I was born in Kuala Lumpur. My late father ran a kopitiam (a traditional coffee shop) downtown, so I spent a lot of my early childhood there. Back then, in the 1980s, you could still run around in the neighbourhood. We used to play by the shophouses in nearby Jalan Pekeliling before they were demolished for redevelopment. They were some of the first pre-cast concrete structures built for mass housing and a landmark for anyone who grew up in KL during that time.
Chang in the Perdana Botanical Garden © Paulius Staniunas
I also have a lot of memories of Petaling Street, our Chinatown. Back in the day, it used to be a trading centre, and people would come from all over to shop for everything from clothes to sweets and electronics. My father used to drive me around after closing the kopitiam for the day; we’d go past Dataran Merdeka, the square in which Malaysian independence was declared in the 1950s, and stop by Petaling Street for Hokkien noodles – the chewy, egg-based kind.
The city doesn’t need any more malls or skyscrapers
Things have changed a lot since then. A rise in commercial projects, traffic and the 1997 Asian financial crisis made Petaling Street almost uninhabitable thanks to the rising cost of living. My family were among those who moved out. We found a new home in the Cheras neighbourhood, which is where I still live. People used to see Cheras as a sleepy backwater. It’s more developed now, but it’s still laid-back.
