Ain’t so bad…

In my childhood days, I dreaded falling sick as that would mean going to the doctor. That was why I would just go to school and not let anybody know until I was on the verge of collapsing.

My dad would take me to see our family doctor, Doctor Yong (Soon Kai’s wife) whose clinic was a few doors away from his shop along Old Street (now Jalan Chew Geok Lin) and an injection would be mandatory. According to my father, any doctor who did not give an injection would not be a good doctor and we would never go to see him or her again.

Of course, my Oscar Award winning performance would follow right away whereby I would cry non-stop till my dad said he would take me to Bee Guan to let me choose a comic book. The crying stopped instantly…and we were on our way!!! LOL!!! Those days, a DC comic (Superman and the rest) was 50 sen each and the thicker Classics Illustrated was 70 sen. There were smaller ones like those Schoolgirls series or the cowboy ones that were 30 sen each only.

In the meantime, back in the house, my mum would be preparing the standard meal for anyone who was sick. There would be plain porridge and to go with it, we usually had Bovril.

We had run out of that in the house that day so I went out to the shops to buy a new bottle. I was shocked to discover that the current stock being sold here were all MADE IN CHINA! I didn’t know whether it would taste the same or whether it would be as bad as Baoril, the Chinese imitation, which was horrible, to say the least! In the end, I bought a bottle of Marmite…

…instead. Thankfully, it was still made in the UK…

…but no, it was by no means cheap – RM34.80 a bottle, don’t play play! I don’t mind Marmite – in fact, I liked it more than Bovril so it did not matter to us which one we had in the house. When I got married, my missus would not touch Marmite, not at all, so for a while, I was buying two bottles, one of each and eventually, when they became too expensive, I stopped buying Marmite together.

We would just add a bit…

…to the porridge, just a bit, around a teaspoon will do as it would be very salty. Usually with Bovril, we would be more generous with it.

My mum would, without fail, fry one or chio (black pomfret/ikan bawal putih)…

…and she would shred the meat and sprinkle all over the porridge…

…and mix everything well.

There would also be some salted eggs…

…but no, during our growing up years, my dad was the only one in the house who would eat those 皮蛋 (pídàn) or century old eggs…

Nobody else would touch those with a 10-foot pole way back then but these days, we have acquired the taste and we actually like them a lot!

Actually, when one is not feeling too well, he or she would not feel like eating so my mum would fry a slice of this long kiam hu (salted fish, the “long” variety)…

…to whet up one’s appetite. My missus did not have that the other day so she made this pickled salted fish…

…which was nice but no, it was simply not the same.

Come to think of it, it ain’t so bad really when one falls sick and gets to eat all these nice things throughout the day.