Primary School Days

Primary School days

In this next posting Yakkity Yak carries on with his account of Primary School days. Teachers, good or bad, male or female leave a lasting impression on the groiwng boy.

“First to P1, then to P2”

Yakkity Yak


School life may be tough, even if classroom life isn’t. Unlike the fortunate kids today, school life was never one of “First to Bata, then to school” We went to school with some nondescript tennis shoes. If Bata was the Reebok of the day, then Sin Wah or Blue Arrow were the crumbs that were brushed off from the table by the rich kids. We had only one pair of uniform and one pair of worn-out shoes that was stitched and re-stitched ten times over. Then, we were also very much at the mercy of the weather and the elements. Deprived of a rain coat and too self conscious to drape ourselves over with a plastic sheet, our uniforms and shoes would be drenched through. This, however, wasn’t the problem. The real problem was that we have to go to school the next in wet or at least damp shoes and clothes. My ever caring mother tried to save the day by asking me to carry my shoes in my bag. Sometimes, she would give me a pair of slippers which was co-owned by many in the family. Ocassionally, if I could take it, I walked bare-footed. But often times, I rather a wet pair of shoes the following day, than to risk walking bare-footed , all the way to school, from Kallang Rd to McNair Rd, off Balestier Rd.

Classroom life was not necessarily humdrum even in those days. Far from being lifeless, there was more than the usual classroom drama and excitement. It must be so because the impression I had of teachers in those days was that they had the license to ‘teach and beat’. They really spared no rod and probably spoilt every child, too. It was mostly the stick approach, very little carrot! If you forgot your multiplication tables, it was whack! If you failed to recite a poem word-perfect, it was also whack. And if you misspelt, you get the whack treatment, too! If you froze at mental sums, you bloody well got whacked, too! You got whacked with the ruler. You got whacked on the head with the blackboard duster. You got whacked anywhere on your anatomy with anything which the god-damned sadistic teacher could lay his hands on. Invariably, these treatments were meted out to those who happened to be not so scholastically blessed. At least, that was the style of some of my teachers.

The drama and excitement, was, however, blunted a little by the fact that I had the same teachers twice in the same year up till Primary 4. These robbed things a little of the shine, the variety and the fun. My P1 teacher was better known to me as ABC. These initials were emblazoned on everything, his record book, the class register and on the class time table, which was incidentally neatly framed and hung up! He was actually “Chua Ah Bah” to be precise. But I supposed since he was English-educated and can speak and write “England”, he decided to anglicise the way his name was to be formatted- surname at the end. So “Ah Bah Chua”, it was to be! And this translates into ‘ABC’ as his initials (QED!).

I had ABC for P1 and P2. That might as well be the case. Nearly all in my cohort first learnt their ABCs in school; save for those privileged ones whose parents (or at least one of them) came from the gentry -class and had an English-based education themselves. These people with silver-gilded mouth could speak English when they were first inducted into school. They were even more competent with the letters of the alphabet than Professor Higgins could teach Mary Hopkins to the tune and the sounds of music! But strangely, the first thing anywhere close to English which I leant in P1 was not ABC, but “Please, Sir may I go out (to the toilet)?”

If ABC was a stern school master, he was extra nice to me. I gave him no trouble. I even had the privilege of frequent rides in his car, not all the way home but up to the main road so that I walk all the way back. During Sports Day, I had extra cakes and ice creams. I need not have the necessary coupons to exchange for these items. He would seek me out from the stands and ushered me into the Common Room, and everything was laid out for me. Humility forbids me to recount but I was more than a model student. He was immensely proud of me and would show me off the teacher in the next class when I did something which he impressed him. Once, for example, we just finished a reading lesson in which the phrase ‘out of reach’ was in the text. He explained the phrase to the class and I believed we all understood. Not long after (say an hour or so later) he asked me to remove a chart which was pinned on the board at the back of the classroom. I helplessly told him that it was ‘out of reach”. He was so pleased with my apt application and usage of the phrase, that he came up to me, hugged me and brought me to the teacher next door and recounted the entire episode to her. On another day in P2, he told me to ask my father to see him. This usually forebode ill. It is always the case when a teacher wants to see you parents. I did not have the courage to ask for the reason and did dutifully what I had too. It was only when my father came that I knew what it was all about. It was about double-promotion which I did not want. Being a little kiasu, I told both ABC and my father that if I go for double promotion I may not top the class. I rather be a big fish in a small pond than a small one in a bigger pond! I was the only one who could bring library books from the little library corner home. He was more than convinced that I would read them, not just look at the ang kong, (Hokkien for pictures and illustrations) like the many others.

I cannot help but say a little more about the teacher next door, after mentioning her in passing in an earlier paragraph. She is Miss Yap. Miss Yap played the piano and fittingly, taught us music and singing. More significantly, she exudes style and elegance. Chauffeured driven to school, she definitely had the pedigree and a distinct aristocratic lineage. It would be an understatement to describe her as pretty as she is more beautiful than pretty. Endowed with great sartorial sense, she is elegantly suited up in cheongsam.

Cutting an imposing figure, she is quite an adornment in front of the otherwise dull and drab classroom. However, as the pupils then were only P1, it could also well be a case of “a flower wasting its scent in the desert air”

“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

But no. I was naively mistaken. She flaunted her plumage more for the benefit of her male peers. Sadly too, this Miss Yap was perhaps a little hopelessly helpless and a trifle incompetent, too. Once too often, she would scurry over to my class, Primary I D, to consult ABC and sought his frequent but unwise counsel. ABC, naturally found her misfortune his opportunity!

Primary School

The Child is the Father of Man

As Wordsworth rightly points out,

''The Child is father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.''

William Wordsworth (1770-1850), "My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold (l. 7-9)" .
In his next posting, Yakkity Yak ruminates on the signficance of a balanced childhood education in the intellectual, emotional and moral growth of a person.
 
Those Primary School Days: The Classroom Years
 
Yakkity Yak
 
                                        “What ails education?”


                                               

Childhood games and the out-of classroom activities have an often-slighted educational value. Sadly enough, there is still, a not insubstantial number of people who erroneously regarded ‘education’ and ‘literacy’ as mere semantic twins. And how wrong! Obviously they are not the same thing-in as much as the nit-pickers distinguish ‘education’ from ‘training’. These out of classroom activities may be activities outside the curriculum. Further, they may even not fall within the official extra-curricular-activities. But they still form part of the ‘hidden curriculum’, helping to shape and mould minds and attitudes. For the reason that attitudinal training is educational, the moguls, the nawabs and the sahibs of our present day educational system have now renamed extra-curricular activities as ‘co-curricular’ activities. I ask if there is anything wrong stretching things a bit further and re-designate them as ‘co-educational activities’? “Co- curricular” suggests that they are part of the curriculum, co-existing in a compatibly comfortable fashion with one another. Isn’t it true then, that anything that is part of the curriculum must further the larger educational objective? Co-curricular, therefore, is all at once, co-educational as well.

