There are certain sound, noise or even songs or music that will always remind us of the yesteryears and the time while we were at somewhere in this planet earth and doing something different at certain intervals of time on our life. We tend to forget the exact dates, but it is much easier for us to relate certain events with the effect of sound!
When I was a kid, the crowing of the rooster early in the morning in my grandparents' home always reminded me of my sweetest childhood days. The more distinct sound of the day was the broadcasting of the Cantonese drama from the radio at about 2pm, TV was yet to be invented and made its appearance in the village. The noise from the propeller engine of a plane that flew across the sky at about 4pm was quite an accurate indication of time. My grandma always referred the time as "The plane had flown pass...". At about 6pm was the captivating story telling from Mr. Lee Dai Soh, that was the greatest attraction and the most popular radio station during my time. If you mention about Mr. Lee, he was well known to everyone young and old then!
My uncle when he was still a bachelor, he used to ride his Vespa and came home humming the favorite tunes of the Beatles " wow wow yeah..." while he arrived at the gate. He spotted an Elvis Presley hairdo with a little pouch shape in front, that was the trend at that time!
When the morning sun rose, the callings of the yellow vented bulbur, oriole and also the dotted doves started a typical day of the village life. The calls of the plaintive cuckoo sounded something like " Thin Dew Shui!", interpreted as the falling of rain from the sky, though it was always a clear sky, near to the evening of the day with dimmed sunlight but without rain most of the time!
And on some dark silent nights, the eerie deep calling of the owls in the wood was the only disturbing sound for a good night sleep. And the same unpleasant calling of the owl reminded me the funeral night of my grandpa who passed away that particular day! It was like the call from hell that took away his soul, and it was one of the saddest day of my life! The call from the little owl was considered a bad omen that coincided the death of a few elderly in the village and the village folks subsequently organized an owl shooting team that included the land district officer who was armed with a gun because of his seniority in government post. The success rate of shooting down an owl at night was low and this gunman always missed his target, that were the complaints and side stories that I heard from the adults!
When we moved to our own home bought by my grandmother for my parents, the rattling and tail beating sound of the gecko on the windows sometimes awoke my mum. It took a while for my mum to figure out that was actually the noise from the geckos and not any thief !
When I was in the upper secondary school, we did not have the convenience of emails and the internet of present days; we used to write letters and wait for replies whenever the postman passed by with the familiar noise of his motorbike and horning to pre-alert the arrival of letters in the mailbox. And one of the top ten hits of the week happened to be "Please Mr. Postman" by Karen Carpenter reminded me of those good old school days with dreams!
My wife and children shifted our house from Prai to Kulim in the early years of 2000s, the dwarf chicken (Ayam Serama) roosters we reared in the garden crowed early in the morning at 4 am that woke us up and also the neighbors ( I really want to apologise for that..). The loud and sharp noise of the Guinea fowls when they started to call for a certain reason made us nervous and I had to calm them down with a stick!
Songs by Bee Gees marked the beginning era of my learning to play the rhythm guitar in early 70s. "Melody fair" was a song that had popularized the child stars Mark Lester and Tracy Hyde by the the movie S.W.A.L.K! Those songs "I started a joke", "Baby", One Way Wind", 'Let it be", "Relection of my life" etc set the stage for my switch from listening Chinese songs to English! All those Chinese songs before this point of time were kept and set aside in my memory to make way for those English songs to fill in the gap at the later part of my student life.
I always remember the violin and the Chinese guitar played by my dad whenever he is in the right mode to play his favorite Chinese opera or Cantonese songs! The calls of the night jar perched on the tree or power cables opposite our house near to the lamp post on a silent night was typical of a quiet village life!
I like the non-stop burning of fire-crackers during those Chinese New Year days when they were still not banned by the goverment. Long bamboo sticks were used to hang up rows and packets of red fire-crackers. The longest lasting fire-crackers would signify the status and the wealth of the village folks. In my area, the land officer always emerged as the champion as his fire-crackers would always burn through the entire night of the new year eve.
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