About orphanages and old folks’ homes

Yeah, sure, they are victims, they are poor, they are ignorant, they have been used for political purposes, they have been tricked, yada, yada, yada….But what have you done for them other than rant, rave, scream, moan, and bitch, that the angpows should have been in red packets and not white packets when you yourself did not bother to give them even one red cent?

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Back in the 1970s (I was only in my 20s then), I joined the Kuala Terengganu Rotary Club. A couple of years on I became the secretary. I was the secretary for more then seven years, basically because no one else wanted the job.

My ‘pet’ projects were to visit and aid the orphanages and the old folks’ home at Bukit Payung. I also ‘adopted’ the psychiatric ward in the Kuala Terengganu General Hospital.

There was not really much I could do for the inmates in the psychiatric ward other than buy them a sound system. When I went back to visit the ward later, the nurses told me that the inmates were much happier than before.

In the past, they just brooded out of boredom. Now they sing and dance to the music. They were even happier when I joined them in the merriment. I suppose that is why I have become what the Chinese would call taufung. Blame it on my work with the inmates in the psychiatric ward of the Kuala Terengganu General Hospital.

There were a number of orphanages all over the state. However, most of the orphanages I visited did not appear to require any financial assistance. When I offered to send them a few sacks of rice and other foodstuff the caretaker pleaded with me not to do so. He then showed me their food store. It was stacked with food. So the last thing they need is more food.

Invariably, all the boys and girls in the orphanage were Malays. There were no Chinese or Indian kids (which is quite understandable seeing that 97% of Terengganu’s population is Malay).  

Malays (meaning Muslims) believe that if you pat or stroke the head of an orphan you get to go to heaven. Feeding them is even better. So even poor Malays send food to the orphanage, even if they have very little to eat themselves -- but as long as your own family is not starving (then your family comes first).

Then an idea came into my head. If we can’t feed them, can we adopt them? I called for a neighbourhood meeting (in Kuala Ibai, Kuala Terennganu) and asked my neighbours who would like to participate in my adoption programme. Most agreed, some even offered to take two or three orphans.

Came Hari Raya Eve, we drove to the orphanage (after prior contacting them, of course) and brought home about 30 or so orphans to spend the week in our neighbourhood as our adopted children. They were delighted, especially since we lived in what could be considered an ‘upmarket’ housing area (for Terengganu standards, of course -- in Kuala Lumpur it would be considered a third-class neighbourhood like Kepong or Bandar Baru Sungai Buloh).

Thereafter, they came over during weekends and school holidays. Our neighbourhood became ‘adopted parents’ for these orphans and eventually they all became one of the family and could move in and out of any house at will (as if they were born in those houses).

Not all these orphans were yatim piatu (both father and mother died). Some were just anak yatim (one parent died) -- and most times it was the father who had died. And the unemployed mother was too poor to feed the child on her RM75 a month welfare handout so she had not choice but to dump her child or children in the orphanage. Even then you only got welfare if you are an Umno supporter because you need the signature of the local Umno chief to become eligible for welfare.

For the old folks’ home it was another story altogether. Almost all the inmates were Chinese (hardly any Malays and Indians save a few). And some of them were old folks of very successful or rich Chinese (as what the caretaker told me -- judging from the expensive limousines that their children drive when they visit their old folks once a year during Chinese New Year).

“Why once a year during Chinese New Year?” I asked the caretaker. Do they all live overseas or in Kuala Lumpur? Some do but not all. Some actually live in town, about 20 minutes away.

I found that very strange. Malays normally keep their old folks at home, even how senile they might have become. Why do the Chinese dump their parents in the old folks’ home? For the Malay and Indian inmates I can quite understand. They have no children. But the caretaker is telling me that not only do these Chinese inmates have children but some well off ones at that too.

But that was in the 1970s. I don’t know whether that is still so today. And I honestly don’t know whether that is also so for the old folks in that Ibrahim Ali-MCA white angpow fiasco.

I asked the Chinese members of the Rotary Club: why do these well off children dump their parents in the old folks’ home? And it is so pathetic to see them chained like animals to their beds (to prevent them from walking away and probably hurting themselves in the process since some of them are senile).

The Chinese members just shrugged their shoulders. “Maybe it is karma,” they told me. “Maybe they were cruel to their children in the past so their children have no love for them and do not want to be burdened with looking after their senile old folks.”

Now, before you fly off the handle and accuse me of Chinese-bashing, that is not at all my intention. It is just that the latest brouhaha brought back some memories of 35 years ago. And, as they say, when you start looking back to the old days that is a sign that age has caught up on you.

Maybe instead of getting hot and bothered about white angpows, you, the readers of Malaysia Today, should ask yourself what have you done for these old folks? Have you visited any old folks homes? Do you even know where they are? How much money in RED packets did you give these old folks during the recent Chinese New Year? And have you not even stopped to think about the fate of these old folks?

Yeah, sure, they are victims, they are poor, they are ignorant, they have been used for political purposes, they have been tricked, yada, yada, yada….But what have you done for them other than rant, rave, scream, moan, and bitch, that the angpows should have been in red packets and not white packets when you yourself did not bother to give them even one red cent?