I know I don’t sound compelling. So, I feel compelled to turn over, the yellowing pages of my silverfish infested collection of essays to track down Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Apology for Idlers” to support my case. This classic was beyond my full comprehension when I was first introduced to it as a bumbling, wide-eye, wet-behind-the-ears and ignorant Sec 2 student. It certainly makes more sense to me now, in my more matured years. Robert Louis Stevenson said it all when he declared:

“Sainte-Beuve, as he grew older, came to regard all experience as a single great book, in which to study for a few years ere we go hence; and it seemed all one to him whether you should read in Chapter xx., which is the differential calculus, or in Chapter xxxix., which is hearing the band play in the gardens. As a matter of fact, an intelligent person, looking out of his eyes and hearkening in his ears, with a smile on his face all the time, will get more true education than many another in a life of heroic vigils. There is certainly some chill and arid knowledge to be found upon the summits of formal and laborious science; but it is all around about you, and for the trouble of looking, that you will acquire the warm and palpitating facts of life. While others are filling their memory with a lumber of words, one-half of which they will forget before the week be out, your truant may learn some really useful art: to play the fiddle, to know a good cigar, or to speak with ease and opportunity to all varieties of men. Many who have "plied their book diligently," and know all about some one branch or another of accepted lore, come out of the study with an ancient and owl-like demeanour, and prove dry, stockish, and dyspeptic in all the better and brighter parts of life. Many make a large fortune, who remain underbred and pathetically stupid to the last. And meantime there goes the idler, who began life along with them--by your leave, a different picture. He has had time to take care of his health and his spirits; he has been a great deal in the open air, which is the most salutary of all things for both body and mind; and if he has never read the great Book in very recondite places, he has dipped into it and skimmed it over to excellent purpose.”

So you can clearly see that contemporary educational-policy has turned full circle. “Apology for Idlers” was first published in the Cornhill Magazine, in as early as July 1877. That was a good 133 years ago! Apparently, the views held were as valid today as they were then.

For far too long, classroom education tended to be a laborious and incessant process of downloading knowledge into our cerebral-void; and needlessly so, too! Often, the process takes a preachy, didactic route. Just as often, the process involves knowledge assiduously transferred by the teacher and voraciously sponged-up by the students. Once again, it will be apt for me to quote R.L .Stevenson as he, more than a century ago, lamented that:

“A fact is not called a fact, but a piece of gossip, if it does not fall into one of your scholastic categories. An inquiry must be in some acknowledged direction, with a name to go by; or else you are not inquiring at all, only lounging; and the workhouse is too good for you. It is supposed that all knowledge is at the bottom of a well, or the far end of a telescope.”

But don’t get me wrong! I am all for education and the good that it brings. I am all for “education for education sake”. I am equally comfortable with those who champion the utilitarian value of education and its by-products. The upshot of all these is that I am an advocate of scholarship and learning and everything pedantic! Yet much of my account of the classroom years shall dwell on the less pedantic aspects of the classroom scene.

More light on Hantum Bola.

Additional Light on the Game of hantum bola

Victor Neo points out that another version of hantum bola which he used to play is as follows. Players would make a series of depressions in the ground in front of them. They would take turns to roll or throw the ball. Woe betide the person whose depression the ball landed in because the thrower would run up, picked up the ball and "hantum" (i.e.throw it) the unfortunate victim with it. I remembered seeing this being played. Most people would run away with the thrower in pursuit but a fewer of the braver or more foolhardy souls would charge at the thrower. When this happened, a fight would usually break out.

So indeed as all the writers point out, creativity ruled the day. Given a simple tennis ball many different permutations were possible to entertain us.

Here is the additional informtion that from Victor,

Hi Ban

I have read the post on hantum bola.


Below is a brief description of the game. But there are many variations to the game as played by boys of different groups and areas.


1. The ball we used is normally soft rubber ball which is about the size of the tennis ball.


2. The game is normally played by six to ten boys. Each boy owns a depression and the depressions are dugged near to each other and are within a somewhat circular area.


3. Each boy will have a turn at rolling the ball from a distance away , normally about ten feet away. The rest of the boys will cluster around the circumference of the depressions.


4. When the ball is roll in, each boy will try to see if the ball is coming to his depression. If the ball goes into his depression, the boy will pick the ball from the depression and throw it at one of the other boys who are running away.
My thanks to Victor.

Ho Swee Suah comments

A Comment from the Past.

I received an e mail from Ho Swee Suah (or Bukit Ho Swee), an old class mate from Bukit Merah Primary North School. He has retired or as he puts it, "retreated" to the border province of Chiang Rai in northern Thailand.

Bukit Merah North was in those days regarded as a bit of a "gangster" school although as Richard Ho points out not so "gangsterish" as Bukit Merah South.  The school was located deep within Ang Suah or Red Hill (that is, Bukit Merah) and students had to walk some distance in from the main road unless you could afford the fare for the Number 8 Hock Lee Bus that passed through the narrow lanes before its terminus at the SIT flats and the coffee shop. Very few could afford to do this.

The distance from the school  meant that much more fun for those of us who wanted to continue playing - you could take part in fighting spiders, gamble at marbles, stopped to kick at chapteh or jump around playing hopscotch (sometimes called tengteng) although it also meant that it was difficult to prevent oneself from being ambushed bu determined enemies.

Here is Ho Swee Suah's comment on reading Yakkity Yak's post on hantum bola.


Hi KC



I can’t put face to those who are writing but the choice of “Yakkity Yak” as a pseudonym is good. He is informational about many things. I recall in particular the game of hantum bola he writes about. When we were in school at Bukit Merah North hantum bola was played nearly every day in the hot afternoon sun sometimes before afternoon school. There were different forms of the game: we all play among ourselves throwing the ball up in the air and then catching it followed by hantuming the one nearest us with the ball. Then, we had different cliques (I think nowadays some would say “gangs”) and you can pass ball to your kaki who would then hantum an opponent with the ball. There were also games made up of class against class. These became quite serious and often ended in the fights that your writer mentioned too.


As far as I can remember there were three schools – Bukit Merah North, Bukit Merah South and at that time the one at the end called Bukit Merah East although on this I am not very sure. Somehow although the schools share the same field each had its own territory and hantum bola rarely involved different schools playing. This was lucky otherwise there would be more fisticuffs. It was common to ambush your opponent as he walked out to the main road. Frankly I never saw a single policeman or teacher in all these fights but also to be honest nobody ended in hospital although I think you can recall the guy whose shirt got torn and spectacles broken.


I wonder if you remember the “help” some of our classmates got. These were mainly the pai kia, the gangsters from around the area. If you live in Delta or Bukit Ho Swee you have to make it to your “home” to be safe. I don’t think you played hantum bola seriously as you were quite quiet but I remember you kick a football out of the class window and broke something. I think Mr Khoo whacked the hell out of you for this. Those were the days!

Ho Swee Suah"

A Trek Into The Past Part Two: Leaving Primary School

Primary Six

Yakkity Yak

Things came to a head when we reached Primary Six. By then, we were the oldest in the school. That automatically vested us with certain self-bestowed privileges. And rightly so, too, as were also the most matured and inevitably, the bravest in the school! Typically in those days, the class was somehow splintered into various rival groups, with each group having its own ‘champion’. The champion is, needless to say, the bravest, biggest and arguably, the best fighter in the group. Soon school life was marked by fist fights, either during recess, before or after school. The most popular venue for these fights was Alkaf Garden, now completely erased from the map of Singapore. It gave way to Willow Secondary School, which, I am not too sure, however, if it is still standing there. Anyway, these fights got so bad that at least one member of the groups, felt that it was prudent for him to voluntarily change school before his misdeeds caught up with him. There was also the Alkaf Lake within the garden which claimed the lives of quite a few swimmers. Rumours had it that the thick sea weeds in the lake impede the movements of swimmers and were therefore, responsible for the deaths.

