My Longkang

I learned to cycle at the age of eleven. I used to secretly cycle to the beach and swim there and come back just before dinner time. By the time I reached home, I would be totally dry anyway. No body knew of our activities.

There were three of us. They were Ah Lin, Joseph and me. Joseph had a brush with crime but has since rehabilitated and become a successful man in China. He is earning in USD so I guess he should be doing well. I met Ah Lin a few years ago. She is still active in the softball circles.

Ah Lin was the one I promised myself I would marry when I was nine years old. But that is another story. So, one day we found an inflatable dinghy and we inflated it and went out to sea. The great pirate adventure. About a hundred metres from shore, it slowly lost air and we were sinking. A young man fishing dived in from the Tanjung Tokong seaside shrine to save us. He somehow dragged the dinghy back to shore where Tanjung Tokong residents dragged us out to the beach. He saved three lives. Bless his soul.

Ah Lin had to be given artificial respiration. I don’t remember much anyway as when I woke up, there were people all around and above me. I remember I felt like laughing when I saw their concerned faces. As kids, we didn’t even know how to express our appreciation but cycled home soon after. It was about 8.00p.m. when we reached Batu Gantung cemetery. It was a shortcut home to Air Itam.

Somehow with Ah Lin at my back, I didn’t feel very scared. Crime was not so bad in those days. I got lost and all around us were tombs. it was impossible to cycle and I had to carry the bicycle and hold Ah Lin’s hand at the same time. We just kept going to the Rifle Range Flats lights. it was like a beacon.

But, we seemed to be moving around in circles. Suddenly a group of youths turned up from nowhere. They started teasing us and demanded money from us. We gave them all we had. In those days we had only so much so much sen a day so it was not a rich haul. We weren’t old enough to carry an identity card or whatever. But they took Teresa’s chain . Things started to get ugly. They started getting physical.

Looking back, we were just too young and naive. Anyway, a man with a big-tank-like structure at the back of his bike turned up. He sized up the situation. Shouted a few curses, and the youths little more than boys themselves anyway, scattered. He was a ground-coffee seller. He lead us all the way to the Boundary Road junction. He was a very kind man. He wore shorts, a straw hat and a blue denim colored shirt. He was a big size 50 plus Chinese man. I later found out people called him Kopi Hun Ah Chek. He seemed to be affected emotionally by the incident with the boys too.

When i think of how i treat Benghui like the family jewels, we had absolute freedom then. It is a wonder nothing more serious happened.