We used to go to Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan every Chinese New Year, to one old house alone in a sea of shoplots, a proud legacy of olden times: my greatgrandparents’. Every year it would be loud with the noise of distant relatives I see once a year; an uncle would bring a load of ice cream for the kids and somebody would let loose red firecrackers. We would gamble with old wooden pegs and coins on the kitchen table the night before, and the night after we’d feast on pepper soup at midnight. My great-grandfather’s clock would chime every 15 minutes, lulling everyone to sleep until he decided to wake everyone up with loud off-key singing to a Chinese station on a rickety radio at 7am. Maybe I was too young to appreciate it. I don’t see those relatives anymore, nobody makes pepper soup the same way, and the house has been quietly defying modernization since they passed away. That old quiet house full of memories of a time not so long ago, No. 212.