Even when school life was less intense in those days, we still were driven enough to make sure we got the best out of the system. Like many others, we were self-starters and did most things, self-initiated. Our parents were too preoccupied with the more mundane task of house hold chores and eking out a living. Still, I thought it would be good to embellish my primary School Leaving Certificate with some entries on games that I represented the school in. Hence, I fought tooth and nail to get into the school’s soccer and badminton team. I did not care how strong or weak the school teams were. I just wanted to be part of that team. I remembered distinctly that I played second singles in the school badminton team when I was in Primary Four. We were badly thrashed 5-0 (3 singles and 2 doubles) in the first round and in the process, were eliminated from the tournament. Of course, I lost my game but so did others! The rub of the matter, however, is that I lost twice, not once. By default then, they banded the first and second singles to form the first double pair. Since we lost all matches to register the 5-0 score-line, it goes without saying that we lost the doubles as well – in fact both doubles.

The tournament was held at the Haw Par Badminton Party Hall in Rangoon Rd. It was, by modern day standard, more like a cow shed than a badminton hall; with tin-roof, wooden walls and all! Badminton in those days, certainly, evoked certain memories. No, it was no longer the Wong Peng Soon era. Malaya, then, (of which Singapore was a part) was represented by the likes of Eddy Choong (who is still alive and kicking and quite deeply immersed in the affairs of Malaysian badminton), Teh Kew San, Ooi Teik Hock , Johnny Heah etc. A racquet was quite expensive in those days and they are not like the sleek and light ones which we now have. They were heavy wooden contraptions which must be held in clamps when they were not used, so as to prevent warping. The more prestigious brands then were: Flight Commander, Silver Grey and to a lesser extent, Blue Bird.

Badminton continues to be a favourite sport in schools.

I cannot, however, let one thing get past. I made allusion to the Primary School Leaving Certificate, a paragraph or two earlier. It is indeed, noteworthy that my cohort was the first to take the, by now, very familiar PSLE examinations. It was in 1960 when we were in Primary Six, that they decided to abolish the erstwhile Entrance Examination and renamed it “Primary School Leaving Examination” or the dread PSLE. Hitherto, under the Entrance examination System, it was a case of taking the examination to seek entry into Secondary School. My cohort took the examinations as a rite of passage out of primary school. It is about leaving primary school, much less entry into secondary schools. Wittingly or otherwise, we were written off and implicitly, deemed ineligible for secondary schools. Whatever it is, the stage is now set for me to next talk about my secondary school days.

A Trek Into The Past Part Two: Those Primary Schooldays

Second Installment

Here is the second installment of Part Two of A Trek Into the Past.



                   Hantam Bola, Marbles and Table Tennis

                   by

                   Yakkity Yak

Talking about mass-games, besides the usual marbles, we had “hantam bola”, which is, I am reliably told, mysteriously banned from schools today. It was played with a water-soaked tennis ball and hurled with great might at whoever was within firing-range. Not surprisingly, often times our white shirt or pants would bear the mud-stained stamp of the bola. We, however, played this game with greater relish when we were in secondary 1, with a football. We progressed from the rudimentary and somewhat primitive ‘aim and hurl’ routine to ‘aim and shoot’ sequence. This is definitely a more adult-game. We have raised the already quite macho-game to the equivalent of the present day extreme-sport, at least comparatively if not absolutely. But what made the game more appealing then, was that our opponents were a class of ‘matured’ students, assembled from various Chinese schools to form a special School Certificate Class or the present day O-level. They wore long pants and so presented us a larger surface-area for us to stamp them with the much dreaded soccer-size ball-print.


I often silently deride those who make such a boast about their ability to keep their white school attire spotless and without any ball stains after a hectic bout of bola hatam. Little did they realize that their much vaunted reference to their pristine-white uniform betrayed the fact that they were never in the game at all. Just in case they still do not know after all these dreadful years, let me remind them that it is a trite and stale fact (as stale as last night’s nasi goreng) that to be in the game you must make a real scramble for the loose ball. Since only one man can win in this mad melee, you will inescapably be within striking distance of the person who eventually won the ball at the break-down. According to the yet to be written playing-manual, the technical phrase for this is: “To be able to hantam, you must risk being hantamed.” This is the first canon of the game of bola hantam. Come on, accept it! This is that sacred, immutable law of the game!

As for marbles, (also known as “Go-li”) there were the game of glass marbles and the regular stone marbles. A ‘goondu’ glass marble is much sought after and held a premium over the lesser others. Stone marbles were played in two ways. The first is “benda” (or something that sounded like that) in which those who ‘pasang’ would have their marbles placed within a rectangular shaped box drawn on the dirt-filled playground while the ‘Chyak Bak’ (literally the ‘eat flesh’) group will shoot these marbles from a line drawn some distance away from the rectangular box. The second version of the game is “lobang” or “hole”. This is quite a complicated process, and I cannot remember all the details.

I stand corrected but I think at the start of the game everyone had to twirl the marble towards the hole. The one nearest the hole earned the right to start the game. The starter’s objective is to strike all the other players’ marbles in succession. If he can, he wins. He stopped at the point when he failed to strike another player’s marble. The opportunity then goes to the player whose marble is second nearest the hole, during the start-up of the game. It then goes on in this fashion.

Marbles were a hazardous game when I was in Primary Six because there was a certain player we all feared. He had such a tempestuous streak in him that he would not hesitate to hurl the stone marble at any one who displeased him during the game. He was distinctly the prototype of the present day school bully. He carried this peculiar streak with him into secondary school where he became a top rugby wing-three and a champion school sprinter. He was variously known as “Ruffian” and “Mongolian” as he has thick angular bushy eye brows, to boot. He was the infamous Attila, the Hun as well. We aptly gave him these monikers.

For some reasons, table tennis was another game we liked in those primary school days. There was however, only one table tennis table in the entire school. We had to come early to ‘chorp’ or stake our claim to the table. I think I contributed immensely to this task of staking claims on the table. I went to school exceptionally early, literally before day break, when most would still be sound asleep. I was so early that my exasperated mother, once, asked me in all seriousness, whether it was also my sacred duty to open the school-gates. Coming back to the more serious business of staking claims, I must say that instead of planting a flag to stake our claims, we did so by placing the thickest book we had, on the table. Invariably, the thickest book in our school bag, then, was the legendary bluish ‘General Mathematics For Malayan Schools Vol. I’, by C.V. Durrell. We needed a few of these books to form the net at the centre of the table, probably around six. These books were laid spine-up in the middle of the table. Whoever is early enough to contribute a book, earned the right to play. If six books only were needed, the 7th person automatically forfeited his change of playing. We adopted the elimination-system which we called “King”. The winner stayed on to become the king and the others tried to knock him out. The one who succeeded will be crowned the new king. If you are a competent player, you invariably stayed on as king for a considerably longer period before anyone knocked you out. If you survived the first serve delivered to you by the reigning king, you would earn the right to compete with him in a game of 3 points. We have to keep the games short so that many could play. If you win this 3-point game, you would have dethroned him! If you cannot even survive the first serve, you get floored straight away, and in the process forfeited the opportunity to play this 3-pointer!

A Trek Into The Past Part Two: Those Primary Schooldays

Schooldays and Games: Postings by Yakkity Yak

In the next three postings, Yakkity Yak regales us with his account of schooldays. Despite the very real daily hardship when earning a living and struggling to make ends meet preoccupy nearly everyone, school  had an innocent and enjoyable colouration to it. There was, in the first place, little of the stress of needing to succeed, to score more distinctions or make it to ever better grades. You try to perform well but there was no guilt or pressure in enjoying oneself in or out of school.


Even more, school was a break, a world apart from the poverty of the home or the many (often financial) problems that the child grasped instinctively even though he or she was not fully aware of the issues. Indeed, it was this that often gave a completeness, an added dimension to school life and friends.


