Baju Kurung

On my last visit to Malaya, I met with my best friend from school days. My friend and I sat next to each other in the classroom from Remove Class until Upper Six. Eight long years. The last time I met her when a friend and I did our round the peninsular drive in 1981 before I went to the East-West Center in Honolulu. She was teaching at this small town by the south china sea. She already started a family. She had three cute babies. We did keep up with each other but not met since then. It was during my last visit me met again after 27 years.

Right, we got to sit and talked about the good old days in a boarding school. We recalled that on certain night of the week we had to wear baju kurung for dinner. Baju kurung hijau. During that time there wasn't any ready-made baju kurung to buy and those tailors never heard of readily arranged pleats for the sarong. So most of us who were not originally from the southern part of the peninsular found it very challenging to make the pleats from the sarong and have the sarong tied securely.

During one of the night outings to see a talent time, a singing contest at the Dewan Jubli Intan, my friend and I wore the baju kurung. One of the contestants for the night was Sheikh Abdullah ( better known as Datuk Sheikh now). I think one of the contestants was my classmates. We went to cheer my classmate. We got all excited and clapped and stood and jumped i guess, and I discovered I was standing with my sarong on the floor. What a shock. Luckily all of us were standing and I managed to scoop up my offending sarong and tried my best to fix it the way the northern people wear, like real sarong. At that time I swore I would never wear baju kurung again for outing. I would stick to my green gingham pinafore school uniform.