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Showing posts from August, 2016

Zainal Abidin Jaafar: Beating His Own Path

If there is one in my family who have truly lived, it would be my brother Zainal. I must, regretfully, admit, that, as an elder brother, he has always been an elusive man of mystery for me. Being the youngest, by the time I was born, Abang Enal, was already in form 2. When I started school in 1971, he was already in Melaka studying at the Vocational Institute of MARA. I have vague memories of visiting him with my parents. Then, he was off to Japan, I don't know for how long, and then, he came back home with a beautiful Japanese girl in tow. I remember, she had picked the name Suzana as her Muslim/Malay name after she converted, and they got married. We all lived together with my late sister Aishah and her husband Abang Haris, and their two sons, Zulkifli (Zul) and Sallehuddin (Hud). The one memory I have of my Japanese sister in law, was; Abang Haris once bought one of those racing track toys with tiny motorcycle riders going around in a figure of eight, then up a conveyor belt