Bentong: The dynamics of small towns

By Hwa Yue-Yi*

Saturday, December 31, 2005

I was thinking about small towns, about what makes their dynamics so different from their larger counterparts.

(Oh, Bentong – where my family is moving to – is smaller than I thought it would be. Bentong town has three main streets; my sister and I covered its two supermarkets and most of the shops in a couple of hours. Not too exciting, but I did get a nice pair of ballet pumps for RM16. On the other hand, Daytona is a dollar per round, which is the same as Ipoh prices.)

Working in generalisations, I gathered that people in small towns are content with just making it through each day. You know the way people in agricultural communities spend all their time growing their food, making clothes, gathering materials for residences, maybe sitting back and having a sing-along around the table when they had extra time, or adding an extra barn when a harvest was good? Though jobs might be different and money as an intermediate changes the system a bit, the worldview in towns like Bentong is similar.

When people start to make money, they get bigger houses, subscribe to Astro (read: cable TV), buy nicer cars, treat their friends to restaurant dinners a bit more often, and are satisfied. Shophouses are starting to sell expensive items, but proprietors are comfortably unconcerned about decor and flashy advertising and class and looking exclusive. There's little preoccupation with living the good life, and less desire to outdo the Joneses since the Joneses themselves are quite happy with what they have. Because of all this, they have a contentment and simplicity – and unhurriedness – that city-dwellers lack.

I was surprised to realise that I'm an urbanite. When I was younger I wanted to spend all my life hibernating in an idyllic country house. Now I have the tendency to criticise and the arrogance and the kancheong-ness that are native to busy streets and dense residential areas. (Remember that I'm using broad strokes here.)

And while I admire the simplicity of small town life, I'm aware that it's something I'll have to admire from a distance: the plateau of material pursuits is often stifling intellectually and aesthetically as well, and I don't think I'd be able to do without those two. Not that I'm a philosopher or a scholar (apart from the holding-a-scholarship sense) or an artist, but I've come to appreciate the infinite intricacies that God has put into these areas. I guess I have to try to preserve a simplicity of intents and thoughts while exploring the beauty of His world.


(*Guest columnist in absence of our regular columnist Chong Joan-Lynn. Taken from her blog with permission at http://flowermoonfish.blogspot.com)