As Yakkity Yak candidly puts it, "If school was fun, it was because it provided me some sort of diversionary therapy. It was a welcomed break from the usual home and house drudgery...."


I think this insight is worthy rivalling that of many sociological studies! For those of us who lived in that period it was a world of enchantment, never to be repeated.


Read on and discover once again this enchanted world of games and delight amidst difficulties.

Those Primary Schooldays

                  "School was where the fun was”


                  by

                  Yakkity Yak

Primary Schooldays

Going to school was never a given, when the preoccupation, then, was really one of subsistence - finding the next meal. It was all about eking out a mere existence; definitely not a case of living. Living is invariably a grade above mere existence. I remembered that when the time came to registering me for Primary 1, my father agonized long and hard, over whether I should be sent to school at all, even though my two elder siblings were already in school. “Do you want to go to school?” my father would ask in real earnest. “Don’t know”, I muttered with deliberate nonchalance. I knew the question had more than rhetorical significance, and at once felt that the best answer was a non-answer. Till today, I reasoned that he was partly trying to deflect any blame for not sending me to school should it ever come to that. Surely, should I say “no”, I would be an inevitable party to that decision!

If school was fun, it was because it provided me some sort of diversionary therapy. It was a welcomed break from the usual home and house drudgery. Being a diffident little fella (and I think I remained so till today), I never really enjoyed the company of others. Fun, to me, especially during my initial years in school, never had a social dimension to it.

I have never hankered after companionship or fellowship. Instead, I often enjoyed solitude of Wordsworthian proportion. I possessed that trademark reclusiveness that is exclusive to the ascetics. I very much shunned the glare and fuss of inclusivity! So, a change of environment was itself, a prized diversion. For one thing, even the vast expanse of grass in front of the school was therapeutic. Given this propensity of a hermit, it was much later when my self confidence grew that I find some joy in mass-games with classmates. That was probably around Primary 5 or so. Things built to a crescendo in my Pre-U days when my self confidence moved up by some slow degrees.

Singapore Kampong Days

"In the Good Old Days..."



We think of kampongs as being idyllics retreats located in rural areas and the countryside. Indeed the vry word,"kampong" or "kampung"conjures up strong emotions of nostalgia, of days gone by, of country side living and of closed knit communities. Images of the kampong are very strongly imprinted in the cultural memory of many of us.

An archetypal image photograph of the kampong.

Y K Lai spent his childhood in a Boyanese kampong almost in the midde of town one might say. His account provides  insight into life in a kampong where different races lived harmoniously together. The Baweanese or Boyanese came from the Bawean Island in the Dutch East Indies. They built the Kampung Boyan (Boyanese Village) by the banks of the Rochor River, between Jalan Besar and Syed Alwi Road as early as the time of Munshi Abdullah and Stamford Raffles.

According to records, there was also a village within the town area that was inhabited by the Boyanese called Kampung Kapur (literally ‘Lime Village’) in the western part of Kampung Boyan (Boyan Village).

Here is Y K Lai's recollection.

Kampong Days

Y K Lai

I grew up in an area of saints. St Francis, St Barnabas, St Lawrence,St Wilfred, St George's and St Michael's -- roads, that is. This area, off Owgang Sar Koh Cheok (third milestone Serangoon Road) was known among locals as Hong Loh Yeow (translated literally as shaking stove).

Today, only St George's, St Francis and St Michael's roads remain. What was once an enclave with a large Boyanese (immigrants from Bawaen, East Java) kampong, flanked by single-storeyed civil servants' quarters, raised detached house and the St Francis Girls' School is no more -- replaced by ubiquitous Housing Board flats.

It was in this Boyanese kampong that I spent my childhood and teenage years.

The kampong, the size of about four football fields, had about 50 Boyanese families with a sprinkling of Malay, Indian and two Chinese familes, including mine. Home was a huge zinc- and attap-roofed wooden structure which was sub-divided into three.

A kampung house with the ubiquitous zinc roof.


My parents and the ten children lived in one section, roughly the size of a tennis court, while my paternal grand-parents and three bachelor uncles lived in a smaller section. The third was rented out by my father to a Thai bomoh, whom I addressed as "uncle". He made a living by helping women working as bar girls and nightclub hostesses to be more attractive to theircustomers. This he did by chanting spells and bathing them with scented water.

The house was always filled with the scent of sandalwood incense and kemayen (a kind of resin that gave off a sweet-smelling fragrance). "Uncle" had a daughter from Bangkok who often visited him and she was a typical Thai beauty with flawless skin and a radiant smile. She taught me how to sing Loy Krathong, which I remember till today.

The kampong was bounded by Serangoon Road, St George's Road, St Francis Road and part of St Michael's Road. The civil servants' quarters (housing mainly lower-salaried PWD workers) was in an area that is now St George's Lane while the better-off Chinese, Eurasians and some Caucasians lived in what was then St Barnabas, St Lawrence and St Wilfred Road.

The area had four provision shops, two run by Chinese shopkeepers and two by Indians, along St George's Road. In their midst were a tailor shop and a Malay barber shop. These shops provided almost all the needs of the residents. Nearer the outside world -- Serangoon Road -- was a coffeeshop which still stands today at the junction of Serangoon and St George's roads.

For me, life as a young boy and teenager revolved around going to school and returning home to mingle with my neighbours. In kampong life, all our homes were open to our neighbours. Race was never an issue because we did not see each other as different. I remember that I could walk into any of my neighbours' homes and partake in any meal or dessert they were having. Likewise, my mother always welcomed my Boyanese, Malay, Indian friends or the children of the other Chinese family into the house. There wasn't food aplenty but sharing was second nature for all of us.

The favourite family must have been that of Mohd Jan's. He was a Malay who worked as a driver for the Guthrie company. He moonlighted as a wedding caterer for Muslim weddings on weekends.

That was when he would bring out huge aluminium pots to cook mutton rendang, curry chicken, achar and Muslim fare over charcoal fires in his front yard. Invariably, there would be extra food that he prepared and he would give this to the kampong kids. To poor kids like me, it was the only real feast to be had for a long while and it is not difficult to understand why my love for Muslim food remains till today.

A favourite pastime was to go on spider hunts and my companions were always two of the boys from theChinese family. A secret spot where fighting spiders with red mandibles -- prized catches -- were to be found was the mangrove swamp along the Kallang River nearby. It was quite lucrative as I sold the spiders to classmates in school who had no inkling where these could be found.

Kampong life in the evenings would involve almost all of the boys trotting down to the BODCA (British Ordnance Depot Civilians' Association) field in St Wildred Road for a game of football. There were kampong footballing heroes aplenty -- players like Matmoon Sudasee and Buang bin Napiri who turned out for Singapore.

When night fell, residents would gather at a makeshift sepak takraw court in the middle of the kampong. Out came the kerosene pressure lamps and they would be hoisted on tall poles to light up the court. On windless night, the court was used for badminton. The jagoh kampong (kampong champion) was a man named Suri. He taught me the finer points of the game and I am indebted to him for helping me become the RI singles champion in 1966.

I left the kampong when I started working. My parents and my younger siblings too moved on to a five-room HDB flat in nearby Geylang Bahru in the early 1970s when the kampong land was slated for development into a HDB estate. To this day, I still meet up with some of my former neighbours, whether Malay, Boyanese, Indians or Chinese, many of whom had opted for flats in the same area.

Gen Y: A Report in TODAY

They're lazy, want it all, narcissistic: Study on 'unhappy' Gen Y



Reading the posts by Yakkity Yak reminds me of a news report from the UK's Daily Telegraph carried in the Singapore free newspaper, Today, on the 26 of May about Gen Y, those born between 1980 and 1990.

