Friday, August 7, 2009
On my previous post, I did mentioned about my northward journey that brought me to a place that I never 'landed' before. Sik, a small town in rural Kedah.As a stronghold of PAS, an Islamic political entity, I rather opened by the fact that there is a skirt wearing Siamese girls of Siamese community that ran a saloon business. When one of us asked on why don't they run a massage parlour, the answer is very simple yet straightforwarding "Lesen tak boleh dapat bang oi" ("Impossible to obtain a permit for that!").
One of my Management Dept. pilot ('driver' is a sensitive term), asking one of my subordinate (the one that we going to mess his mom's house)about any place for him to do some hair dressing. As it was almost 7.30 pm, the deserted town was only enliven by the weekly night market and the only saloon that operating on this twillight hour is a Siamese girls' saloon.
A gentle service with smiles and good manouvre that I have ( seems that I was amazed with the price charged ), is only for RM5.00 ! "Seumur hidup aku botak, tak pernah ada orang mesin rambut aku lembut macamni " (I never have a gentle barber doing the shaving gently like this since I started to get skinheaded") I told my friends while the girl working on my head.
Oh damn. She was a Siamese.. not a Chinese girl. Of course she knew what I'm saying. (Chinese girl mostly knows basic Malay only). The Siamese girls broke laugh and talking something with her friends in Thai. Damn. I'm blushed.
Later, we have a dinner at my subordinate's house, located in a remote kampong that fall into eerie silence after 9.00 p.m. To be precise, look at the "A" sign at picture below. That was his house. To make it worse, the loo is located outside the house when I had to answer the nature's call around 11.30 pm.
Anyway, I fall asleep later that night with a full stomach after I have the apam balik refilling my stomach. The night is so cold and caused me a little pain in my chest as I wake up few times on the wee hours.The unique of the people in Sik as well as Baling, Weng, Nami, Kupang and also as far south as Selama (Kedah), they believed that they are of Patani origin. (The place where people of Kelantan came from). And the fact that support this shall be found in their language.
Air ( water ) is pronounced as ai instead of ayaq that popularly used in Kedah. Kelik for balik (return home) and demo for depa ( they ). The intonation is slighly like Siamese people of Kedah origin that can be found in Satun and Danok and the whole of it shows that people of rural Kedah is actually originated from the East Coast.
But centuries of outcast across the mountain range has developed an ethnicity of their own with language spoken among them is hardly to be understood even by person of Kedah origin like me.
The early next misty morning, we departed for Alor Star which is located an hour driving distance away. While we stopped by at a small grocery to buy cigarette, a bunch of Tabika KEMAS kids are running out of their class lining up at the fence in a welcoming gesture, looking at our Nissan Frontier and a Ministry of Health labelled 3 tonnes truck with red crescent logo. But we left them upset when we just waived back and speed away.
Those kids and also their teachers must be thinking that we are going to give a health education or medication what-so-ever seems the nearby school in Sik has been closed due to the H1N1 outbreak. Yes, the desease has lingered even in the rural air.
One of my friend's uncle that living near my friend's house said "every desease that exist here is brought in from the outsiders, we the kampong folk have to work hard in our farms just to ensure that we could afford medication in case of critical condition that need money".
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1 comments:
bapak sedara i penah dok kat weng.. since he is a manager something kat felcra.... depa tuh dah consider ulu laa abg dark... n ulu kedahan mmg language dier pelik sikit...
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