A time of merriment...

On Friday night, around 16 of us got together at one of our friends' place to have a 'makan'....an exotic dinner! We had other goodies as well. Other Half and Ah Ho also threw in a little surprise for me!

And Ah Ho gave me this! As a cover for my Mac. 8) Very sweet of her and a labour of love cos she did it in 2 days! I'm touched.

We did the usual after dinner; hung around and talked. This round of after dinner conversation was about childhood and life in the earlier days; while the youngest among us did this... watched her favourite kiddy show. She bolot the TV for herself. The age gap between the oldest and youngest in our group that night was almost 70 years! And we got along famously. It was good to see Pak Khaw and Mak Khaw enjoying themselves... 8) I am reminded of the past and the the old ways of life from them from their engaging tales! Reminders such as these are good.

Anyway over dinner conversation we were reminded also that most of us are not local. Mostly came to Alor Setar during our younger days to work. Our children are mostly born here. They grew up here and this is now their hometown. So, if our forefathers uprooted themselves from China to come over, we too had also uprooted ourselves from our hometowns and planted our roots here. And many of our children have uprooted themselves from Alor Setar and grown roots elsewhere; in and out of the state and even country.

I guess this is nothing new.... people move all the time... this 'migration' is as old as human race.... some where along the line, their ancestors too had moved here from somewhere.... so for those who claim that this land belongs to them only; I guess it's a hollow claim.

In between I was shown this tatting of a cross... a Pastor's wife does this whenever she travels on her long bus journeys.... good idea to spend your time on the bus!

Also, I realized that many of us, having gone through those old days when life was simpler with less of everything, share many similarities. Many of us speak many languages (dialects) and had less complicated lives. Our kids today speak less languages. Old school tales, pranks played on teachers.... it was good just to be able to hang around and talk, sharing our pasts and also intertwining it with our present cos as we rambled on, the present is also strengthened. Times like this one, over simple food... that's what we do with friends.