The Report goes,

"They're lazy, want it all, narcissistic: Study on 'unhappy' Gen Y



by THE DAILY TELEGRAPH 05:55 AM May 26, 2010LONDON -

The young adults of today want it all but are not prepared to work for it, a new study suggests.


Those who were born into "Generation Y" have an over-inflated sense of entitlement and lack the work ethic to achieve their goals. They also hate being criticised, it is claimed.


Researchers believe that the problem stems from being constantly told from birth they are special and as a result now believe it - and will ignore anybody who says otherwise.


But far from making them happy, their approach to life leads to higher levels of depression and "chronic disappointment" as unjustified levels of self-esteem masks the ugly reality.


Academics have concluded the values drummed into their grandparents, such as a strong work ethic and self-sacrifice, have been lost in the relentless quest for self-fulfilment.


"Generation Y" or Gen-Yers refers to those born between the 1980s and 90s who are now in their 20s or approaching their 30s.


Members have long complained they have been unfairly characterised as lazy but the new research appears to prove that the stereotype is actually true.


Professor Paul Harvey of the University of New Hampshire carried out a series of studies measuring psychological entitlement and narcissism on a group of Gen -Yers and found they scored 25 per cent higher than respondents ages 40 to 60 and 50 per cent higher than those over 61.


In addition, Gen-Yers were twice as likely to rank in the top 20 per cent in their level of entitlement - the "highly entitled range" - as someone between 40 and 60, and four times more likely than a pensioner.


Professor Harvey concluded Gen-Yers are characterised by a "very inflated sense of self" that leads to "unrealistic expectations" and, ultimately, "chronic disappointment".


He explained that the 20-somethings of today have "an automatic, knee-jerk reaction to criticism", and just dismiss it.


"Even if they fail miserably at a job, they still think they're great at it," he said.


Prof Harvey said the sense of entitlement "gets ingrained in the formative years".


"It stems from the self-esteem movement, telling kids, 'You're great, you're special,'" he said.


He added that the ultimate irony is that such an approach to life leads to higher levels of depression because unjustified level of self-esteem masks the ugly reality.


A separate study due to be published in the Journal of Management showed those in Generation Y care most about high salaries and lots of leisure time - two apparently incompatible goals.


Researchers from Kennesaw State University in Georgia examined data from an ongoing study of high school students conducted annually since 1975 by the University of Michigan.


Both workers in Generation X, the one which came before Generation Y, and Gen- Yers want to earn a lot but the former show greater awareness a hefty salary comes through hard work.


"They want everything," said Ms Stacy Campbell, an assistant professor of management at Kennesaw. "

End of Story

                      Duh Where am I?

As I read this article I could not help thinking that the writers are overly harsh on the Gen Y folks. Surely, the Gen Y did not spring fully clothed and armed like the proverbial genie out of the brass lamp? Where did they come from? And where did they get their attitudes and outlooks?

Indeed, the outlook of the Gen Y  described by the researchers could well be applied to the behaviour, thinking and ideology of the generation of political, business and social elites of the eighties and nineties. These elites were egoistic, brash and narcissistic.

A Trek Into The Past: A Side Show

A Trek Into The Past

A Side Show

by

Yakkity Yak



“A Side-Show”


Footballing interest spawned yet another side show. We were somehow intrigued by the photographs in the newspapers, showing the great athleticism of footballers; mostly of centre-forwards scoring goals or the acrobatic feats of goalkeepers foiling goals. Unable to afford our own newspapers, we begged our richer Indian neighbours for the previous week’s papers so that we could scour through them, painstakingly cut out the pictures we wanted and meticulously pasted them on a jotter book. The jotter book costs 5 cents and we needed to justify the purchase to our mother. I told her that the entire exercise of cutting and pasting those pictures were part of a class project ordered by my stern form teacher.

We were great fans of the State team then. What with personalities like Awang Barkar, Lee Wah Chin, Quah Kim Swee, Majid Arif, Rahim Omar, Wilfred Skinner and many more? The entire galactica of stars were only on parade together in Inter- State games, then known as the Malayan Cup and the FAM (Football Association of Malaya) Cup. These were played at the Jalan Besar Stadium and they charged an entrance fee, which, without saying, was beyond our reach. Our next best course of action was to watch the local league teams selectively, whenever these players were featured, gratis, at the Geylang Stadium, not too far away from where we stayed. It was within easy walking distance. Most of these State players turned out for local clubs at the local league games. We would watch the Police team which boasted of at least 3 State players, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, also at least 3 State players, Blue Rovers, Darul Afiah and Fathul Kabrib, which together accounted the rest of the Malay State players; Chinese Athletics and the Amicable Athletic Association from which the Chinese State players were hailed from. Unknown to us, it was at Geylang Stadium or at least the mosque next to it, that gave us all a fright much later. The race riots started from this particular mosque which we were so familiar with. Frankly, we could see simmering tensions borne of racial partisanship at the foot ball games which we watched at the stadium. The teams were definitely organized on racial lines. A greater proportion of the teams were Malay-based. The only Chinese-based teams were the Chinese Athletic, the Amicable Athletic Association and Hai-kow-yu . The Indians played for the Joyful Indians and the Jolly Lads, with Kinta Indians from Perak as an occasional guest–team.

The racial riots told me another facet of the secret societies and the triads. One day I saw two or three macho men, of the type whom you would call “Ah Beng’ today, scarred with tattoos of dragons, snakes and nude maidens, escorting my father back home. I was to later learn that the various SS groups operating at the Kallang Airport Estate sunk their differences temporarily during the racial riots, to help ‘protect’ whoever they think would potentially fall prey to the racial wars. These were heroic acts, carried out with benevolent intents. Much later, in the course of my Police work, I learnt that much of their rites and ceremonies, values and behaviour were inspired by Chinese legends such as the White Lotus Society, the 128 Shao Lin Monks, the Romance of The Three Kingdoms and Water Margin. And talking about sinking differences, I thought they might as well, because as far as I can see, no one gang has managed then, to establish any kind of hegemony in Kallang Airport.

The Kallang Airport Hawkers Centre is today, arguably one of the better hawkers centre in Singapore. Yet, if you know anything of its history, you will recognize that it hasn’t a really very glorious past, perhaps like most hawkers centres. I think they all started as some make-shift nondescript stalls set up by residents within the estate, to eke out a living. Needless to say, they were illegal and were frequently and mercilessly mowed down by the authorities, of course, for various reasons and mostly legitimate ones, too. For one thing, they were probably not prepared in the most sanitary of conditions (in all probability in the confines of the home kitchens).

We ate from these stalls, devouring every morsel, not so much as some savoury gourmet delights but more to satisfy a basic biological need. As growing up kids, we needed more than a generous helping to satiate our insatiable appetite! We paid a dear price for this as well. Two of my siblings; an elder brother and a younger one were struck down by typhoid fever. The Middleton Quarantine Hospital where they were treated informed us that typhoid was due to food prepared in unsanitary conditions. To us, this was traceable to the stalls where we bought our breakfast. Nevertheless, up till today I still have a yearning to visit the Kallang Airport Hawkers Centre but not really for nostalgia but because it has some of the best street food in Singapore!

Today, Kallang Airport is vastly refreshed, cleaned up, and thoroughly face lifted. It has a shine and wears a veneer of a gloss that it never used to have. It is a little up-market. It is shorn of its entire previous drab and has shed all vestiges of a scruffy past. It is distinguishably-new; no longer a nest of pigeon holes where we used to come to roost. Kallang Airport! I vow to thee, I shall return yet another day to my now, unfamiliar home!

