Teh Seok Eng
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Title: My House
Title (Original Language): 我的家
Year: 2017
Words in the Drawing: “This is the little house that I stayed with my husband, Lian Huat. The house number is 311, and it is located at the Central Section. However, my husband passed away many years ago, and I am staying alone now. When I was young, I worked as a house maid. My tasks were washing clothes, cooking, mopping floors, ironing clothes and etc. My monthly salary was RM51. I did that work from the age of 17 till I was 22. I quit from the job due to exhaustion. At age 24, I contracted leprosy and was admitted in here. Before I was admitted, I always hid in the house and did not dare to go out. After I recovered from the disease, a friend named Lau Kam, wanted to sell off her pigsty and offered it to me for RM1,700. After considering it for some time, I finally decided to buy her pigsty, by paying her in installments. I started to rear pigs and chickens and then sold them off. In front of my pigsty is the cemetery. When leprosy patients pass away, Lian Huat would make gravestones for them there. I got to know Lian Huat when he passed by my pigsty one day, and asked if I could let him put a few bags of cement in the pigsty. In order for his convenience to work at the graveyard, and being kind to him, I told him ‘Can!’ How was I to know that I would fall in love with him and marry him. Indeed, we do owe one another.”
Size: 17.5cm X 15.2cm
Location: The Valley of Hope Story Gallery
Owner: Teh Seok Eng
Copyright: Teh Seok Eng
Title: My Breakfast
Title (Original Language): 我的早餐
Year: 2017
Words in the Drawing: “Normally, my breakfast is only bread and a cup of coffee. However, this morning, I went to the coffee shop in the settlement to have a bowl of flat noodle, and I brought along my godson ‘Blackie’. Blackie ate a bowl of noodles, and I ate one bowl too. Sometimes, I would ask Blackie to go to Kuala Lumpur to buy dried meat for me. My favorite breakfast is eating bread with dried meat in the middle. As you can see, I know how to enjoy life, right? I think, if I can have a cup of Nescafe and a slice of dried meat in the bread for breakfast, it will be awesome! Don’t you think so?”
Size: 17.5cm X 15.2cm
Location: The Valley of Hope Story Gallery
Owner: Teh Seok Eng
Copyright: Teh Seok Eng
Title: Big House
Title (Original Language): 大屋子
Year: 2017
Words in the Drawing: “The largest and the most beautiful house I ever saw before, is Dr Kumar’s (Former Deputy Director of Sungai Buloh Settlement) large house, located in Petaling Jaya. At one Hari Raya, Dr Kumar engaged me to do her household chores for three days. I helped her to iron the clothes, cooked and wash the clothes. She praised me ‘you wash clothes very nicely!’ She hoped that I could continue working for her but I had my own pigsty in Sungai Buloh Settlement, at the East Section, which needed me to take care of. I had to bath more than 10 pigs every day. I had to cycle to look for banana tree trunks, chop them finely, and after that, put them into a big pail and boil it with water till it is cooked and mashed-up, and then stir in the leftover rice, and mix them to become feed for the pigs. There were so many things to do, so it was it was impossible for me to work for her long term? So, I rejected her. Besides that, I also reared 30 chickens and 50 Peking Ducklings. There were outsiders who would come to collect the chickens and ducklings from me to sell outside the settlement, so I said bye-bye to her big house.”
Size: 17.5cm X 15.2cm
Location: The Valley of Hope Story Gallery
Owner: Teh Seok Eng
Copyright: Teh Seok Eng