The dilapidated building above was where my late father was born. It is located in High Street in the sleepy town of Gopeng. I had wanted to visit the Gopeng Museum and decided to stop by to have a look at the place.
The house was bought by my great grandfather, Mr Cheah Tuck Kong and he had lived there with his family. He had four sons, one went back to China and settled down in Shanghai, one migrated to Hong Kong and another, Mr Joseph Cheah, to Singapore. It was only my grandfather, Mr Cheah Voon Hoy, who stayed back in Malaysia. Unfortunately, in his will he left the house to his last surviving son. My grandfather who had died in 1963 was not the last surviving son and so the house would have to go to one of the three granduncles. When my dad was alive, he paid the assessment and all the types of taxes for the place though the house did not belong to him. Well, my dad has died but I am not going to pay all types of taxes for something that does not belong to me. That is plain silly. I might as well donate the money to the orphans and the old folks.
And so as it is the house is in such a condition. I do not know who the last surviving son of my greatgrandfather is and also who his heirs are. If he had the foresight to have left it to my grandpa and then my father and then me, I would have donated the place to be made into a gallery for Gopeng.
It is such a sad situation, isn't it?
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