Ranting of a Bored Boy: Kampung

Yesterday I went on a trip to my dads Kampung in Sabak Bernam. I was supposed to be the co-driver, but I dedicated myself to sleeping all the way there. But I'm not an evil guy whos term 'teman' means just being there without doing nothing (or am I)(I am). Its just that for those who know me, unless I get some adrenaline in my blood at the moment(s), I am very sleepy in a car (any comfortable vehicle actually)(bas MSU not on the list of 'confortable'). So I slept all the way there, but drove all the way back.

Anyway, this is not a story of the trip. Its the story of my kampung(s). As most of you people out there know, the minimum number of hometowns(kampung) is 1, and the normal number is 2(for each parent). This part of being normal I dont mind(do I?), because it means that my parents are happy(seriously, dont I mind?). Anyway, my mom's is in Sungai Petani, Kedah, and my dad's is in the aforementioned Sabak Bernam, Selangor.
Oh, wait, both of my granddads passed away before I could remember them, one before I was born, one a few days after I was born. This is also another normal thing that I dont mind(BECAUSE ITS NOT NORMAL)(and I'm really sad about it my whole life). I keep hearing about how great they were....

Back to topic, my mom's mom was and is a farmer of paddy. Every morning she rides a bike to the field, work the field(s), and return in the afternoon. Even then, she still has a small(mpv sized) kebun in front of her house. By her house, I mean the house that she merged with her 2nd eldest son, my Pak Lang,'s house. She speaks Kedah(of coures) but usually speak normal malay with us.

My dad's mom was a.... she is a..... I dont even know what she does everyday(!). In my early years, she live in a house quite far back, surrounded by an actual forest(kinda like a swamp forest). The floor creeks on each step, and we never dared to run it for even with a jog with our weight(7 years old, maybe around 20kg), seems like an seismic instability resonance activator(in normal people terms, 'can bring the house down'). But there were chicken, and we loved playing(more like torture) with the chicks(aspiring playboy training). But then the owner of a house near it(its lawn is our only path to our front porch) died. Then somehow, the next time we visited, my grandma moved to that house. This one was fun. It cant handle the run but we can still jog on it. It was bigger. And it had more chicks (nice...). But some years before, when I was in secondary school, the house was demolished and replaced with a stone house that seems to be incomplete, even after it was completed. My grandma speaks jawe. So does my dad. But not us. My grandma rarely speak usual malay, and we always had a hard time understanding her. If chinese was a full trottle ferrari, jawe was a concord. In rare moments, if you observe hard enough, you can anctually see her breaking the sound barrier.

In truth, we loved both kampungs equally when we were around primary school. I truth, we prefer Kedah than Sabak when we were in secondary school. In truth, we dont prefer Sabak now. Its sad. We always liked Sabak for the awesome number of chicks, but with the new house ( the stone one), it all went away, and Kedah finally ranked top on the list (of two)

Nowadays we rarely go to Sabak. Only on occasions where my dad went for a visit (like yesterday) and a pit-stop on our journey to Kedah. Its not even fun anymore. And who wouldnt prefer the kampung that you can actually sleep in and understand the language. Sabak on the other hand was like mars (the not edible one). You cant survive a day there, you need a humartian (human+martian=dad) as a tour guide, and the resident break the lingual sound barrier on a daily basis. Just like real martians.