My Life

THE BEGINNING Father and Mother

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My great grandfather Said bin Mohibuddin moved to Baling kedah from Pasir Putih kelantan early 1900. He brought with him three sons and a daughter. His youngest son Abdullah married a local girl, Maimunah. In 1917 he went back to his birthplace promising his wife that he would come back soon but he never turned up. Meanwhile soon after Maimunah delivered, her second child, a healthy baby boy whom she named Mohamad Zain. Consequently, she filed for divorce and married a local man, Husin with whom she later gave birth to another son, Mohamad Taib. When Mohamad zain was about eight and Mohamad Taib, five Maimunah fell ill and passed away. Husin took Taib with him and left Mohamad Zain with his sister. when she got married Mohamad Zain went to live with his uncle, his mother's brother in Lenggong, perak. He was sent to study in a religous school , The Madrasah Idrisiah, Kuala Kangsar and graduated before the world war II. During the Japanese Occupation he married his young cousin Aidah. After the war he became a religous teacher and with his young wife made a life in Grik moving from a school to another until the birth of their fourth child, that is ME , they moved back and stayed until the end of his life in 1993 in Lenggong. My mother, Aidah was a grand niece of a rich landowner who owned a rubber estate. he was the only Malay man who owned a car in the area in 1940s. She was proposed the post of a teacher but had to reject the offer because her father did not agree to woman having a career. for him, a woman's place is in the kitchen. Maybe because of this she was determined to get her two daughters to study well and to have a career of their own. Coincidentally both of us become teachers. My mother is a loving woman but she's not someone who can easily be manipulated.