I cannot answer for all but for me, my balik kampung is no longer like it used to be, especially in the 1970s.
Firstly, the kampung I grew up in is no longer around. In its place is the new Kedah State Government Administrative Centre, a smaller version of Putrajaya in the north of Alor Star. It used to be the National Padi Board or LPN’s headquarters and its rice mills were located just beside kampung.
I was born here and grew up in Anakbukit and then my family migrated to Kuala Lumpur. My present residence is in Mergong and my family house is in Taman Sri Gombak, Kuala Lumpur.
Secondly, the old kampung folk are not around anymore and thirdly, we normally take our modern gadgets back home and thus the environment is now different.
In a nutshell, my kampung is not the same anymore.
During Aidilfitri we are supposed to visit relatives in the kampung but these days the various television programmes claim our time.
I read this article about balik kampung.
It’s so true; balik kampung is no longer the same.
I’m speaking from the experience of going back to my mother’s hometown.
I used to like follow my mom back to her hometown because things were just so different there.
I got to travel in car for 4-5 hours (Well, for a kid, it was fun!), got to see many cousins I met for only two times per year (one time for cny and another time for grandparents’ birthdays), got to run around in the town as if the whole town belongs to our relatives (It’s a small town so everyone knows everyone. Even though I went there so seldom, people there all know me. They know I’m the youngest daughter of ‘insert mom maiden’s name’; they know I’m the granddaughter of ‘insert grandparents’ name’; and they even call me ‘insert my maiden name’ as if we were very close.).
Somemore, I got to sleep together with many aunties and cousins in the living room (tell you, aunties love pillow talk as well! Haha…), got to play with and become very close with other kids in the town (for only the few days I was there lar. Keke…), got to see crocodiles, got to see monkeys, got to see eagles, got to see cock fights, got to bath at the river (That was one of the things I was looking forward the most when I was there. I didn’t know how to swim but I like to play with water. My sisters and elder cousins always bluffed me that they saw lots of crocodiles underneath the river and asked me to get down from the pondok. The most I could do was to put my body in the river with one hand holding grandmom’s or auntie’s hand. Hahaha… didn’t dare to let go the hand and so scared that one of the crocodiles would snip off my legs!).
Somemore somemore, you go to play with games that you don’t play or you hardly have the chance to play in the city. No illustrations of the games because… I don’t really remember the games’ rules and all already. haha…
What’s happening nowadays?
The cousins are all grown-up with own stuff to busy with; studies, work, accompany girlfriend/boyfriend, accompany husband/wife… whatever reasons, you hardly have everyone gather together.
There was once my little nephew followed me and my mother there to prepare for my cousin’s wedding (my younger cousin! ><). This little nephew was like 2 inches away from me all the time! I tried to involve him in something so that I could escape and that instead of following me, he could go explore and find out the fun in the town, like what I used to do. But I failed terribly. He couldn’t get involved; he was always keeping track of me. So, I told him, ‘why are you following me? Go and play yourself.’ And then he followed me even closer, with his body actually sticking to my legs. -_-” ok lar, I know this was because he felt that I wanted to ‘abandon’ him; thus, feeling insecure. So, I just let him be.
Then I realized, everything is so different now. Last time, I had my cousins to connect me with the other kids in the town hence a big group mixing together everyday (Even the other kids like us to be there because they got more friends to play with). Yet, my little nephew had no one as an intermediate to help him make the connections.
But ho… most probably with the help of my cousin… or my nephew actually made it himself, I saw him playing happily with the kid next door the second day. And he actually walked from a relative house to another relative house without pulling me along. Hrmm… good sign. This is what kids are supposed to do mah! Go explore more by themselves. Why lar so much tuition classes and ‘whatever-you-like-to-insert-here’ classes? Sigh…
And then ho… my nephews hardly have the chance to go to the town… because the sister-in-law doesn’t like. Tell u ho… parents nowadays ho, so cacat one! So protective for what? Isshhhh…!!!
Do you know how much time I spent on this post? How great it would be if I can be this concentrative and motivated to finish my soon-to-be-due term paper? Haha! So, today, I learnt the bbCode for putting link in an entry, coloring the fonts, changing the font size, and also learnt that I have to download and install a plugin in order to make space between two paragraphs.
