They can tell us how much harder it was then, than it is now with the extended MCO we're going through.
We don't even have to go back so far.
Those of us who lived through the months of curfew of the May13 riots of 1969 will know the hardship.
I was in Standard Four at that time. My family was on the verge of running out of rice. We reached a point when we had to eke out with our stock of dried noodles boiled in water and mixed with soya sauce.
Eventually, my father managed to call his boss on the phone (which was jammed most of the time), and through some connection in high places, the police allowed his boss to send us a sack of rice by a pickup lorry.
However, the rice was full of weevils and little maggots. It took us a lot of hard work trying to remove them each time we washed the rice before cooking it. Nevertheless it brought us much relief.
A classmate told me that in his neighbourhood, the army ordered all doors and windows to be shut. They had to endure weeks in their hot and stuffy house.
We also know of a lady teacher whose husband was shot and killed by the army on patrol when he went outside the house to plead for milk powder for their hungry baby. I don't know how the wife managed to pull through after that.
The MCO is mild by comparison. Nevertheless, it is causing prolonged hardship to the sick, the poor and the needy.
