My aunty and her then boyfriend, now husband, loved watching football. They would even go watch a live football game. On one of those times she went with her boyfriend, they decided to bring me along. That day, she dressed me in my favourite green shirt and I was excited to see what it was all about.

However, just before we went out that evening, there was a big commotion at our neighbour’s house. He was drunk and picking a fight with one of those logistics guys who usually stopped by his place for some business dealings. What started off as verbal abuses turned into a physical fight. I didn’t watch the fight but at the end of it, when the guy ran off, I saw my neighbour covered in blood but didn’t seem to be in pain. On the contrary, he was showing off to on-lookers that he was OK despite the injuries. Anyway, everything quietened and we proceeded with our football plan.

We were walking to a bus stop to catch a ride when we saw the guy who was fighting with my neighbour lying faced down on the five-foot way. My uncle went to him to check if he was alright. He didn’t move. My uncle turned him over and felt his pulse. He was dead, my uncle said. I was so shocked! So much so that I don’t remember what happened next, whether we called the police, how we got to the stadium anyway, or even how I felt watching the game.

All I know was that we still went ahead to the game and everything else is a total blur. I only recall that for the next couple of days, I kept seeing that guy’s face in my head and I was really scared that he’ll haunt me. I also remember that my neighbour ran away for fear that the police will arrest him for the guy’s death.

I was about 8 or 9 years old when that happened. It’s been some 20 years ago but sometimes I still think about it.

My encounters with pets have been rather short in my younger days. Back then, pets were somewhat a luxury. Anyway, I've had a few pets back then and these are my stories.

My First Fishtales
When I was a toddler at the age of around 3, I used to bug my Grandfather to buy me fishes. I would whine to him "Nak ikan, nak ikan!" and he would ride out on his motorbike to buy me a gold fish.

When he came home, he'd show me the beautiful fish in the transparent plastic bag, swimming about. Then he'd fill up a small wide pail and put the fish in it. I would squat and put my little hand in the pail and play with the fish.

I don't know why but after some time, I could catch the fish in my palm and then squeeze it. The poor gold fish dies and I would whine for another. I don't think I was a serial-fish killer. I honestly think those were accidents.

My Grandfather, spoiling me, would buy me another. And the cycle continues with another dead gold fish. I don't know how many I've killed before Grandfather had a brilliant idea.

One day he came out with a plastic fish that needed to be wound up so that it could swim in water. I didn't know the difference between a gold fish and that plastic fish and was initialy quite happy to watch it swim.

Then, as always, I would grab it and squeeze. Only this time, it hurts my hand and the fish doesn't die.

My First Dog
Uncle Gary had a pair of beautiful dogs whom he named Lion and Tiger. They mated and had a few puppies. One of them was given to us and we named him Brownie. He had soft, golden fur and was a cute little thing. I think I was around 5 when we had him. Day in and day out, I would cuddle Brownie whenever I had the chance to get hold of him.

Once in my arms, I never let him go until I've had enough of cuddling him. I remember the last time ever I cuddled him and refused to let him go. I was sitting on a swing in our garden, with him on my lap. He was struggling to free himself from my clutches as usual and I wouldn't let him go.

After a while, he stopped squirming and sat very still. Then, I felt something warm on my hand. When I looked down, I saw that Brownie had pooed, right in my hand! I yelped and jumped out of the swing. He ran for his life.

I cleaned and I cleaned, and I was disgusted. I scolded Brownie for doing that and he hid under a table. But the rest of my aunties thought I probably deserved it for not letting him go. I secretly thought so too.

Brownie stayed with us for another few years before he went out one day and never came home. We tried looking for him but to no avail. Many years later in the same vicinity, I saw a dog that looked similar to Brownie and I wondered if it was him.

My First Hamster
When I was 12, a friend at school gave me her pet hamster because she was migrating and had no one to take care of her hamster. She couldn't bring him along either. So I inherited the chubby little fella and I was thrilled.

