Haji Hussein bin Shariff

 

He is my father, your grandfather or your great grandfather.

Pak, Wan or Nenek.

 

 

His name is Hussein bin Shariff. I call him Pak. Let me just refer to him as Wan in this post since most of the readers are the grandkids of Haji Hussein.  (Haji is the title for whoever has been to Hajj).

 

Wan was born on April 1^st, 1937 in a small town in Kedah. He was the oldest in his family of nine siblings.  His father, Shariff bin Omar, was a Forestry Officer. He lost his mother when he was young. He once told me that he had a tough childhood under the care of his stepmother. Wan was kind, caring and loving. I don’t even remember seeing him angry or raise his voice. 

 

He became a teacher when he was a teenager. When he was in school, around the age of 15 or 16 years old, some officers from the Ministry of Education visited the school and asked the students to raise their hands if they were interested to become teachers. So, Wan was one of them.  The next week he started teaching the lower grades. The new teachers were given training during the weekends for months to come. (It was the same case with Mak Tok and Tok Ayah!).  After many years of teaching, he was appointed as a Headmaster.

 

At some point Wan met with Mak Tok, probably during one of the district teacher’s meetings.  They got married, have five children and lived in Sungai Petani, Kedah.

 

Wan during my childhood period.

 

There are many things about Wan that are still fresh in my mind. I will share some of the memories here. The first one is his daily routine. This was when I was in elementary school. In the afternoon, when he had returned back from work, he would lie down on his stomach to rest on the bed in a bedroom.  This bedroom was an extra room where we would hangout to play and read books. Wan would call one of us to “massage” his back. We did it by standing on his back, walking up and down from his shoulders all the way down to his knees. Funny way of massaging, right!  We were all skinny and light at that time.  Sometimes, while he was lying down, my little brother, Pak Su Sham, would push little toy cars along Wan’s arms and back. Wan just dozed off during those times.

 

The next thing I remember is that Wan always take us to the beach for picnics.  Pantai Merdeka was our regular spot, followed by Batu Ferringhi in Penang and Pulau Sayak.  We stayed at the beach for hours digging the sand to make sandcastles but most of the time soaking in the water.  None of us knows how to swim except Wan. Wan would sometimes go into the water and carry us into the deeper part.  And other times he would just swim around.  Many times, I would use a coconut I found on the beach as my floating device.

 

Most of the time during the school holidays, it was customary for Wan to take us for that long trip to Kuala Lumpur.  I remember that we always stop halfway at Bukit Berapit by the roadside to take a break, long enough for us to eat and take a dip in the nice, cold stream at that place.  In Kuala Lumpur, we stayed at our relatives’ houses for about ten days.  During that time, we visited places in Kuala Lumpur like museums and parks.  One time, Wan drove us all the way down south to Singapore. It was the first time we crossed the Malaysian border to visit Singapore. It was a memorable trip. I remember we went on the cable car and visited Jurong Bird Park, among other places.

 

The other thing that I have to mention here is that Wan always helped in the kitchen.  Whenever he came back home from the fish market with fresh fish and other seafood, he would immediately processed the fish (gutted and cleaned).  Mak Tok would cook the meal later on.  Wan loved to cook too. The dish that he would always cook was kueteow goreng! He would prepare the ingredients and fry the kueteow all by himself. It always tasted delicious. Now we see where Amin got his talent from! Wan also liked to try some new recipes like making maruku (crispy crunchy Indian snack) and masalodeh (another Indian snack using yellow lentils).  I really enjoyed helping Wan in the kitchen.

 

These are some memories of Wan during my childhood period. In the next episode, I will share more memories of Wan. Stay tuned!