About Me

I have done a lot of things in my life and have also worked in many different jobs to make a living and to experience life. This blog is just some of my musings, sometimes funny, sometimes inspirational, sometimes sad, sometimes angry, sometimes simple but all the time, it's just me.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Chapter 2: When I was growing up and now .... Television


Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. His hands can't hit what his eyes can't see. Now you see me, now you don't. George thinks he will, but I know he won't.


When I was growing up, my dad was a very busy man. He was in a commodities import and export business which kept him in the office until close to midnight. By the time he came home, we would be asleep. And by the time we went to school early in the morning, he would still be sleeping.

He was a rather strict man, so we would be afraid to make noise and quietly slip away to school.

We did see him in the weekends and I remember many wonderful trip in the weekend, picnics at the beach or the botanical gardens or the hill station. Watching a movie - in premier class seat up in the balcony. Meals outside. Ice cream floats.

While we were the first to have a colour tv at home, in Malaysia itself, color tv only existed since 1979 when Tun Hussein Onn was the Prime Minister (my year is estimated). So we had one of those relatively huge black and white tv's with the speakers built in and 4 wooden legs and a shutter covering the screen when not in use. I still have that tv in my storage, likely still works.

My dad also had a small portable black and white tv, perhaps 12 inches at max, looking similar to the one above in his room.

The only channels we had were RTM 1 and RTM 2 and they were good truly 1Malaysia channels then, showing shows and movies in English, Malay, Chinese, Tamil as well as Hindi. Pretty much every show had an English or Malay subtitle.

Despite how busy my dad was, there were 2 television events he would never miss. He would even take his portable tv to the office if these events happened to be during the office hours which for him was like 10am to midnight.

The first even was any World Heavyweight Boxing match, and those days when Muhammad Ali was king, there was only 1 type of heavyweight title. His office mates would crowd around to see Ali fooling around with the opponent whether it was Bugner or Frazier or Foreman. In fact, the quote from Ali above was with his match with Foreman when he taunted Foreman of being so slow that he would not even see Ali.

Ali was a boxer but he was a showman. Like a circus in town or Russel Peter's nowadays. He entertained crowds, not just boxed.

Ali truly was the greatest of them all, he was the undisputed king. Many have come and tried, Holyfield, Tyson and few others but nobody comes close to Ali.

Another big even in my dad's tv watching was the yearly budget. He would be glued to every word of the finance minister. The finance minister during the black and white days that I remembered him really glued to the budget was always Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (Finance Minister from 1976-1984).

Razaleigh was another entertainer, another person whom you could admire. Someone who was candid yet serious.

Of course, for my dad, the budget was important for business and to see if taxes and duties increased or reduced and what that would mean for the commodities that he was dealing in.

But nowadays....

I have no bloody clue who the World Heavyweight boxing champion is anymore. The last time I heard, there were now three different world boxing organisations and likely there are 3 unknown champions.

And to be honest, I bet most of you reading this also do not know who it is. Some will likely Google it. But for me, boxing has reached to such a boring state that I am not even bothered to Google and see who is the champion now.

And the budget.... don't even get me started on the budget. I was working from home the other day and decided what the attraction my dad had to watching the budget. Watching Jibby speak, I fell asleep.

The budget too has become so boring, so mundane, the same old promises, extravagant government spending, some ikan bilis (anchovies) thrown out to the public and like Bleh Bleh Bleh ...... zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

So, what memories will we have of this generation? What memories would our kids have of us when they are our age?

Likely, oh my mom and dad were glued to Facebook, how old school is that.

And they would browse Internet for all information like it was God's truth.


Owh, and they watched satellite tv, through a dish, with Astro .... they would flip endlessly and watch stupid reality shows that were not even real.

Our parents may have been busy, but they showed us the great outdoors. When was the last time you took your kids out for a picnic or took them out to the nature (not the mall)?

Anyway, such is life. There is time to make a change, to be memorable, but do not wait thinking winter is still a long time away and there is still a lot of time.

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the man on the moon.
"When you coming home, son?" "I don't know when,
But we'll get together then, dad.
You know we'll have a good time then."
Take care and be well.

1 comment:

Mebel Jepara said...

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