TWO of my mum’s lady relatives from India visited me recently. They were keen to go sightseeing around Kuala Lumpur and I was more than happy to take them around as it was their first visit to Malaysia.

Since these relatives come from a rural village, they only wore a blouse and sarong wherever they went. After showing them some of the sights in the city, we landed on Jalan Masjid India at 7.45pm.

After a light dinner, the three of us decided to take the bus home. It was quite a distance to walk to the bus stop and I led the way while they walked slowly and talked between themselves. Some minutes later, I turned behind to see where the ladies were and to my surprise, they were still standing quite a distance away.

I ran back and asked them why they had stopped walking. Apparently, they desperately needed to ease themselves – along the roadside! I was shocked; I kept telling them this was Malaysia and they had to be more civic-conscious and hygienic. I also showed them where the pay toilets were.

They replied it was OK as nobody realised what they were doing since they were in their sarongs and it was night time.

I was so ashamed and embarrassed, and only then realised these people did not believe in wearing undies.

From that day, I promised never to take any of my relatives from abroad sightseeing.

ST

Sri Gombak, Kuala Lumpur

Penguin wonder

MY family went to Melbourne last December. My cousin recommended that we go to Phillip Island to watch the mini penguins.

All of us were excited because we had only seen big penguins before. When we reached the site we saw a lot of penguins still in their burrows, looking after their chicks. The penguins came home early and we managed to see about 20-odd coming back from sea. It reminded me of our leatherback turtles coming to shore.

However, before the home-coming penguins even left the water, their partners and small ones were already out of the burrows, making lovely sounds. There seemed to be an unseen radar telling those penguins on land that their partners were back.

It was amazing to see those little penguins coming back from the sea after a whole day spent finding food and then waddling 3km up the hills.

What really touched me was the scene where the partners and the chicks met each other outside their burrows. There was so much frolicking, embracing and the whole site was an open field of happy calls. Then a thought crossed my mind - if we humans can be like them, we will have fewer broken homes and families.

Poh Soek Eng

Kuantan, Pahang

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