I was rather naive and unbelievable, now that I think back. Everyday, since I got him, I brought him to school. I would leave him in his little cage under my chair. One day, I was unaware that the cage door was left ajar and he slipped out. When I realised he wasn't there, I panicked and yelled to the whole class that I've lost him.

The teacher was stunned but stopped the class and let me search around for my hamster. I was crawling on the floor looking under everyone's desks and chairs, and asking my classmates to lift their feet so that they won't accidentally step and squash him.

They obliged and some even helped me find him. When I finally found him, he was quite dirty and I told my teacher he needed a bath right then. Surprisingly, she let me off to go clean him!

I brought another classmate along and we both went to a sink and cleaned up his cage and washed him up as well. It was a crazy thing to do and till now I don't understand why the teacher was so lenient with my unreasonable request.

However, since that episode, Mom thought I'd better not bring him to school anymore so that I don't cause anymore distractions. Back then, I was also very involved in sports and hardly had time to care for him. So I decided to give him to another friend whom I thought could do a better job than me.

She was glad to have him and even bought another female hamster to keep him company. But one day, she came to school gloomy and told me that he had died. He slipped out of the cage where he and his new "girlfriend" were living. My friend was searching high and low for him but couldn't find him. Giving up, she left to go to school. As she walked out of her home, she found him. He was lying motionless on the garden, dead. She thinks that he had fallen off the balcony of her room.

After that I've not kept any pets until I was 18. Another pair of hamsters given to me as a birthday present from Jason. Alas, they too died within months from violent fights with each other.

Now, I've got 3 beautiful Persian cross Norwegian Hunting cats who have been living with me for almost 4 years.

My first school was Fatimah Kindergarten in KL when I was 6. My cousin, Aaron, had been attending the same kindergarten at the age of 4 and was in the same class as me. So I took comfort that I have family in class. I was and still am, a shy person. Rather introverted. So it is always good to have some familiar faces wherever I go.

I was a scrawny kid back then and rather sickly, too. I frequented our family clinic a lot because I easily came down with fevers, flu, wind problem (imagine a skinny kid with a bloated stomach), brochitis problem, and one time even a suspected dengue case! Anyway, due to my fragile outlook and sickly track record, I was always excused from carrying my own chair. Each day we had to put up our own chair onto the table at the end of the class. The teacher always had one of my classmate do that for me.

A couple of silly things took place during that period.

1. Scare The Teacher
In the mornings, I normally have breakfast at home before attending school. One morning I had what the Chinese call "Fatt Ko" (a kind of starchy cake, usually in colours like baby pink or light yellow) with a glass of Ribena. Halfway through class, I felt sick and wanted to throw up. My worried teacher saw me to the washroom and helped me. After my vomiting episode, she immediately called my mom and told her that I had vomited blood! Of course I wasn't vomiting blood. It was just my Ribena gushing out. But I sure scared the guts out of my teacher and she in turn scared the wits out of my mom.

2. Embarass The Cousin
There was also once when Aaron was acting like a jerk and made me cry in class. I don't remember exactly what he did. On seeing this, the teacher made him take my hand and walk with me at the playing field as a way to make peace and to paficy me. He did as he was told but rather grudgingly. Even at that age, I could understand that pissed off look on his face. I bet he must've been angry that I made him look so un-macho in front of the whole class.

3. A Halloween Or A Concert?
Both Aaron and I were also involved in the kindergarten concert. It was some barnyard animal thing that we were doing and I was a bumble bee. Aaron, well, he was a worm. It wasn't so bad as I was enjoying the daily rehearsals. It was fun. Until the day we saw the costumes we had to put on. Mine was a yellow and black stripe outfit, from head to toe. Literally. I had to wear a cap, like that of a swimmer's, and that too was striped like a bee should be. Aaron's, on the other hand, was a white costume, also from head to toe complete with a matching cap. We stood side by side on the day of the concert to let our parents snap a picture. I recognise that pissed off look on his face instantly.

