The wonder (and curse) of a small town

Ah, I’ve been wanting to write about this a long, long time ago. You see, I came from a small town passed by the equator line on the third biggest island in the world. Only the town is small, by the way, everything else is big. We dream big, we have big house on a big land, even our mouths are big. That brings me to the first curse of a small town: everybody knows everybody, and words travel fast. My parents practically recognise at least one person on the obituaries on the newspaper everyday (oh-kay, so that’s a rather gloomy example). And when you do something wrong, the WHOLE town, believe me, the WHOLE town knows it (a little bit of hyperbole won’t hurt here). I’m reminded of that song “Secret” by The Pierces: …coz two can keep a secret if one of them is dead… Yeah, I guess that applies to people of my town.

Ever heard of this saying “You can take a girl out of a small town, but you can’t take a small town out of a girl” or sooomeeething along that line? Well, I think it’s true. You can’t really change the small-town ambition to prosper and to wander everywhere to achieve the Big City Dreams (another favorite song of mine by NeverShoutNever!). Well, this is the wonder of a small town in my opinion.

Another curse of a small town, I guess this applies to people of my town only, their greetings when they see you, is not hi-great-to-see-you or hello-how-are-you, but more of “Hi, how stuck-up you are for not contacting me” Oh-kay, so they mean it in a friendly way, but it’s getting irritating. Come on, if you’re dying to contact me to the point that I become a no-good stuck-up loser once you see me, why didn’t you contact me first?

Finally, the wonder of my lovely small town is the FOOD. Duh. Even after many generations of those who have migrated to other places, they will still retain their food culture and they will always come back to my town for the food! As one of the folksongs of my town muses “Once you drink the water of Kapuas River (that’s the famous river in my province, now you can guess where I’m from ), you’ll never forget this place” And you the excellent food vendors in my town have also run for generations. There’s something called the rich-people noodles vendor which apparently closes most of the time, so you’re really lucky if you get to eat the noodles, or something called the cock-and-hen kway teow because the vendor is run by this lovey-dovey old couple (if I’m not wrong, one of them has passed away recently, that’s so sad), and there is the forever-waiting noodles, coz it just takes forever for the vendor to cook the noodles but many people love them anyway (I LOVE THEM TOO!). Here’s a picture of one of my favorite dish, called “yam mee” which is definitely very yummy

OHHHH, my eyes have grown misty. I wanna go hoommeeee, let me go homeeee….

Midnight moonshine

I have learnt the perils of midnight chats, heart-to-heart, girl talk, whatever it is that involves chatting and telling secrets and gossips, an important element of sleepovers and overnight camps. I love it, because I get to hear people’s dirtiest secrets and I hate it, because people get to hear my dirtiest secrets. ERGH.

Participating in these midnight chats is like getting drunk (yup, that ‘moonshine’ pun is intended). It’s like as it gets later and later, less and less controls you have and more and more secret comes pouring out. And at the moment, all your darkest thoughts, all the secrets that you have guarded oh-so-dearly, all the inhibitions are gone, gone, gone, poof! And you kinda feel good about it, like unloading all the burdens. And realising that other people are just as screwed up as you (hehehe).

Soon, enthusiastic chats turn into drawls, so you fall asleep. Then come morning, and you get the hangover: regret and embarassment over what you have publicly disclosed the night before. But unlike alcoholic hangover that can be cured with Panadol or bathroom, this hangover stays with you forever.

Luckily, you can expect that most of your girlfriends probably feel the same. So at least your secrets remain within your private circle. But beware of witches or dormant witches who will reveal their true color if you mess with them. Uh-oh.