Friday, May 30

 

I had a call yesterday from some Government Department checking up on how I am going.  It happens occasionally and will be followed up a visit in a couple of days.  They wanted to know if my advanced age is causing me any problems, have we got rid of  any trip points in the unt, are there grab rails in the shower?  And, is there anything I need to make my life easier?  I mentioned that I was considering getting a lift chair to help me stand up.  I find that I get quite stiff if I've been sitting for a while and I easily lose balance when I stand up.

Mention that to the person who comes to visit, he said, and we might be able to provide some funding.

What's not to like about how we look after seniors in Australia?

The story I've dug out today was in response to a challenge to write a story about an unusual place we have been.  In January 2007, Marilyn and I were off-loaded from a cruise ship in Penang when she had a fall down some stairs and broke her nose.  We spent a couple of nights in a hospital while she was operated on and then four or five days in a hotel while she recuperated.  Not the best circumstances for a holiday but it turned out to be very interesting.  We flew on from there to the Philippines as if nothing had happened although Marilyn had to wear dark glasses to disguise the bruising,

GEORGE TOWN, PENANG, MALAYSIA                                                              21 JULY 2023

Eliza wandered through the streets expecting to feel a sense of familiarity.  After all, she had lived here for several years, nearly three decades ago, she had gone to school in this city and still had friends living here who sent her cards on her birthday and even the occasional letter.  But there was little about this modern and thriving metropolis which sparked any recollection in her memory.  She hadn’t been back since the day in 1995 when her father had been posted back to Australia and Eliza found herself having to become accustomed to an Australian school in Queensland. 

Some of the old British colonial buildings remained but she was surprised with the recently-built, modern glass and polished steel office buildings with their granite and faux marble embellishments.  She turned into a familiar narrow street expecting to see a row of Chinese shop-houses with their brightly -coloured facades and their windows filled with extraordinary goods and hand-painted signs in Malay, and Chinese characters, and, rarely, in English.  But it had all changed; now there were rows of multi-storey modern apartments.

Happily, there were still many rickshaws.  One of her fondest memories was of having an occasional rickshaw ride home from school but it was clear that today’s rickshaws were for tourists only.  The rickshaw drivers wore colourful outfits, suitable for the photographs of the tourists, unlike the loin cloths that drivers of Eliza’s childhood would have worn.

Eliza took a right-hand turn knowing that this narrow street would take her closer to the water and, if her memory was correct, to the Chou Family Jetty which was one of her favourite play-areas of those happy times.  She smelled the sea before she saw it and walked a little faster in anticipation of what she might find.

The jetty was certainly there but not as she remembered it.  It was run-down, almost derelict, with planks missing from the decking and no sign of the many sampans which used to be tied up along its length.  There were the remains of brightly-coloured wooden furniture which the inhabitants of this jetty would have used but, apart from another tourist or two looking vaguely about them, there was no evidence that this was once a thriving centre of life.

Eliza’s father had been a pilot with the RAAF and, for a time, had been stationed at the Butterworth Air Force Base on the mainland just opposite Penang Island.  Eliza’s mother had decided that the family would live in George Town on the island so that her children would have the experience of living in another culture rather than on the base with other ex-pats trying to replicate their Australian way of life in this foreign corner.  There was a bridge connecting the island to the mainland so there was no feeling of isolation.

It had been a culture shock for Eliza, six years old and having to cope with a new way of life.  It would have been harder if she had not been befriended on her first day at school by a skinny little Chinese girl with straight black hair worn in pigtails, and prominent teeth.  Her name was Li and she lived in one of the sampans tied up at the Chou family pier.  Eliza and Li explored every corner of the city she grew to love.  They had no fear of becoming lost and it was not unusual for them still to be wandering the streets when the moon was shining and the sky was filled with stars.  Nobody, in those days, imagined that anything would happen to two little girls on their own.

Eliza grew to love Penang Island and, especially, the city of George Town.  The native Malay people were almost outnumbered by the immigrant Chinese who had made this beautiful island their home.  The calm, peaceful manner of the indigenous Malays was complemented by the energy and vitality of the immigrant Chinese, forming a resourceful and harmonious community: a perfect place for a small Australian school-girl to begin her life.

Eliza had arranged to meet her school-friend, Li, and waited expectantly in the coffee shop.  It would be interesting to see what Li had become.  No doubt, the pigtails would have disappeared and, perhaps, the uneven teeth might have been straightened but nothing in Eliza’s imagination had prepared her for the elegant, sophisticated, beautifully-dressed young woman who stood before her.  Like her city, Li had been transformed.