How I learnt that not all traders are bad

When I was a young boy, my parents always sighed about the lack of money. In my 8-year-old mind, the provision man was to blame because he's the one who always took our money. I simply could not relate the rice I would carry home from his shop to the money he would take for it.

Oh I knew money was not easy to come by. My hardest memory was when father was gravely sick and left us with no income. For a while, we survived only on plain rice and salt. I do not know why but I still have vivid memories of the bowl I used to eat from.

That memory had a deep impact on me. I viewed with suspicion traders and anyone who provided anything for a fee. In my mind at that time, if you are poor, it is their fault. They were the ones who took your money. They became the symbol of my family's suffering. Sometimes, I didn't even think of them as human.

My best friend Ah Chai changed all that. I first bumped into him in my teens. I was cycling home from the kedai runcit (provision shop), balancing a tin of kerosene hanging from one handlebar, a bag of provisions on the other and bag of rice at the back when I hit a hole and fell. The bag of rice hit the ground and burst, spilling half its contents onto the muddy kampung trail. The kerosene also spilt. Luckliy the bag of provisions was intact. I was frightened. My parents are going to kill me, I thought.

I did what I could. Quickly propped my bicycle against a tree, put the kerosene tin upright and squatted on the ground gathering as much unmuddied grains of rice as I could find to put back into the split bag. No one saw me because few people used that particular kampung trail.

As I picked out the rice grains one by one from the ground I suddenly heard a voice from behind me. Aiya, lu jatuh ah? I turned around and it was a Chinese boy. He looked about the same age I was.

It must have been obvious with all that mud on my clothes. Ya, jatuh I said. He stood there with his bicycle looking at me with curious eyes, frozen as if thinking of what to say.

Moments later we were both squatting and hand picking grains of rice from the ground. I didn't know his name. He seemed friendly and genuinely wanted to help. Between us, we rescued about 5 handfuls of rice grain. I said thank you to him and cycled home to a royal scolding.

A few weeks later I took the bus to the nearby pekan (small town) to buy a schoolbag. Of all people, I bumped into him. He was also there to buy something. We immediately recognized each other and got into an excited conversation. His name is Ah Chai, he lived in a house not far away. His father is one of the few small rubber wholesalers in that town.

It was the first time I had ever known someone who had a connection to that murky world of business. Over the next few months and years, I slowly came to know Ah Chai's family members and relatives, one of whom ran a shop in the pekan. Through him I saw a side of shopkeepers I never expected - people who were actually as human as I was. Far from being evil monsters, they had families, were capable of feeling everything I felt, and could be kind and generous. They were nothing like the species I imagined.

The other lesson I learnt from Ah Chai was the concept of fair exchange. I learnt that someone who takes money from you is not a bad person if he gave you back something of fair and honest value. These were things my parents didn't teach me, probably because being simple folk they never ventured further than the rubber trees, the latex collection centre and the pekan.

Nowadays, I am able to treat shopkeepers and hawkers like how I treat my own friends and relatives. Yes, not all of them are saints just like my relatives but at least the monsters are gone, replaced by people with hearts, feelings and aspirations. That was Ah Chai's present to me. Something I thank him for whenever I visit his resting place every couple of years.

[I related this story to a friend who remarked it sounds just like one of Yasmin Ahmad's stories. I just laughed.]