This is a painting of Kukup, a fishing village near Johor Bahru. It's on the wall of a seafood restaurant (Restoran High King) in Pontian and it caught my eye. I paused to look at it for awhile. When I was a primary school kid, I stayed in one of these houses on stilts during the school holidays. My sisters, cousins and I would point out mudskippers to each another as we walked along the long long wooden planks with our mothers close behind. We played Monopoly on the last day and I went to shit after I lost all my money. I remember bcos it was my first time shitting through a hole and I wasn't used to looking at rubbish in between my legs. We didn't take any photos of our short stay there but some 15 years later, these snippets of memories are still vivid in my mind.
Today, I'm back here on a day tour with my co-workers. I hate tours and this was no exception. It was crap. I didn't see a single fish at the stocking area and it was clearly a tourist trap in disguise, selling prawn crackers and tidbits at a higher margin than the shops back in town. I took many photos but none of them meant anything to me, except this painting. It encapsulates the idyllic and rustic charm of the place I had felt years ago, which is long gone and lost.
