Day 3 and 4: Germany!

My father bought me a Euro 2008 hoody during his visit to Gemany in 2008. I never had a chance to wear the hoodies yet before it was ruined by bleach. My father was so angry at that time where he threw away all bleach in the house. He was mad as the bleach also ruined his shirt earlier. The maid was new to the job, so she knew how to handle with bleach properly. What makes him so mad is that the hoody was expensive as he bought it in Euro currency which is 5 times our Malaysian Ringgit. 50 euros hoodies cost us 250 Malaysian Ringgit which was a lot! I was frustrated too, it was my first thing that I had from outside the country.

Because our money is so cheap, or probably because other money is so expensive, we could not travel a lot. Travel outside the country even was not an option for us even though my parents had a stable job.  I never had a chance to see how people outside the country live their life. I knew it from movies, but I never believe in it. Movies show either the good side of a community or the bad side of it. They never depict the actual day to day life of their people.

The story that I remembered from my dad was that when Germany won the semifinal of Euro 2008, everyone went out to the street and celebrate. They really showed their spirit and love their national team. Even when German team were about to play for the final, offices and shop close early so that the employers can watch the match. It was far from what happened in Malaysia.

My father and I used to go to the stadium to watch our state soccer team. However, after several years, the routine suddenly vanished. It happened when I was still naive to know what happened. It took me several years to find out that the reason was that the soccer games at that time were full of bribery and match set up. The quality of the games drop, the supporters weren’t interested anymore, and the soccer just wasn’t been at every mouth of every people at the coffee shop anymore. There was only one thing that were considered good, the players have money! It wasn’t that good though.

I blamed the players and the one who bribe them for what had happened. It ruined my good time with my dad. For now, I felt that it was not wholly their fault. It was 15 years ago when this happened where Malaysia economy was at recession, and they just did whatever thing that they can do to live a living. I remembered my mother stacked pennies and coins into 5 stacks for me to buy food at school during the week. The money was just enough to buy food for the day and nothing fancy. I even brought drinks from home. Living in those difficult times really taught me to appreciate things even a penny.