I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbour. Do you know your next door neighbour?
— Mother Teresa, Roman Catholic nun and missionary
Do you know all your neighbours? I live in a housing estate and there are two rows of about ten houses each in the lane where I live.
I am afraid I only know two families who live in the houses opposite mine and one who live next door. We talk once in a while mostly to exchange greetings. It’s usually “Hai, Hai and Bye-Bye.”
It is good to know your neighbours well. When you are in trouble, they can help you.
When my mother was still alive, these neighbours helped my family keep an eye on her.
Once, my mother, who had dementia, hurt her head when she fell into a drain in front of my house. One of these neighbours called my niece.
It is good to exchange telephone numbers which are useful particularly during emergencies. Fortunately, my niece had shared her number with one of them.
After learning that the old lady, who was alone in the house, was hurt, many of my family members, who were working or lived in different houses, rushed home and dropped whatever they were doing. They immediately rushed her to the hospital for treatment; she had a big cut on her head.
Sometimes, when we are doing the spring cleaning before the Lunar New Year, we will borrow a ladder from a neighbour opposite our house.
My son does not think it is necessary to invest in a ladder. “After all, we only use it once a year. Then, where can we store it?” he says.
Last time, whenever our cooking gas ran out at odd hours, we would turn to another neighbour for help. She had two gas cylinders at home and willingly lent us one. The next day, when the shop opened, we returned a full cylinder of gas to her.
Another neighbour, who has rented out her house to students, once borrowed a parang (type of knife) from us to cut the overgrown grass in her front garden.
I wish I know all my neighbours well. But it is not possible. Some people, I think, value their privacy and don’t want people to know more about them.
Sometimes, when I take my dog out for a stroll, some neighbours will look at me twice. Maybe it is because they seldom see me.
You see, like most working people, I am not at home all the time. Because I work in the newspaper industry, I only go home when almost all my neighbours have gone to sleep.
My late mother was a good neighbour. Before she fell sick and suffered from dementia, whenever it rained, she would run over to a neighbour’s house, opened the gate if it was not locked and saved the clothes hanging on the lines.
I think generally, older people and those who come from smaller towns and villages make more caring neighbours.
I come from Sibu town and when I was growing up, everybody seemed to know everybody. My neighbours would know who I was and who my parents or grandparents were.
Whenever I went out with my siblings, our neighbours, especially the grannies and aunties, asked us where we were going.
I think this spirit of camaraderie is one of the reasons why many of us who work in big towns or cities like to rush back to our kampung for Hari Raya or longhouse for Gawai Dayak or small town for the Chinese New Year.
Some people who hailed from other towns did not like Sibu at all. They did not like being questioned by the grannies and aunties who asked them a lot of personal things. They considered them nosy.
I did not mind being questioned by the grannies and aunties. To me, they asked because they cared.
When I first moved to Kuching, I had to get used to the people here. I thought the neighbours, including the grannies and aunties, here were not as friendly or as caring as those in Sibu.
Many housing estates in Kuching have neighbourhood watch committees but there is none in Tabuan Laru, where I live.
I see the Neighbourhood Watch signboard everytime I go to Tabuan Jaya and I am envious of the people who live there. At least, they know their neighbours.
What about you? Do you know your neighbours well and is there a Neighbourhood Watch Committee in your housing estate? Is there a need for one?
