The long year-end holiday has officially begun. One of my nephews shared the news with me recently. Last Friday was the last day of school for his younger children.
He also proudly told me that his third child, a girl, did better than expected in her UPSR exam. The second child in his family to study in a Chinese primary school, she scored 3As and a B in Mandarin. The girl, he said, was going to a national school next year. However, she would continue to take up Mandarin as a single subject.
“Yes, make sure she does that. Mandarin is a useful language. Many non-Chinese are also taking it up,” I told him.
“Now that the year-end school holidays have begun, my wife and I will be less busy. We do not have to send the kids to school and pick them up at different times,” my nephew told me. “Now, we have time to visit you and grandmother at home.”
Kuchingites are very fortunate to be relatively near the sea. They can easily visit Santubong, Lundu, Sematan and even Teluk Melano. Another favourite place for camping near Kuching is Sungai Cina or the Red Bridge areas in Matang.
When I was a school girl, I looked forward to the year-end school holidays. It meant spending quality time with my grandparents, particularly my grandmother in Kanowit who loved me very much and eating simple jungle produce.
Remember Cliff Richard’s song, Summer Holiday? That’s how I felt every year-end holiday. Instead of going on a summer holiday, I was going on the year-end holidays. No more studying for weeks, lots of fun and laughter and no worries for weeks!
When I was growing up, I did not know of any friend who went on holidays overseas with their families. But nowadays, kids from rich families are lucky; they get to spend their holidays in countries that we only get to see in movies.
During a recent prize-giving day at a tuition centre, I overhead a kid telling his friends that he was going to spend his holiday in China with his family. Lucky kid!
The furthest place I could spend my school holidays was Kanowit, a small town above Sibu where my grandparents lived. Long ago, there was no road and the only means of getting there was by motor launches which we called ‘Pom Pom’ boats. That was before the advent of the express boats.
The ‘Pom Pom’ boats carried passengers and cargoes and took a long time to reach their destinations because they stopped at various places along the Rejang River. My mother would bring my siblings and I (six of us) to board a boat late in the morning and just before dusk we’d reach Kanowit where my grandparents and maybe one of my aunties would wait for us.
We would spend a night in the attic of a Chinese shophouse before continuing on to my grandparents’ house on foot the next morning. My mother would stay one or two nights at my grandparents’ house before returning to Sibu with some of my younger siblings.
When it was time for school to reopen, my grandmother would send us back to Sibu — again by boat.
During the long holidays in Kanowit, I would spend my time reading fairy tale books borrowed from Sibu Municipal Council library. My younger brother, who is two years my junior, would fish with a friend while my elder sister, who is one year older than me, would play with her friends.
Sometimes, my grandparents would bring us to their padi farm. One of the reasons they were not keen to bring me with them was because I was not used to walking in the jungle. I would trip where nobody tripped and instead of walking smoothly across a log, I would end up under the log. It has been years since I last walked in a jungle. I guess I am still as clumsy as ever.
If my siblings and I did not spend our year-end school holidays in Kanowit, we would find our own ways of entertaining ourselves in Sibu. I remember once one of my sisters went swimming in a river with friends. When my mother found out about it, hell broke loose.
It is dangerous for children to swim in unfamiliar and unsafe places. During the year-end school holidays, we often read about tragedies involving schoolchildren in mining pools or rivers.
Some busy parents send their children to holiday classes just to keep them out of trouble. Personally, I think schoolchildren should have time to relax, especially during the year-end holidays. Children are children only once. So, let them enjoy their year-end school holidays!
