Travelling is a fun, enjoyable and meaningful activity. But, I never thought of travelling or even knew the meaning of “travel” at home. I had to go to school for that. I was borned in a rural area in Sabah which called “Tenom”. My parents were both shopkeepers. They would wake up in the early morning just to pack sweets, sugar, salt and forage. I was about nine years old when I learned the word “travel”. My memory still burns bright for that. It was a foggy morning, I put on my pink sweater as usual, drank a big mug of cereal prepared by my mother and off to school by my father ‘GAS’ truck. It was used to deliver cooking ‘GAS’ to our customers. As a result, my classmates used to call it ‘GAS’ truck.
As usual, Mr. Chong, my Year 3 English teacher, a small robust man with buzz cut grey hair, wearing his favourite blue short-sleeves shirt entered the classroom. After greeted him, he wrote a big “a” on the blackboard.
“Boys and girls, what words start with the letter ‘a’ ? ”
“Apple!”
“Good, anymore?”
“Teacher, ant!”
“Yes, correct. Any other words with longer spelling?”
“Teacher, I know. Aeroplane!” said Alison, the smartest girl in my class. She is the second daughter of our town doctor. She had a coffee-tinted skin, black hair and glowing dark eyes.
“Well, done! Alison” said Mr. Chong. Soon, Mr. Chong wrote the word “aeroplane” on the blackboard and began to ask.
“Have you seen an aeroplane before?”
“Yes… No…”
Suddenly, Mr. Chong looked at me and asked, “Gan, have you taken a plane before?”
“……” I kept quiet, my face turned as red as a tomato and I tried to hide my face. He looked at me for a long moment.
“Teacher, Gan doesn’t know what is an aeroplane!” said Alison. I felt my face was burning like the sun.
“It’s okay, Gan.” Mr. Chong began to explain an aeroplane is a mean of transportation which flies in the sky, which has wings and engines. He showed the picture of aeroplane to all of us. Mr. Chong told us that we could take an...