....and what is a weekend like?

The weeks just flew by in 1961.

Five days in school and happy weekends each week. This is the life. What made it even more enjoyable is that dad loves the movies. Dad loves english movies, so we get to watch some very fine classics of those days.

"Lang-chiar!", dad would holler and raise his hand to wave in the trishaw man each Saturday evening. Fully dressed to kill, mirror-finished leather "batu" shoes to boot, dad would hop in first, taking 80% of the seat. Younger sister will sit on this 240-pounder's lap and I had to be squeezed, like what you would do to a lemon, next to him. Cheekiat would sit on the foot resting platform.

"Kok Thye, how much?" (Kok Thye is Cathay cinema in Penang Road)

"30 cents, eh-boh?"....(30 cents, can or not?)..........ok, it was fine with dad.

Sometimes, some trishaw riders would refuse to accept as he will "die of heart attack" trying to manouvre up the steep slope from Kimberly Street to Penang Road with a gigantic tiger (Lau Hor) and his cubs in tow. Thirty cents is acceptable. This guy's honest and dad normally tip an extra 5 to 10 cents for honesty, although it's not a local custom.

People pack themselves to cinemas like sardines in a can on weekends. Some cinemas like Kok Thye are already air-conditioned, and movie goers prepare themselves with sweaters, pullovers, jackets and what-have yous, like they are going for a ski trip on the Swedish Alps...

Many cinemas were still not air-conditioned, like The Sun (now RockWorld), Majestic, Wembley (not that Wembley, ahem...) and others like Lido and Globe of the New World Park (...well, now it should be called the Old World Park, ....you know what I mean) and a standing-room-only cinema of the Great World Park (...well, now it should be called the Great Car Park of Komtar).

Apparently, just the cinemas were air-conditioned in those day of the early 60's. There were no supermarkets let alone shopping malls....only the hot and stuffy bazaars. No air-cond eateries. Even the pioneering air-cond hotels like Hotel Merlin (now Bayview) were still not constructed yet. Well everything was sooooo...HOT!

To buy a ticket to watch a movie in air-cond cinemas like Capitol, Rex, The Odeon or Kok Thye was something. Priviledged and coooool....so to speak. Those were the places to be.

I remember that among my first few movies with dad was Breakfast In Tiffany's starring Audrey Hepburn. The theme song Charade is so soothing and hauntingly melodious. Gets into your skin.... then there's Gone With The Wind, story about Scarlett O'Hara, absolutely wonderful storyline.

Dad liked musicals so as the weeks and and a couple of years that followed, we watched........ Flower Drum Song, 

West Side Story (still a hit now in Broadway),

The King and I, and many others....., even Elvis's Blue Hawaii, GI Blues and Jail-house Rock on re-runs in Lido. 

Man, those were the days!

Dad's favourite was Tarzan the Apeman's movies. He can name you all the actors who did Tarzan.

But I like James Bond... ...and I've lost track of how many and who did Secret Agent 007. Sean Connery is the only one who can act and live up to that billing as James Bond. I still think so. This was my first James Bond movie...

...hmm, and I liked Ursula Andress! She's so hot, as hot as a "nyonya"'s hot charcoal ironing stove was then....Ms. Money Penny wasn't hot, you know right?

After getting our tickets, we head for the candy bar - for the Smarties, Hacks, and pop-corns.

This kinda movie outings went on every week without fail, come rain or shine, until I was 12 years old! Dad must have had spent a fortune on us at the movies.

Yep, you can count how many movies I watched with Dad, but you can't add the number of movies I watched at weekend cheap matinees, and during the school holidays with my chums like Huan-chooo, Thik-looku, Too-boh and of course my brother Cheekiat.

To talk about movies, I think it's gonna be much more than a page like this. I can go on and on about movies, like forever. So I figure I should do an "intermission" at this point, and eat my "roti bak-knuah" (chinese pork burgers)                                                                                                               

See ya tomorrow!