Jaya Supermarket - Pak Toh place

Recent weeks have seen reports about the demolition work of Jaya Shopping Complex or most popularly known as Jaya Supermarket. This building was the first mall of sorts for us living in PJ. There weren't many what you would call hi-tech malls with its lavish ambience and stores as you would see today. Jaya was the first to incorporate the variety of shops with a supermarket. But more importantly for us hormone-charged height-of-puberty teenagers, it was a cheap place to "pak-toh", translated from Cantonese to mean dating.

The place had restaurants, an IT shop called Pineapple Computers, shops that sell watches, electronics, carpets, plant nursery, christian books and music and later on a Starbucks and some hair styling place.

Granted the place is pass its time and the design doesn't support any expansion. Tearing it down does bring back some nostalgic moments. Of course the process was all botched up...true to the Malaysian Boleh spirit. While it was being demolished, the building collapsed with workers still in it. 7 people died. Why don't we use explosives and implode the building you ask? Well, explosives are hard to come by in Malaysia. It is only used to blow up evidence or inconvenient people.

Anyway, I digress.

I use to remember that we will take a bus after school to Jaya to hang out with Sri Aman girls that we have known through our friends or school activities. There was no such thing as the internet or cell phones or facebook, friendster, etc back then. There was terrestrial TV, supermarkets and fast food joints. There were also our parents, so these rendezvous must be kept to a minimum of exposures and a maximum of alibis.

My school had girls but we don't "in-breed". Furthermore, if you break up (which you will when you are in school {read stupid}, broke and think with your...err..."hormones", if you know what I mean), it just adds to the complication of having to face your ex (it's a small school, it ain't Harvard). Anyway, the girls from Sri Aman were a lot friendlier than others like Sri Petaling or Assunta. So that was the main meeting point. We usually hang out at KFC and later McD's or at my favourite restaurant then, Jaya Noodle House.

They have the best Char Siew (grilled BBQ pork) wan tan noodles and curry noodles. Run by sisters, it has moved to a new sophisticated area nearby called Jaya One. Another nostalgic moment as more of our childhood landscape makes way for new development which will then be our children's playground.

It is a sure sign of old age when more of our memories are being torn down or re-modelled for the sake of development. We have to make sure we don't turn into old farts and turns these memories into pointless stories for our kids. Pretty much like how our parents (or in my case the person with a flair for the dramatics was my mom) talks about how they ate tapioca growing from beside the road or panned for tin residue to sell or running around the bushes hiding from Japanese and Communist soldiers.

Goodbye old friend....hopefully the new building will give the area the boost it needs.