THE MEMOIRS OF MUSTAPHA HUSSAIN - Malaysia Today

40 Memoirs of Mustapha Hussain
For prayers or when attending religious classes, we took great care
to clean ourselves, change into fresh clothes and put on thick, wooden
clogs that clacked noisily. Sometimes, as we brothers made our way to
the mosque, we deliberately increased the clacking, just to break the
monotony of the still night.
Wearing clogs to the mosque was necessary, to avoid getting our feet
into three different kinds of undesirables – blobs of greenish-brown cow
dung that littered the road, excreta from male pigs that dawdled from one
end of the street to sire new generations of pigs at the other end, and
burnt prayer paper dropped by Chinese mourners as they accompanied
coffins along the road. Wooden clogs were cheap and easily available,
especially along Market Street in Taiping. These clog shops have since
been converted to other businesses as no one wears clogs anymore.
In my childhood days, we could not afford to go to a tailor. Stitched
by our mother and sisters, our clothes were a lousy fit, but they were the
best we knew. If I could turn back the clock and be young all over again,
I would like to wear a pair of pants with two pockets on the side, two at
the back and two below my knees; an orange shirt with two pockets at
the breast, and two on the sleeves; plus a pair of cowboy boots. I would
eat, drink and sleep in this dream outfit!
Dainty Malay girls of my time wore plain or batik sarongs with loose
Kedah-cut tunics or figure-hugging blouses called kebayas. It was taboo
for any female to go out of the house without a selendang, a long shawl
worn over the shoulders, round the neck or over the head. She had to at
least have a small towel on her head or over one shoulder. Girls usually
wore cloth slippers or wooden clogs with tiny flowers painted on them.
The older women were so stubborn about not wearing shoes that their
soles were thick and hard to the extent that pebbles, thorns and wood
splinters could hardly penetrate them.
Adult Malay women wore batik sarong, batik lepas (longer pieces
of batik wound around) and plain sarongs. Batik lepas was sometimes
worn with a corset made by winding several yards of material around the
waist. To attend weddings and festivities, Malay women wore attractive
long kebayas that went below the knees, often made from expensive satin
or silk.
Note
1. Biar mati anak, jangan mati adat (a Malay saying).