PETALING JAYA: Petaling Jaya Community (PJC) Friday Tribe is a sub-group of PJC, one of the four communities under SeniorsAloud founded by Lily Fu.
This sub-group was created sometime in 2025 as PJC Friday Walk. In April 2026, the group was branded as Friday Tribe under the leadership of an octogenarian, fondly known as June Chan, although her birth name is Khoo Ewe Ean.
She is loud in her laughter, witty in her responses and exceptionally warm to her tribal members, regardless of the number of times they attend the regular Friday morning activity held at Taman Jaya in Petaling Jaya.
The Friday Tribe had initially organised walks and slow jogs around the lake and park. The idea was to encourage retirees who live on their own to get up and come out of their homes. The aim was to give them an activity and a reason to be out and be with people who can also become their friends.
Occasionally, the Tribe organises picnics, dances and games depending on festive dates. Its origin started small, first with five members only. Then, a few more pensioners decided to join the walk. These members consist of retirees who mainly live around Petaling Jaya, but today it has expanded to encompass more retirees and their spouses from locations like Taman Desa, Old Klang Road, SS2, Bandar Utama, Puchong, Subang Jaya, Kepong and other parts of the Klang Valley.
The regular walks of the Friday Tribe are often interlaced with lots of fun and laughter, followed by a fellowship after the walk. Sometimes they just have a borak-borak (chit-chat) session under the roof of Kak Norah’s Cafe, a small local bistro inside the park offering hot and cold drinks and local dishes and kuih.
At times, the Friday Tribe may adjourn to another eatery to cater to different palates. They often eat together and laugh together. The leader’s tagline? No one is ever alone in the tribe!
Three months ago, a group of young and qualified fitness trainers under the wing of a community called Dream Workshop approached the tribe. They offered their expertise in strength training in exchange for our company and interactions!
Their vision is to create interactions with seniors so as to have better understanding and communication between these two groups of distinct human beings – people in their 60s and far above and youngsters in their early and late 20s.
The Chinese phrase would have described this contrast as the sky and earth. But in reality, we seniors got along very well with these youngsters.
On reflection, they have been supporting the group of seniors from the Tribe in Seniors Aloud with their stretching workouts for more than twelve weeks already. We are still learning to be better in our strength, agility and balance. But we never tire of these youngsters!
It is interesting to witness this camaraderie between the old and the young, who are the age of our children and, to some, their grandchildren. They tower above us in size, they are fresh young graduates or new employees of organisations with a full-time job.
Yet they have not abandoned us once throughout these 13 weeks or more. In fact, they have been very consistent and very punctual with their time, especially our young strength training coach, Wei Lok. He happens to be a dancer who has won awards and, in that regard, we are very blessed to be guided by a professional fitness coach and dancer who occasionally throws in a cha-cha dance!
Another one has guided us through an easy Zumba for seniors!
What is outstanding about the Friday Tribe is its consistent weekly activity, always accompanied by themes which can range from outlandish caps or hats to floral attire and mismatched socks!
In the recent Friday stretching workout, almost 95 per cent of the 40 members who participated in the workout came as instructed by the theme, “wear a cape and be your own superhero”!
As a member, it is thrilling to see retirees being unabashed to take on challenges like wearing a cape, something only we would do as children do, as we once were. Then, we wore towels, sarongs or any long material as our capes. Today, we all wore more decent scarves as our capes and, in support, our young coaches accompanied us by also putting on their capes!
I only wish that seniors elsewhere would support us too by holding their own outlandish themes and sharing their activities on social media too so that the journey of ageing becomes something to feel silly about and to laugh about.
That would certainly gain us more beautiful memories and show our younger generation that it is not a scary journey at all. Rather, it is quite fun!