4. Fashion Sense
I've always had long hair and wore them in pony-tails. Until one day I contracted lice! It was a painful experience, having to wash my hair with this blue medicated (not to mention stinky) shampoo. All the brushing through my tangled hair hurt too. In the end, as a last resort, I had to cut off a good portion of my hair. It was the first time I sported a boy-cut hairstyle and wasn’t happy about it. I remember seeing pictures of myself in that haircut and it was always a sulky face.

5. English, Please!
I spoke horrible English back then. Once, when my mom asked me how I suggest to be going to school, I simply said "I leg to school". Didn't know the word "walk"! Another time when I was asked what kind of race my friends at school are, I said "They are Engwish people". When asked why they are "Engwish", I replied "Because they talk in Engwish". Smart or what?

6. Independence
On my first day at the kindie, Mom brought me there and stayed to see that I was OK, just like many parents did. Although being an introvert, I felt pretty at ease. So I told her to go home. I was making some gestures with my hand, waving her away and when she didn't understand my hand-language, I went to tell her that she can go home. I looked around the kids surrounding me and couldn't understand why some cried while some looked for the faces of his or her parents who were "lurking" outside the door. I was strangely comfortable.

Those are the ones I remember for now. Pretty much sums up my very first year at school. When I recall more, this space will grow. I sure did a lot of funny stuff back then.

Apart from the silliness, I recall the times when we sat at the porch of the kindie and learned nursery rhymes. I also wanted to learn to play the piano and insisted that the piano teacher taught me one of Richard Clayderman's pieces during my first piano lesson. She refused and taught me Do-Re-Me instead.

I also made some good friends there. I was particularly good friends with two girls named Janet and Pauline. However, when we went our separate ways at the end of our kindie, that was also the end of our friendship.

Those were the days.

When I was 12, I went to Winnipeg, Canada for a month of gymnastics training. It was in November, towards peak winter. Everyday, we would monitor the temperature to see how much we needed to wear. Well, it was definitely many layers everyday.

Our coldest day was -21 degrees Celcius. I remember on that day the wind was particularly strong, too. On less cold days, the temperature still dipped below zero even in the daytime. The locals told us Winnipeg is the coldest part of Canada, and is also popularly known as "Winterpeg". We had to agree.

One day, while we were indoors going through training, it was snowing outside. It was our first time seeing snow and we were excited. We begged our coach to let us out for a few minutes and she agreed.

We dashed out of the gymnasium, putting on our winter jackets, gloves and shoes, and started buidling snowballs to throw at each other. We also decided to build a snowman. I remember I was so proud of my first ever snowman that I wrote a letter to tell home all about it. Everyone was excited to see my snowman from pictures I had taken. Only to have a big laugh when they saw my tiny snowman, measuring only about 10 inches tall, and in a triangle shape instead of 2 round blocks of snow one on top of the other.

Since that day, it snowed quite often, almost on every other day. I hated leaving footprints in the snow when we walked along. It's so beautiful when untouched. White, smooth and so pure.

This is me, freezing but happy.

At Grandma's house, there were lots of mini paddling cars and bicycles to play with. My cousins and I would paddle on them in the evenings in our cement garden. Either my legs were too short to reach the paddles or I didn't know how to paddle, I never used them. Instead, I did the Flintstones' way - feet on the ground and running my "vehicle" as fast as I could.

I don't know which of my cousins started it, but as we paddled (or in my case, running) along, we do our own sound effects too. So "vroom-vroom" away we would go. When one of us rounded a corner at high speed, we would even do screeching sounds. Not bad for a bunch of 4 to 5 year olds, eh?

From the mini cars, I started riding on 3-wheelled bicycles (with one wheel in the middle front and 2 at the back). That, I could paddle well and found it less tiring than the car (obviously!).

As my cousins got older, they went on to ride bicycles the likes of BMX and such. I too at the age of about 8 got my own red BMX. I first rode it with the 2 little support wheels attached. My cousins were all pro at riding their bikes so I was the only "weakling" riding on support wheels.

