Growing Up In Geylang

Free Clinic

2011-09-22T01:46:00.000-07:00

If you have read my very first blog story in July, you'd know that I was born a premature kid. For a very long time, my mom thought I had hernia. Sure, my bollocks were not balanced (a condition I put down to development, not affliction). In time, I would be proven right.

Nevertheless, my mom took this one symptom of hernia and named it upon me. So growing up, I was constantly advised not to exert or strain myself too much. I sometimes believed (erroneously) that my good testicle would overwork and burst like a shower, leaving me an eunuch with a woman-like voice. Ah doi!

Fortunately, I was an active kid and proved many times that I could run, jump and roll around as well as any non-hernia boy. The affliction thus became non-physical, more like a mysterious rash that needed to be gotten rid of. I did what every filial son would do: oblige my goodhearted mom and consume her various medical concoctions without complaint. It was the same with the many trips to the Chinese "yee sung" or doctors, and to the TCM shops to buy Lo Fu Nai, or Tiger's Milk (see first blog entry, A Premature Baby). I liked getting out of the house so it was not an issue for me to run about here and there. Plus, going out with my mom, there would always be something new to eat.

Fierce geese
In Geylang, there was a popular free Chinese clinic somewhere along Lor 20 or thereabouts. It was not exactly free but a visit with prescribed medicine cost only 10 cents. It was only 5 cents if you bring back an empty medicine bottle to recycle.

Because it was so cheap, my mum brought us many siblings there whenever we were sick. The medicines we got back from that dispensary were often in solution form and dark brown. That colour itself set alarm bells going. It meant that the meds were face-scrunchingly bitter to swallow - they always were. But that's TCM. If it wasn't bitter, it wouldn't be Chinese medicine. Today, dispensaries add fruit peel extract to make it palatable, especially for the younger patients. My mom would help chase that bitter taste away by giving us some preserved fruit. Sometimes it would a small packet of sourly, stringy stuff that my sister YF liked.

Oftentimes we kids would go back to the clinic ourselves to take home additional medicines. On several occasions, I remember being chased by geese that wandered about the area. It wasn't in Lor 20 but a couple of streets away along a path that ran parallel to a block of apartments some four to five storeys high. It was painted in light blue. Always there's this one aggressive gander that did the posturing, chasing and pecking. The rest of the flock just followed his lead.

Dr Phang
If we were sick and needed a Western doctor, my mom would bring us to Phang Clinic. This clinic was situated along Geylang Road somewhere between Lor 27A and Lor 28 and run by a GP and his kind and elegant wife. We became their regular patients and they became good friends with my mom. We stayed in touch even after we had moved away from Geylang. Whenever my mom visited her medium friend in Marine Parade, she would also drop by to see Dr Phang and his wife. They were a nice patient couple with no airs about them. Like my mom, Dr Phang's wife was also interested in jade.

Despite the many changes in Geylang over the years, Phang Clinic remained in its location for a very long time. I think it closed only quite recently or had moved away from its present location. I don't see the clinic these days when I drive along Geylang Rd. However, I can still locate it on Google Map.

Visiting Dr Phang's clinic, I did not just get better educated on health and hygiene matters (the many wall posters). The good doctor liked to read National Geographic and would put issues he had read out in his clinic's waiting area. NG was not a common magazine then. It was expensive whether new or old. As a kid, I've seen old copies being sold at Sungei Road Market. The pictures of exotic animals and tribes would fascinate me, not to mention the well- illustrated infographics. There were the odd pull-out and extra posters.

TCM - As good
Having been an oft-patient of these two schools of medicine, I've developed an open mind towards their methods and cures. Of late, I liked TCM better because it has improved a lot. It could cure the many general illnesses that plague us as quickly as targeted Western medicine could. In other words, TCM too have their Panadol quick cures.

As a Chinese, I think TCM works better with my body's constitution. In any case, I'm used to it, whether it is to swallow a bunch of small round pills (often eight at a go) or to consume a concoction brewed out of bitter herbs.

A recent bout of illness convinced me that TCM deserves better respect. In many crucial areas like eczema, high fever, internal injuries and spinal nerve rebuilding, TCM triumphs over Western med. But because TCM is still seen as a non-targeted remedy, some folks consider it more 'feel' than science.

