Good ol' days...

I grew up in kampong and at that time there was only 1 public phone in the area and the villagers will come and line up at night (because the call rate is cheaper than daytime) to make calls and talk to their relatives in town or city. There were no Nintendo or Gameboy, PS or PS 2. Those are the toys which are beyond our reach and imagination. But we have our own games. Among the games which are familiar to us were “congkak”, “guli” (marbles), “gasing”, “jengket-jengket” (I think there is an English version to this as well) and “main kotak rokok”.

We usually play congkak (I don’t really play because I think it is for girls only) under the house (most of the kampong houses were built on stilts. So, there is a “bawah rumah”). Let me recall how it was played again. Dig 6 holes on each side on the ground and one last hole for your points and fill each hole with seven either “biji getah” or “guli” except for the last hole at each end of the row. Start by transferring the “biji getah” in each hole until you finished it all and collect them in the hole at the end. The person with the most “biji getah” wins. Now, congkak is not played under the house anymore and parents would rather buy the “papan congkak” at the Central Market (if you are in KL) and the papan congkak is displayed among other items in our house. Some of the recent generation don’t even know how to play congkak.

Then there was the “permainan kotak rokok”. We will collect the cigarette boxes arrange them together. Bear in mind the cigarette boxes have different values. The expensive cigarette will have 10 points (I think) and the cheap cigarette box will have 1 point. But for certain cases, some cheap cigarette box (like the ace of spade cigarette box) will have 10 points because it is rare (that was from my father’s time. During my time we stick to Dunhill, Camel, Materhorn, White Horse and Benson’s boxes) (my grandma smokes Salem menthol thus the box carry 6 points). So, if you strike the expensive cigarette box you will get more points so on and so forth. It is something like betting to get points but it is sure fun. It is a little bit different with “main guli”.

One way to play guli is to place several of your gulis in a circle you made on the ground. The more gulis the merrier. Then you will draw a line about 5 feet from the circle where you will stand behind the line and take turns trying to hit the “gulis” in the circle with another guli you called “ibu”. The ibu is usually your “lucky marble” and a big one too. If the guli inside the circle are thrown out of the circle, it is considered your. I used to own about two “tin susu besar” of guli. Yeah, I am the champion in the kampong and one day my friends decided that I was too good as a player and told me that I shouldn’t play (kesian *sob-sob*). Thus, I was a spectator after that (yeah, friends can be cruel. If that happens today Schumacher will not win the F1 for seven times).

My other toys were the therbe’ or lastik (catapult), “senapang kayu” (wooden gun), caplong (another gun made from bamboo and you fill it with either paper soaked in water or buah ceneghai (I don’t know what its called in English but it looks like a small cherry) and buah ceneghai will hurt if it “kena” you). The catapult will be my best weapon next to the wooden gun. The bamboo will not last long since it is made from bamboo and it will break once it dried up unless you put it in the water to retain the moist in the bamboo. So, everyday after school I will patrol the kampong with the catapult around my neck and any moving object in the bushes will be my target from birds to a poor chicken (I was quite naughty when I was small and my father will get his daily report from the villagers. Something must be dead or something must be broken). For the wooden gun, I usually use ‘batang bemban” (it is a bamboo like plant but a little softer inside) and the target is human being usually kids who are going to their daily kelas fardhu ain. I go too to the fardhu ain classes but I got a green pass because the ustaz is my uncle (al fatihah to him).

But all of the above are not as fun as “mandi ban” (ban is an irrigation canal for the padi fields) especially in the afternoon after school. We would swim butt naked (yes put your school uniform aside and jump into the canal) and no matter what was done to deter me from “mandi ban”, nothing can stop me. So my father gave up on that. Then I compare my life then with the life of kids now and I felt they need to go out more often. There is nothing more fun than playing those games and doing what I did when I was a young delinquent.

But now I revert to more decent games such as scrabble and chess (dam aji too) since it will be a scene if I were to play guli or kotak rokok again.