The Bub in the Belly

Before I get to the last leg of our Chinese New Year holiday in Malaysia, I thought I'd do a separate post on the reunion meetup with my secondary school mates in Ipoh.

I schooled in an all-girls school in Ipoh for four years and made some pretty strong friendships which have lasted through the years. Some of my mates have stayed on and built their lives in Ipoh, while others are now in KL, Johore and various places overseas, including Singapore, Hong Kong and Riyadh.

I don't get to see much of them but everytime we get together, time falls away and it's as if it was just yesterday that we were in our school pinafores. We call ourselves "budakkampung" which, in Malay, means kampung kids. We were all part of the same uniformed group - the 5th Ipoh Coy (girl guides) - and I was the coy leader. We spent all our time together, in and outside of school. So many memories in those four years - camping trips, dance/sketch performances, inter-coy/troop meetups, teenage parties, tea dances, boyfriends, secret crushes, gangfights (not us, the boys), overnight stays at each others' houses, studying together for exams, going on travels together - it was a fantastic four years for me.

It was a difficult time for me at first because my family split up geographically and only my brother and I came to Ipoh. My life, as I knew it then, had completely disappeared. So you could say that I lost one family but gained another.

In many ways, I was an outsider, as I moved to Ipoh when I was in Form 2 (in Singapore it's called Secondary 2) and most of these girls already knew each other from primary school. Yet they accepted me with open arms and shared everything with me, as if I'd been there from the very beginning. They never made me feel as if I had to prove myself or as if I had to earn my place in the group. I left Ipoh after sitting for my SPM (equivalent to "O" levels) in Form 5, when I won a scholarship to come to Singapore. Most of my mates stayed on to do their STPM ("A" levels). So I was the last to join the group and the first to leave the nest. My time with them was short yet I've always felt a strong connection to these ladies. We're bound by history and genuine love.

All of us try to make it home to our families in Ipoh for Chinese New Year so we usually arrange a meet up or two for ourselves as well. Not everyone can make it every year, but what we lose out in member numbers is usually made up with "mini budakkampungs", ie. our children! This year, there was a meetup on Friday afternoon and one on Saturday afternoon. I went for the one on Saturday, after getting back from Uncle Peter's place. Here are some photos (taken by Kar Yee and Cathryn).

A few of the budakkampung

We gathered at Strawberry Moment at de Garden

Ryan in his Gong Xi Fa Cai top (a birthday gift from Ting Shern)