But I refused to have them removed. I'm a big time scady-cat. After much coaxing from everyone, I decided I will remove ONE support wheel. My dad said it'll only prove more difficult in terms of balance. At that time I didn't see his point that my bicycle will be lopsided. In my mind, the more wheels I had, the safer I'll be. So having 3 wheels is better than 2, right?

So they decided to let me go with removing just one and see what happens. True enough it was a terribly lopsided ride, falling almost too many times. And so the last support wheel came off. I made sure Dad held me while he helped me make small strides on the bike.

For a while I was OK, doing very short distances on very slow speed. Soon, I was asked to try taking corners. This I could not do. After many tries, I insisted on having my 2 support wheels installed again. I wasn't having much fun learning to cycle on just 2 wheels and always being overly afraid of falling while my cousins were going "weeee...." on their bikes.

Because of that, I've never learned how to cycle. Even if I were taught now, I think I will go through the same "trauma" because I still have the same fears of falling off my bike.

I'm of mix descendants from Hokkien and Cantonese families. You would think that my first words would naturally be one of the Chinese dialects. But they weren't. The first language that I picked up as a toddler was Bahasa Malaysia.

When I was a toddler, Mom and Dad worked out of the country and I was left with my maternal grandparents in JB. They too couldn't look after me full time. So they left me with a nanny who was grandparents' neighbour. My nannies were an elderly malay couple.

Since I spent most of my time being taken care by them, I learned my first words through them. My ability to speak in Malay was a big amusement to my family members. Apparently, these were my "famous" words:

Referring to Mom - Kakak
Referring to a plus-sized Aunt - Becar (besar)
Referring to an emporium - yium
Referring to nasi lemak - naci emak
When whining - Nak ikan, nak ikan!! (Not to eat, but to play with fishes!)

I was also a big time cry baby who can cry an entire flight from KL to JB. Because of this, my aunts nick-named me "ham pau ching" in Cantonese (which translates to cry baby). Hearing this often, I tried to imitate the words and it came out as "empat sen". This is further amusement for everyone.

As I got older, I started learning Cantonese and English. Though we call ourselves Hokkien, I am challenged in that dialect till now.

..............................................................................................

I don't know when I started picking up the other languages. In fact, I don't even remember Makcik and Pakcik. I was way too young. I only heard of them from my parents and the rest of my family members many years after, when they were no longer around.

If only I had a chance to see them, I would very much like to thank them for sharing their lives with me and for loving me so much. According to my parents, when they took me to live in KL at the age of 2 or 3, the couple was so heartbroken, especially PakCik. He rode on his bicycle as fast as he could to the railway station to see us off. But he was too late, for all he saw was the tail of the train pulling away from the station. And then he cried. That was the last time they ever saw me.

We lived with Grandma in our old house in the heart of KL city. It was where I spent most of my years growing up. Grandma was an amputee since a very young age and so it wasn't convenient for her to do much household chores. My aunties, who also lived in the same house, were mostly away at work.

Grandma hired an old lady, by the name of "Ah Yoong", and she came every other day to do our laundry. She would sit on a little squat-stool outside the bathroom, and brush and scrub the pile of clothes. She was surrounded by pails of water to rinse afterwards.

While she washed, Grandma would be in the kitchen next to the washroom. I think they were almost the same age, or maybe Ah Yoong was slightly older. They would chat away while each doing their own thing.

Anyway, in the mornings I would hang around watching both Grandma and Ah Yoong work. Sometimes, I would just squat opposite Ah Yoong and diligently watch her do the laundry. Don't ask me why. Maybe I had nothing better to do while all my cousins were away at school.

One day, my Mom asked me what I want to be when I grow up. Without much hesitation, I told her I wanted to wash clothes just like Ah Yoong! I don't remember what her reaction was when she heard her only daughter wanting to be a washer-woman.

Now, so many years later, Mom recalls my very first ambition and laughs. She tells her friends and they all laugh.

Like any other kid, since then I've had many change of hearts about what I want to be "when I grow up". There were more funny ones, and there were also noble ones.

But none that is what I am today.

