The Old Town and The Old Campus

I guess my most enjoyable life was during my college days. I entered college after being persuaded by Abang Nan at the very last minute. At first I was not interested because I was not offered the Mass Communication course that I was interviewed for and had to do with Library science which sounded so odd to me. I was among the very last students to have registered at ITM. It was nearly 4pm. I remember that my niece Noni also gave me some comforting words so that I would join ITM like she did before. She's actually a year older than I am and joined after her fifth form doing Quantity Survey. I had to do my STPM because I wanted to do Mass Comm after failing to enter earlier to do Transport. Why Dip. in Transport? Maybe I was so enthusiastic about those huge express buses, trailers and container trucks. They look cool enough for me and maybe because of the incident that I could not afford a bus ticket home for hari raya in 1976, so that I could have my own bus?

Life during the orientation week was ok I guess? Not that bad... I've been through worst during my school days. My adventures began when we were transported to our very own little campus in PJ Old Town and our very own apartments in Old Klang Road. Everything seemed to be old I guess? The campus was a very small campus and has a unique 50's era design. The design I love most. It was like living in a different era. I could see similar designs when I was in Phnom Penh a few years back. Actually Phnom Penh was one of the most modern cities in Southeast Asia during the 60's but the bloody war has turned the nation backwards. Thanks to Pol Pot with his selfishness and brainlessness ideology that destroyed everything. the campus consists of 2 blocks of girls' hostels a dining hall, a canteen, a library and 2 blocks of lecture rooms. The campus only catered for the School of Library Science, Off Campus Studies for Business and Accounting and the best part, The School of Secretarial Science!

The most wonderful part was our hostel in Old Klang Road. It was actually a two-room apartment converted into our hostel. We were located right in the middle of a huge Chinese community. Right in-front of our hostel was a chinese temple and a few blocks of flats of mostly chinese community. At the side of our hostel were a few bungalows of the United Garden. Every apartment was shared by 4 or 5 of us. It was not like the Jati hostels in Shah Alam where they had to share 10 students for every apartment.

The college provided a bus for our daily commuting to Old Town. It was total fun for us. I was blessed with a motorbike which I took from my Abang Ta after he bought his 1st car. Anyway sometimes I love to join my friends on the bus while saving some petrol money.

By the 2nd Semester the girls had to share our hostel because the hostels in Old Tow were not enough to cater for every beautiful girl in the campus. One thing I should commend the ITM was that it was very kindhearted to have provided enough accomodation for every student who wish to stay in. Bravo!

The Beringin Hostel where I stayed was a very comfortable one. We were being surrounded by a mostly chinese neighbourhood. Right in-front of our hostel is a small chinese temple which I believe belongs to a kongsi because I sometime witnessed some rituals being held there where some tough guys were seen rubbing their bare bodies with hot boiling oil from a huge pot.

Back to the girls story... The girls had moved in to share our hostel block but only on the top floor. The warden, Encik Ismail had to take extra care about the situation and I guess you know better. The wonderful thing was that I was among the privelleged few that were trusted by the authorities to be the hostel committee member. What's the privillege then? We were authorised to enter the girls' room whenever needs arise such as identifying leakages, power breakdowns, jammed doors or anything similar. Hmmmm... at least I got to know how neat and tidy these girls' rooms were compared to our rooms or maybe suitably called chicken coops...

Since then life at the hostel has lighten up and quite cheerful I could say.. hehehe... Every night the girls would come down to the tv room and we became to know them better. We became more like family because there were not many of us and we tend to know each other better. Some of the girls even gave us some food or tit bits especially when we did not go to the dining hall during weekends. we also helped them tapau some food from the makciks' stalls near the Old Klang Road or roti canai Joe (our favourite mamak stall).

Our neighbourhood was quite interesting. We had the Kimisawa supermarket with Burger King just a ten minutes walk from our place and we always watched midnight movies during saturday nights in a very large group. We even had our favourite cendul vending rickshaw just 3 minutes away. It was totally fun for us.

At least one special week of the year we would be entertained with a free whole week of open air kung fu movies at the temple. We just watched from our corridoors. This was normally during their new lunar year celebrations. At least with this kind of experiences we learned a lot about the chinese community and their culture. They are
are actually very simple people. Throughout the three years of living there, I did not witness any misunderstandings or problems living within the chinese neighbourhood. In fact it was quite fun.

In Old Town we also had our favourite food court near the old big roundabout which does not exist anymore. We would normally go together in a big group of girls and boys for our special dinner treat once in a while. We had our favourite ais kacang and ice cream stall, Rahman's Ice cream stall. The sotong kangkung there was the best among the best. We also had Pak Atan's Nasi goreng ayam which really suited my taste bud. I also met my favourite barber Ipeen, an IKM graduate when he was working in a mamak's barber shop in Old Town. He is still my best barber till now. He has a small shop on the first floor of a bazaar right behind Masjid India by the name Ipeen's Barber Shop.