It was once scruffy!!

A Trek Into The Past: Bedroom Exploits

A Trek Into The Past

Bedroom Exploits

by

Yakkity Yak




It must be shocking that bedroom exploits figure in our early lives in ironic co-existence with all the gloom and the doom, the rough and the tumble! Like most kids during our time, we were partial to the game of football. The lack of space, however, was a major stumbling block in our desire to satiate the irresistible urge to kick the ball around. After smashing a few window-panes while knocking the ball around in the small turf-patches in the neighbourhood, we self forfeited our chance to whack it around in these patches any more. We had no money to pay for the repairs of broken window panes in the neighbourhood. Neither would our parents want to bail us out, any longer. The self forfeiture was hence, a self-imposition borne out of extreme remorse. Even if we had not made such an imposition, we could not dribble past our mother. Without saying, she imposed a ban on us kicking around in the neighbourhood. We could not leave the house at any course. Even if we should sneak out to play during any of her absence from the house, say, when she makes her routine homage to the temples, she had some means to find out. Her forensic approach to the matter was simple yet effective. Each time she returned from her sojourn to the temple, she will inspect the soles of all our feet. Since she kept the house spotlessly clean and since we could not afford to have a pair of slippers of our own, any smeared soles were to her, sure indications that we must have stepped out of the house bare-footed. Even if we could scrub off the dirt-smears, it was just too hard to scrub off the chlorophyll-stains picked up from the lawn. Faced with such a predicament, we retreated to the bedroom to hone our footballing-skills and to give expression to our bedroom exploits!

We found much to our delight that actually sleeping on bare hard floors, since the bedroom was bare of any furniture, is not a bad thing after all. The bedroom was relatively speaking, a vast expanse of empty space; eminently suited to a game of football. We rolled up paper balls from old newspapers and had a gala time kicking and diving after it to stop goals from being scored. We also had our fair share of aerial duels as we fought hard for the ball in mid air. Alas, this was to be the source of trouble in our bedroom exploits! It all stems from the fact that the entire room was illuminated only by a single light bulb. The bulb, as it was, was hanging precariously from the ceiling. Unable to take the severe knocks from the ball, so furiously fought in mid aerial-duels, it soon got detached from the ceiling and began to oscillate dangerously above us. We were never fearful of the light bulb plonking down on us. It was the more onerous ordeal of having to account for the sorry state of the bulb to our father when he returned home. It was more this that haunted us rather badly.
In a flash of brilliance, I crouched down and offered my broad shoulders to my younger brother, urging him to stand on them while I hoisted him up to see what restorative work could be undertaken to the hapless, ill-fated light bulb. I shouted copious instructions to him to make a full scale examination of what ailed the bulb so that we could render all necessary first aid to keep it firm and upright again. In a desperate but inspired moment, he triumphantly reported that he had come to grips with the problem. He reported that the screws that kept the bulb nailed to the ceiling had come loose, unable to take the severe beatings from our mid air combats. The ravages proved too much and the holes that held up the screws, were, quite explicably, overly dilated! I then conjured up a devious but ingenious scheme of action to put things right, straight away! I hoisted him up again on my shoulders and barked out further instructions to him, to tighten the holes by wrapping some paper onto the screws. The simple plan worked, like gold! The screws started to hold on snugly and flushed to the otherwise gaping holes. It was not really a rare engineering feat, but nonetheless, a no less ingenuous one. When my father returned later in the evening, he was none the wiser. We survived another day so that we could continue our bedroom exploits yet again the next day.

A Trek Into The Past: Old Kallang Airport Days

By Way of an Introduction...

This series of posts grouped together under A Trek Into The Past is contributed by Yakkity Yak with whom I have shared good times and bad, many a cup of kopi o and quite a few zi char makans including the memorial one where the stall was raided by Environment Officers and we had to scoot off without finishing our meal. Reading his accounts stir many memories within, of the days when we were young and innocent, when gangsters ruled the streets and we struggled to make ends meet. These may not be the stories you find in books and official documents but they are nonethess richly lived experiences and real for all that. These are our little, personal histories of a past without which the Singapore of today would not be complete.




 
A Trek Into The Past: Kallang Days


 “Home Was Where The Heart Was”

   by

  Yakkity Yak



It must be my masochistic streak that moved me to rake up past ambers and take a trek into the past. If anything, my past is but a painful one. It will be far better that I consign it to the dark recesses of ‘limbo- land’, much less to revisit it.

Not unlike many others of my vintage, my childhood days were nothing to relish about. Born into a poor family (and, for that matter, not just poor but crushingly poor), my entire childhood was shaped by experiences of want and deprivation. Home was an odd-shaped, smallish cubicle opposite the now defunct Kallang Gas Works. It is Spartan by the most Spartan standards. Within this not so sweet home, eight of us siblings lived in contorted-huddle for a good many years. But come to think of it, it is only now, when I reflect back, did I realize how appalling, things were then. At that time, I think we were probably too young to truly appreciate what good and bad living conditions were. Life then was nothing more than a series of ‘sleepings and wakings” We do not know enough of what transpired in between to depress us, even if they do not impress us.

                                                          The defunct Kallang Gas Works


The next picture shows the airport that gave the place its name,

                                                             The Kallang Airport

It was only when I was in my third schooling year did we moved into what seemed to be a palatial home in Old Kallang Airport. This was a three-room SIT flat where I lived till I set up my own home in the ‘70s at the mature age of 26.

A key distinguishing feature of Old Kallang Airport as a SIT-estate, the forerunner of the current term ‘HDB estate’, is that it is a hotbed of SS activities. It was the infamous relocation-centre of all the fire-victims from Geylang and Bukit Ho Swee. Both Geylang and Bukit Ho Swee were SS-infested and boasted some of the most treacherous SS groups in Singapore. So, when rival gangs from two notorious SS hot spots congregated in Kallang Airport, an immediate flash point for gangland war was created. Quite often, the quiet of the night would be broken by the sound of broken glass as glass bottles and bricks were hurled at two particular units of flats just below our block. I cannot really say for sure why these two units were the frequent targets, except to hazard at a guess. Perhaps, they were the living quarters of some rival headmen. Or were they the ‘safe-houses’ of members of one of the gangs?

I even had a close encounter with these gangs once. It was one of my many home-duties then, to fetch my younger brother from school in Tanjong Rhu, literally a stone’s throw away from the estate. I was about 11 years or so then and in Primary 5. To reach my younger brother’s school, I had to walk through a relatively deserted area flanking a canal. I was blissfully walking along when a boy, probably not much older and in wooden clogs swaggered up towards me. He caught hold of my shirt around the front collar area and asked in Hokkien: “Tit toh tor lok” which literally means “Where do you play?” Luckily for me I was no babe in the woods and knew exactly what that meant, never mind if in the literal sense, it merely questioned the location of my playground. I knew that in gangland parlance, this really meant “What gang do you belong to?” Frankly, I momentarily froze. In that split second of frozen-fear, I made some fast mental calculations, going over in my mind and ticking off all the options that were available to me. Should I impress him by randomly throwing up some gangland numbers? I have enough local knowledge to know that the gangs that roamed Kallang Airport were known by various number-codes. Should it be 24? 08? 969? Or more appropriately, since I am a true-blue Teochew, 32 (or Sar Ji the gang-code for all Teochew Triad members)? My precocious self however, told me that discretion was always the better part of valour! I reasoned that these were no lucky numbers and none of them could save me from a bashing. Worse still, why should I pretend that I belonged to a gang when I didn’t? I then hit on the brilliant idea that I should tell him that I belonged to no gang. So I summoned up all the courage that I had and in clear, unwavering voice, told him “Sio tee boh tit toh” or “Small brother does not play at all”. I used the words ‘small brother’, consciously in deference to him. It is, after all, a stock expression of humility in the world of secret societies and triads. I supposed this only saved me from a greater disaster as I did not go away totally unscathed. He rained a few blows on me. I took the blows with the stoic of a pugilist. Nay, in fact, I managed to dodge one or two and even warded off another. Not satisfied, he dug into my pocket and relieved me of all my earthly riches. He took away my hard-earned 30 cents which I just made, helping someone in a school tuck-shop during recess-time. I was supposed to dutifully return the money to my mother. You see, another of the duties assigned to me was to help in the tuck-shop in return for what was then, a princely sum of 30 cents. Those 30 cents could buy us a small swathe of pork and perhaps a few sprigs of vegetables for the dinner table. My woes, however, did not end there. Back home, everyone felt that I had made a less than convincing account of how I was 30 cents poorer!

