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"