Stories from 1922: Dr CK Lim | My young mischievous times

8 June 2019

*Us watching Little Big Shots (TV show about little kids doing big things)*

🙋🏻‍♀️: Grandpa, what were you up to when you were 7?

👴🏼: I was fighting.

Grandpa, Dr CK Lim was born in Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia, then moved to Johor Bahru to continue his secondary education, eventually he went to Singapore for his pre-college and MBBS at University of Singapore. He wears a suit or at least a buttoned up shirt with nice dress pants and dress shoes every day. Classy as he is, he is also very serious and uptight — a very traditional gentlemen who I look up to every day.

🙋🏻‍♀️: What?! (this is totally different from my understanding of the serious grandpa figure)

👴🏼: Oh yea, it was during the Japanese occupation, and everything was out of control. If I didn’t fight, the other 8 year olds would beat me up!

🙋🏻‍♀️: So did you join a gang?

👴🏼: Um, yea, I kind of had to. There were more than 20 of them terrorizing me. I don’t think I can recover if I get beaten up by all of them.

🙋🏻‍♀️: So what did you do in this little gang?

👴🏼: We went around terrorizing other people.

🙋🏻‍♀️: Wow… have you had to terrorize any family members?

👴🏼: No lah, we just terrorized other kids in the neighborhood. The Japanese occupation caused chaos and ended lawfulness and justice within the region. Kids were wild. That was the most mischievous past time I had.

🙋🏻‍♀️:Dang. Good job grandpa.

👴🏼: Not long after, I was sent to my grandpa’s place to live (which was more suburban, at a big mansion, much further away from the streets where all the mess was happening). Eventually I finished my elementary studies when I was there.