or which toy their child should and shouldn’t have. But are we going to let the old, traditional games to just extinct in the future?
I think the answer lies on ourselves. Whether or not we’re going to let these traditional games fade along with these modern “toys” is all up to us.
As for me, when I have a kid of my own.. I would still play taxi with them whenever I go back home to my daddy’s hometown. (Because my daddy’s home have a huge lawn and coconut trees too!)
Taxi: A game that consists of 2 person. A “driver” and a “passenger”. The “passenger” sits on a coconut pinnate while the “driver” pulls the pinnate to a destination desired by the “passenger”. Sometimes, the “driver” pulls faster in an attempt to make the “passenger” fall. Hahahaha!
Hey, i like the computer boy image… can i steal it. Please… oh create one for me. For MyJosh, ok. Create it as my new header… kekeke.
June 25th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
looks like you had a very interesting childhood. same as me… i think i will not trade my childhood for any other… despite it being technology deprived.
tell u a tale… when i was still serving as an officer in this organisation called ‘boys brigade’… we had this simple competition we gave out prizes to these kids. the prizes came in the form of ‘snake and ladder’, u know what it is right?
i gave it to a kid, he was probably 7 or 8 then… u know what’s the thing he asked?
“sir… does this game has cheat code?”
that was 8 years ago… imagine now.
nicely written entry.
June 26th, 2007 at 1:24 am
zewt : Hey I remember “Boys Brigade”. Do they still exist now??
“Snake and Ladder”. Oh my! That used to be our favorite game at home. After dinner, my daddy would get this box of “Compendium of 7 Games” where you’d find Chinese Checkers, Snake and Ladder etc. and all of us (mom, dad, me and my bro) would sit down and play.
Boy, those were the days!
June 26th, 2007 at 1:36 am
punya siok…ohohoho taxi is super fun… XD
i remember i had a lot of cats XD uh uh, mandi sungai hahahaha XD main congkak~, er main getah, zero poin XD
i miss those days XD
June 26th, 2007 at 6:48 am
Well, there’s no way we can reverse back time. In the future kids born in the late 80′s and early 90′s will say things like ‘…ah remember the good ol days when we used to play our Nintendo’s with joysticks?’
June 26th, 2007 at 8:15 am
and my son asking me, Papa, the computer hang again. OMG.
June 26th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Oh I know which flat you meant in Kudat! Our generations did have some great activities oh…I guess its also to do with security. In my time, we’d go miles to play and as to Kudat, I still can’t believe how far my mother let me walk around town then! I tend to control my kids in the house because it’s easier to watch them although I encourage them to be creative with everyday things for fun and I don’t intend to let them be to used to the ideas of technology for fun too..Well, to each their own I guess.
June 26th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Jewelle : Yeah, I guess security plays a big part with the decision making too. You can never be too safe with the happenings around us these days.
But it’s so sweet that you don’t intend to let your kids get too used to technology. You don’t find many mothers who have that thought these days, you know.
June 26th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
yes…boys brigade still exist. the company i was with is still around… but undeniably… dying.
i think i like this blog… subscribe i will.
June 26th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Cindy..hmmwat is your day job? Graphic design?
June 27th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Jay : I’m a freelance makeup artist, Jay.
June 27th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Glad you didn’t break too many windows
Nowadays I am missing “old kids” You know, this kids tat used to play games outside, used to run behind the other, play with dolls and balls… and that they were more innocent and everything you used to explain them was new. Now, they know almost everything you do !
June 28th, 2007 at 12:54 am
freelance..wow wee…if i were to ever get married you’d be da person i call to make up may wife to be..kekekeke
June 28th, 2007 at 9:08 am