I could've been a Chinese boy who spent his teenage years growing up in Terengganu.

In this alternate history, Dad had taken a job in Terengganu in the timber business. Our three-person family was materially comfortable.

This story is 98% man-written.

Ironically, as a teenage boy, I might have gained more freedom to roam and make trouble compared to being a city boy, feeling trapped by immobility.

All this could have been. I think I was about nine or ten when Mom was trying to convince Dad to move to Terengganu as a career move.

Sometime before, Dad had been in the timber business, grading woods or something. The entire sector was at that point sunsetting; probably because some people decided cutting trees was no longer a good idea.

I don't know how Dad came to be in this line, whether by chance or by choice. If I have to rationalize it, Malaysia had many trees to cut, so there must have been a future in it somewhere.

The company Dad worked for folded. In between jobs, relatives on Mom's side had a timber business operating in Terengganu. They thought Dad could play a role there.

Discussions took place among them, most of which I didn't understand. Eventually, we even made a family trip to Terengganu as a reconnaissance mission. We visited a factory, and more discussions occurred.

Throughout the trip, I fantasized about living in a much larger house, having my own mountain bike, and riding in the dark late at night.

In a town like Terengganu, ambition means something very different. It's technically a state, but it's really a very large town.

When you immerse yourself in it, even for just a while, you don't need to be told to curb your sense of potential. You can almost touch the ceiling of aspiration; it's that low.

Nobody thinks of Terengganu as the future. Not then, not now. We could either paint this as the infinite wisdom of its people in resisting the poison of modern development, or the lack of will and ability for it.

Dad ultimately didn't take the job in Terengganu. In his words, he was overqualified for what this business required. I can only take his word for it. But I wonder if there was more to it than that.

I could speculate, but it might involve smuggling some unqualified virtue onto Dad's part and narcissism on my own.

Future prospects matter. By settling in Terengganu, Dad would have locked himself into this geography, limiting his options for dabbling in other domains (which he ultimately did).

Dad could also have been concerned about how growing up in Terengganu would affect me.

It takes a village to raise a child, the saying goes. Whatever village Terengganu had to offer, it did not look appealing to Dad.

In this alternate history, I suspect I would have been much more liberal with money and hedonism, maybe even picking up gambling habits along the way. But I probably wouldn't have had enough vocabulary to construct a post like this.

One of these days, I should ask my cousins (Mom's side) how they ended up residing in Terengganu. It's a highly contrarian move, especially for Chinese, even today.

Some of them did end up doing financially well. Being book smart is not what it takes, I promise you that.

This is very characteristic of the southern Chinese mindset: go to where competition is scarce and carve up opportunities where others are unwilling to.

Southern Chinese came with Canton-built firmware embedded in the language that simply makes us natural merchants.

There is an unspoken superiority that Mandarin speakers don't understand. Though this will all disappear when dialects are slowly wiped out in the coming decades.

On my part, I might not know what I missed, but I don't mind not being a Terengganu boy.