This is but one of the many tough lessons I learnt on the streets, imbibing from the good old ‘school of hard knocks’, as they would say. It was my first baptism of fire and I, on hindsight, am glad to have received it on the streets. From thence, I honed my street-craft so that I could survive in this rough neighbourhood. I had old scores to settle and settle them in the streets, from a young age. I am, however, not sure if that has subconsciously got myself to be voluntarily-conscripted (what an oxymoron!) into the Police Force and at fairly decent rank of Assistant Superintendent, no less! But as I ruminate over the whole matter; street fights , street justice and all, I am at once reminded of William Wordsworth’s one simple dogma which he so painlessly put in one of his better known poems, thus:

"One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man
Of moral evil and of good
Than all the sages can."

 The racial riots told me another facet of the secret societies and the triads. One day I saw two or three macho men, of the type whom you would call “Ah Beng’ today, scarred with tattoos of dragons, snakes and nude maidens and the ubiquitous Guan Yu, escorting my father back home. I was to later learn that the various SS groups operating at the Kallang Airport Estate sunk their differences temporarily during the racial riots, to help ‘protect’ whoever they think would potentially fall prey to the racial wars. These were heroic acts, carried out with benevolent intents. Much later, in the course of my Police work, I learnt that much of their rites and ceremonies, values and behaviour were inspired by Chinese legends such as the White Lotus Society, the 128 Shao Lin Monks, the Romance of The Three Kingdoms and Water Margin. One figure which most inspired all SS groups and have always been an iconic emblem of faithfulness, loyalty and brotherhood - the embodiment of the Hokkien term ‘Gee Ki’- is Guan Yu of the 3 Kingdom fame.

 Every SS member true, to his salt would burn a tattoo of him on some part of his body as a badge of honour. Otherwise, he would erect at least a statuette in the altar in constant homage of the great God of War, which Guan Yu is otherwise, known as. Like the triumvirates of Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and Liu Bei, who swore to brotherhood in the peach garden, all SS members prized loyalty and abhor treachery and betrayal. Treachery and betrayal were shown by the 7th monk in the exploits of the 128 Shao Lin Monks. Hence, anyone of suspect loyalty in the SS fraternity is branded immediately as an ‘Ah Chit” or No 7 in Hokkien.

The Chinese in Southeast Asia

The South Sea



The Nanyang Chinese came to Southeast Asia (known in the past as Nanyang, or the Southern Seas) from Southern China. Nowadays we recognize this as part of the Chinese diaspora, the vast movement out of China in search of a better life that have been taking place for centuries.

Map of Zheng Ho's Voyages in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean


The largest sea in Southeast Asia has various names. In the C16th Portuguese sailors referred to it as the China Sea (Mar da China) although the need to differentiate it from the northern waters led to the use of the South China Sea. The International Hydrographic Organization recognizes the sea as "South China Sea" or Nan Hai. there are various names. The Vietnames Government refers to it as the Bien Dong or Eastern Seas. In mainland Southeast Asia the sea was referred to as the Champs Sea after the historic kingdom of the C15th.

Prejudices and Misconceptions

The Chinese who came south face many prejudices and misconceptions not just from in their new homes but worse from their own homeland. Often these views held by what I call the Chinese cultural hegemonista nd were prevalent in the 1940s and 1950s.

In writing of these I hope to show how unthinkingly divisive and destructive these cultural hegemonists were and still are. These prejudiced voices loudly proclaim the superiority of race, culture and language with no understanding or appreciation of the actual situation.

A list some of these more blatant distortions is given below though not in order of significance. I will point out the absurdities and spell out the actualities.


1. That the Nanyang Chinese are morally and physically weak because they fled the hardships of their homeland.

I have heard this expressed many times when young. However, I was surprised when across this same view by a friend recently.

Actuality

Actually, the immigrants must have been very tough - to decide to leave their homeland for inhospitable and unknown shores, to battle their way through the horrendous hardships of sea travel (whatever it was, the voyage to Nanyang was not a five star cruise), to live in the humid, sweltering heat of the tropics, to work as indentured coolies, tin miners and farm hands in slave labour conditions, to face dangers from snakes, crocodiles and tigers. to do with very little food and home comfort, to face the dangers of diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and cholera.

Photo of Chinese coolies at work.

So in truth, only those who were really tough survive, to make it into the next generation.


2, That the Nanyang Chinese are less patriotic than their compatriots in China.

This is what I call the emotional extortion view that permanently ensnares the Nanyang Chinese in an inferior position. This assertion goes thus: those who left their homeland were not patriotic because they turn their backs on the many struggles China was going through as it sought to be rid of Manchu dominance, external aggression and feudalism.

Actuality.

The facts speak otherwise. The Nanyang Chinese raised substantial (some accounts claim the largest) amount of money for the anti-Japanese struggle in China. Indeed, the Japanese were so angry with the contibutions that they identified and carried out systematic "sook ching", genocidal executions, of the Chinese community when their troops overran Southeast Asia.

Japanese troops capturing Kuala Lumpur on their way to Singapore.

From the start was also strong support of the anti-Manchu and republican movement among the Nanyang Chinese. In fact the triads in Nanyang were often started by anti-Manchu resistance fighters that fled to the Southern Seas to avoid persecution and death.

In addition. many overseas Chinese returned to China to take part in the anti-Japanese war. My grandfather was one. He was a volunteer in the war but was, unfortunately, killed soon after returning to China.


3. That you are not a Chinese unless you are fluent in the language.

According to this view, being a Chinese means, above all, the ability to speak and write the Chinese language. It argues that language is the carrier of culture, tradition and history - all that marks out the ethnic and racial identity of a group. So without a proper command of language a person loses identity and ethnicity.

To add to the harshness, those Chinese who could not speak proper Chinese but depended on a wesrern language like English were stigmatized as "yellow bananas". Looking like Chinese but really a westerner within.

Those were the days when globalization was still a far world away. Today, multiculturalism and the ability to move between cultures and languages are regarded as valuable qualities. In those days in the 40s and 50s when nationalism in China was often virulently inward looking and xenophobic, those who had broader views were often targets for attacks by cultural activists.

Actuality

Well if it is the case that language equals identity, then no one can call himself a Christian unless he or she is fluent in Hebrew or Greek because these are the languages of the Old and New Testaments respectively. Similarly a person would not be a Buddhist unless he or she is fluent in Maghadi or, at the very least, Pali.