I've since realised that the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" is a very difficult question to answer. Even adults may not have the answers and are still searching.

I know I am.

I was 8. My uncles and aunties were excitedly discussing about going to Hong Kong. They persuaded my mom to go too but she looked at me, torn between leaving me home and enjoying a well-deserved vacation for herself. In the end, she decided to bring me. I was overjoyed.

When we got there it was cold. For me, it was freezing cold. I was a skinny girl who lacked insulation. And so Uncle bought me a nice, thick winter jacket there. I was so in love with it. I finally have something that I only watched on TVB dramas! Imagine the vanity and excitement of a 8-year old.

We visited many places which by now I've forgotten. There was definitely shopping too. My aunts would never pass up that kind of opportunity. We did so much walking that there were times I got so tired I had to be piggy-backed.

One of the places I remember very well is The Peak. I remember because I insisted we all go there. The night before, everybody was discussing where to visit and it didn't include The Peak. For some reason, I wanted so much to go and when they decided it's not to be, I declared I'd take a tour on my own. I think I got their attention from that second. The next day, everybody went with me to The Peak.

They never regretted it because while we were there, we saw a group of actors shooting a famous TVB drama at that time. If I'm not mistaken, it was a drama called The Cameleon. I was so excited because I admired one of those actors and he agreed to be photographed! I was grinning from ear to ear. The sad part is that I can't find those photos anymore.

What I do have is this one, where I put on a costume from the olden days and pretended to be a princess (it only lasted 30 seconds for this photo shot).

In the nights, I never went to bed early despite a tiring day. While everyone unwound and prepared to sleep, I was hogging the TV and watching chinese dramas, episodes after episodes. It was like a TV haven for me because back in Malaysia at that time there was only 1 hour of TVB show a day. I was a TVB freak then, and now just a regular TV addict.

I enjoyed my every moment there, be it visiting places, shopping with the adults, eating (my favourite was the roast goose), and even "entertainment" in the hotel room.

I never got to visit Hong Kong again until 3 years ago, on a business trip. Ahh, that is another story to tell next time.

Going back as far as I recall, my very first passport was one that was attached to the passport of my Mom. I had a very sulky picture that I did not like. But it didn't matter because it brought me places.

My very first step outside of the country was to Singapore at the age of about 6 or 7. I don't recall exactly when. My Aunt lived in Johor Bahru (JB) and every school holiday we would take a train or flight from Kuala Lumpur to JB. While there was nothing much to do in JB, a trip to Singapore was always on the plate. We packed ourselves with enough food stuff, water and warm clothes for us kids and set off in Uncle Tony's old faithful car, Datsun.

The places I remember we always went were CK Tang and Johnny Little. I think there was also a Metrojaya where Vicky and I went crazy Barbie Doll hunting. We would drool over the dolls while our moms shopped.

Once in a while we would return with some toys, other times clothes. When we were all tired from walking the streets and malls, we would take a slow drive back to JB. Most times we would stop at Woodlands to have dinner first.

Then, just before crossing immigration and custom check points, Mom and Aunt would be busy cutting off price tags from our shopping. For some time, I thought that it was wrong to buy a lot of things from one country to bring into our own!

Since Singapore isn't much different from KL in terms of weather and people, I never really took those trips as international travels. It felt like going into yet another state in Malaysia. The only difference I knew back then was that we needed a different type of money to shop in Singapore.

Those were the days of naivity.

Today, over 20 years from my childhood visits, I've returned to Singapore many times. Not so much for holidays or shopping, but for work. Things have changed, my perceptions are different and I now know why we need to use a different type of currency...

The Dusty Roads will be the home of my childhood memories - both bitter and sweet. It is about the bumpy and smooth paths I've taken, things and places seen through the eyes of a child, my achievements and failures, and everything else that have played a part to form my life today.

This space will be where I fall back on to recall and tell the stories I may have forgotten as time (or age?) catches up on me. Someday, I would like to tell my children and my children's children, my story.

And this is where I start. The pitter-patter of my footprints on many dusty roads.

Eternity