Exodus

I only know vaguely why we moved to Malaysia. My father had a freight forwarding business. I overheard the grown ups talking about my father helping a close family friend to ship some valuables abroad. In the eyes of the law this is called smuggling. One of my father’s employees held a grudge on him and took revenge by dobbing him to a newspaper. I remember my family sitting around in the living room and looking at the newspaper article. They were worried that the police would come and arrest my father. He was Chinese, and at that time in Medan, a Chinese in jail could soon be a dead Chinese. My parents quickly sold everything they could sell and took us all to Malaysia.