While in Labuan , I was talking to my late auntie's son and daughters and we were sharing our childhood memories since we all lived and grew up together in my maternal grandma's house. Back then my grandfather was the only sole bread winner in the family working as a cook at that restaurant for RM 10 per day. That amount was simply not enough to support us as my grandma needs her daily Guinness Stout which costs RM 2 back then and my Grandpa smoked too.
Hence as young as 13 , 14 years old we all worked to support the family .. What was our work..to peel off the shell of shrimps in one of the Prawn factory in Sarikei. The after peeled shrimps were weighed and and for every kilo we were paid for a mere 3 sen . So if for an afternoon we could peel 20 kilos that would be 60 sen. The atmosphere that we worked was stuffy, smelly and very crowded with all the housewives who were there to look for part time jobs like us. During the school day we worked in the afternoon after school. Then for holiday and weekends we worked the whole day. I remembered once on my way walking home from the factory, I met a whole group of my richer and more well off classmates, I just didn't dare to talk to them cos my clothings smelled of all those shrimps and I tell it is really really smelly ...I remember once I even fainted in the prawn factory because it was too stuffy there.
Whatever we earned we didn't keep a single sen, we gave all the money to our grandpa to help in the family
Life has indeed changed....
2 comments:
And to think that there are people claiming to be from the underpriviledged race owning RM2.2 million Desa Damansara condominiums in Damansara Heights and being granted scholarships by Umno despite obtaining CGPA of 0.8 and 1.0
Yeah the good old days, but its those hardships that shape us to who we are. :)
I remember when I was young, I have to feed all the chickens and ducks, cook food and feed the many dogs, collect eggs, and when my grandma wants to 'sacrifice' the chicken, i'll have to go get one and after my grandma has killed it, defeather and take out all the useless parts and keep / clean all the edible ones, after school, every single day. These days, you just go to the (super)market.
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