Besides, while there is a Chinese written and spoken language, China has many different dialects. Would one say that a Shanghai inhabitant who felt more at home with the dialect is less of a Chinese? Or that a Henan peasant who is unable speak or write Chinese but spoke his dialect is not a Chinese. Indeed, Mr Yang, the farmer who is credited with the discovery of Qin Shih Huang's terracotta warriors could not write his name in Chinese until he was taught late in life. Is he not then a Chinese?

Today being Chinese comes into recognition and being on a more accommodating and larger platform.

From China to Singapore

First Sight of Singapore


In the 1920s and 1930s visitors and immigrants to Singapore would arrive by boat usually from the southern ports of China like Xiamen, Guangzhou and to a lesser extent Hainan island. Quite a number of these arrivals would pass through Hong Kong which even then was a bustling port which seafront was in the night brightly lit up with imposing buildings. Even in the day, the seafront along Hong Kong harbour was packed with junks and people on the bund hurrying about their businesses.

A junk in Hong Kong Harbour.


For many of these arrivals the first sight of Singapore was often disappointing. An old lady in the 80s told me, "The city was dull. The buildings looked uniform and dusty - brownish, gray. When you see the city from the sea as your ship was coming into the harbour, the whole seafront was drab; it lacked the hustle and bustle of the Hong Kong waterfront and the frenzied rushing of the junks as they criss crossed the harbour."

"What if you reach Singapore in the night?" I asked.

"It was even more disappointing," was the reply, "Remember we were coming in search of a better life. The city was not inviting. The buildings along the waterfront were not lit up in the night and even the waterfront was dimly lit when compared with the bright signboards and advertisements of Hong Kong. Believe me, our hearts sank and it was a while before we got back our optimism and belief about the good living we would see in Singapore."

Hong Kong Harbour

Well, appearances may be deceptive but first impressions count and this first sight was often where the myth was born, of a humid, inhospitable, jungle filled landscape with its strange customs, sights and smells that constituted "Nanyang", the South Seas where the Malayan peninsula, Singapore and the Southern archipelago were strewn across the steaming, wet equator.

In the next few posts I will write about the land these immigrants came from and try to correct a few popular misconceptions about them.

Yesteryears by Richard Ho

Photo of Redhill Flats



A Common Past

The following post is by Richard Ho who grew up in and witnessed these tumultuous and eventful years. His piece opens up a window to that common past, we all share. Redhill or Ang Suah as it was then called was side by side with Bukit Ho Swee (Ho Swee Suah) and Or Kuay Tau, Henderson Road. These were gang infested and notorious areas but bursting with a life and spirit of their own.

Yesteryears by Richard Ho



Growing up in the years of the 1950’s and 60’s cast indelibly fond, not necessarily comfortable, memories of our boyhood and teenage years. Those times of relative poverty, under development and lack of technology curiously forced a curious mix of simplicity and innovation into most of our lives.
Cleaning up after arising usually to cock crows where I lived in true blue heartland of Redhill, where gangsters strolled with as much casualness as chickens, cows and pigs, was done with a shallow metal container of water, a small towel and a wee bit of toothpaste on a toothbrush. Rushing to the nearby primary school on foot, after a standard breakfast of bread with kaya and Milo or Ovaltine, was par everyday as no digital alarm clocks and maids were in existence then.

School was easy as the study load and competition from classmates were lackadaisical at best. Instead of projects, tuition, extra-curricular activities or any activity that taxed the mind, afternoons were spent doing corrections on schoolwork and napping. Lunch and dinner were always home-cooked as austerity was an enforced part of most housewives with working class husbands. On occasions when we managed to save a dime or two, we “splurged” on fish ball noodles, sold then at only 10 cents with soup or 20 cents for the “dry” version. That old man of a hawker would push his cart with wheels to the same spot everyday from about noon to the late afternoon.

In the evenings, it was a luxury to catch a movie at the open-air cinema that was made up a pre-determined area surrounded by canvas. Many clutching wooden, rattan or canvas stools would pay 10 cents to catch perennial favourites like Superman or Chinese gongfu master Wong Fei Hoong. Some cheated by sneaking in through some poorly tied up bottom parts of the canvas. A hopeless scrounger, I tried it once, was caught red handed and never attempted it again. The only tidbit available in those days was kachang puteh, a variety of fried nuts sold by the Indian man. Sold only at 5 cents per rolled up paper packing, it was savoured only very occasionally.

On most other nights, time was spent listening to Lei Tai Sor, the iconic Cantonese story teller over Redifussion, who commanded armies of listeners made up of housewives, some of their husbands and most of their children. On top of his legendary story telling skills, he chose exciting ancient Chinese martial arts stories that listeners then found compelling and easy to follow. Listening to pop songs in programmes anchored by famous DJs like Larry Lai was also a must, especially for “Top Tunes of the Week” and those that allowed listeners to request songs to be played for their friends and relatives.

Redhill then and now. Behind the old flats can be seen the new skyline.

The teenage growing up years were more active on account of more friends, a tad more money and arguably, higher maturity. After contributions from a group of neighbours, we bought a football which was highly usable on the medium sized field lying in the middle of three adjacent blocks of one-storey flats. I remembered once playing goalkeeper for a team that was literally camping in our opponent’s half, I caught a woman neighbor only in a black bra and panties combing her hair in the living room with the wooden windows wide open. On the slightest excuse, I had myself put on the bench after that sighting.
To the cinemas we went. It was only 50 cents at cinemas at the now defunct Great World and only a dollar on downtown cinemas such as Capitol. It was not just the movies that made some of us go to the cinemas. Cheap cigarettes at 5 cents each made puffing in darkness an adventure of sorts.

Technology slowly dawned on us. My more technically inclined elder brother self made an amplifier with very cheap parts bought from Sungei Road and together with a cheap record player, bombarded the neighbourhood with the latest pop songs by Cliff Richard, Elvis Presley and local pop group The Quests, amongst many others. Records came in singles or LPs (long playing records). A black and white television drew a fifth of the neighbourhood to our flat each evening. Then there was the rotary dial telephone which came with a circular dial that required numbers from 1 to 0 to be turned one after another. It would take a longer time to get through a number if it contained more of the 6 to 9 digits. So memorable was the phone that up to now I still the number of our first phone – 648140. Only six digits then.

All said, those carefree, careless and mostly rein-free days shaped our characters today in less definite ways than those of the following generation. School was deemed just a must-do, not a passport to a fabulous job and a highly secure future. Being from Raffles Institution, it was a shoo-in for me when I blindly applied to be a teacher. I was just asked the names of my school and myself during the 15-second interview. I got the job, of course, but just after some two weeks, I felt it was not for me. But my Mother told neighbours, “What a crazy boy! He got a job immediately after putting down his school bag and he doesn’t it.” And those six or seven others who reported to the school in Pasir Panjang also urged me to stay on. Very naively, I did and gave up my pre-university education which I regret to some extent now.

Growing up from boyhood and as a teenager during the relative poverty and under development in the 1950’s and 60’s cast indelible memories in the mind. Those of the following generation had theirs filed in a variety of technologically assisted banks. Indeed, economic progress over the years has afforded Singaporeans with the use of technology to reshape their lives in ways that were untenable to those who grew up in the leaner years.

Despite the absence of computers, cellphones and digital cameras, amongst many others, those years cast very fond memories of experiences and lifestyles that bonded familial ties, neighbourliness and friendship in stronger ways. The simple lifestyle that ran through my entire estate in the true heartland area of Redhill bonded people together naturally.

Except on rainy days, waking up in the morning was initiated by the crowing of cocks with the absence of digital clocks or maids.