Mom is such a special word To me mom is the greatest person in the world She brought me into this world And refused to let me go When dad wanted to give me away Because of mom, I am still a Lim I almost drowned when I was a little kid Because of mom, I am still here today ...

During the sixties and early seventies, I was a kid living in Binatang. Life then seemed to move at a snail’s pace, compared to life now. There was definitely much less stress then. Traffic jam was totally unheard of in Binatang as there were so few cars.  If a modern day teenager who grew up with the internet, smartphones, iPad, ...

I was born in Binatang, a small town with a predominantly Foochow population. Anyone growing up in Binatang would almost invariably be able to speak Foochow with an acceptable level of fluency. I am no exception. I am a Hokkien but I too can speak Foochow. My birth certificate and my Malaysian identity card carry Foochow names and my wife ...

I remember there is a Christmas song by Agnes Chan that goes something like this: All I want for my Christmas is my two front teeth. Oh yeah, I want my front teeth too. I have lost so many of my upper teeth that it reminds me of some of Sarawak’s forests…barren with only a few trees standing. Barren forest ...

Welcome to my world where a Lim is also a Ling. My surname is actually Lim but it was registered as Ling in my birth certificate. I was born in a very small town in Sarawak called Binatang which means animal in Malay. This is a predominantly Foochow town. So when I was born, my Hokkien parents gave the nurse ...