But in truth TCM do have many targeted cures. If you are sick, it can send you right back to work after a couple of days of MC. You need not lie in bed to wait for that bowl of medicine - a scene commonly played out in Chinese stories and movies. Few people die or have allergies to TCM.

Mystery illness
Some years ago, I mysteriously came down with a cough after eating some chilli. I was very surprised as I am a frequent chilli and curry eater. I seldom also if ever come down with cough or sore throat before. As a matter of fact, I consider myself as someone with a rather strong and resilient throat. I don't smoke or drink and lead a rather healthy lifestyle. So, for this to happen, it was extremely puzzling and distressing.

In any case, the cough got very bad, especially at night. It became phlegmy and gave me a headache too, not to mention chest pains from some very bone-wracking coughs. I could not eat anything that was oily, chilli, curry, coffee or chocolate. Each time I did, my throat would irritate and produce phlegm. It went on for two long years.

During this time I searched the WWWeb a lot and learnt to make various nourishment soups. But while they seemed to work for other people with chronic coughs, they had no effect on me. In between soups, I went to see my GP. As expected, he gave me all kinds of cough syrup and antibiotics - narrow spectrum, broad spectrum - none worked. In the end, he was so desperate he asked if I would try asthma medicine. I told him no. I might have had hernia but I definitely knew I did not have asthma. So I stopped seeing him.

Search for a cure
It was then that I decided to see my Chinese doctor, someone I knew since my teens. But good as he was, I did not agree with his diagnosis. He kept insisting that I was 'heaty' because of my type of phlegm. I'm not a young fella anymore, so I ought to know if I was heaty or not. I had also not consumed fried foods very much. In the end, I ate half the medicines he gave me and found them quite useless. The rest I threw away.

One day, while travelling past a block of flats, I saw a Chung Hwa Free Clinic sign. It made me smile as I remembered the free clinic of my youth. (I think that old clinic was run by Red Swastika or some "man zhi wui" society) Right then it occurred to me to go see them about my cough. I knew they were a big chain with many clinics so maybe within that population of doctors, one might know a cure to my condition. It turned out to be quite the enlightened idea.

I visited a Chung Hwa free-clinic near my home. I am not sure if it was serendipity or pure luck but the first doctor I saw actually solved my problem. He prescribed me some Western-looking capsules (read: C-A-P-S-U-L-E-S, not brown pellets) and a bottle of greenish-brown solution. After four days, the pills worked. My cough and phlegm were both gone. That night, I slept like I've never slept before. I was so happy I could just hug that Chinese doctor who treated me - kiss him even. If I had known of these pills earlier, I wouldn't have had to suffer so much the last two years.

However, the joy was short-lived. Happy as I was, my condition did not go away completely. It came back some months later after eating oily and hot stuff again. I had to take those capsules again. Fortunately, they worked each time. But at the back of my mind, I was still looking for a permanent cure.

Left-field suggestion
One day, I met a doctor who suggested that I try a course of complex B vitamins. Sounded a bit left-field, but as it was harmless, I decided to try it. Lo and behold, my throat did not irritate anymore and became stronger. I was soon back to my old curry self again. Over time, I was for once completely free to eat and drink anything under the sun. But not coffee. In the past years since my throat had become problematic, I had completely given up on coffee. (So, never say never about giving up some long-term 'addiction'). Coffee now taste offensive and bland, except perhaps for expresso...my old-time favorite.

Pig's gall
So my question at the time was: How could these TCM capsules work so well whilst the rest can't? To solve the puzzle, I took a look at the cough medicine container label at the Chung Hwa's dispensary and found that the pill itself had only three ingredients. Three only? What's inside will surprise you. Two were very common herbs found in over-the-counter cough syrups and in cough sweets such as Hacks. The third was (wait for it): pig gall.

It's not a misprint. If you break open the capsule and smell the brown powder inside, it is pig's gall. So how did it work? I don't know. I doubt the doctor who prescribed it knew. He was actually an expert in cupping and acupuncture. But I guess if one were to dig deeper, there must have been a concoction in the past that used pig gall to treat sensitive throats. TCM is not hocus-pocus; it's both an art and science that has a long established history.

Just as pig gall worked, maybe that stuff called Tiger's Milk my mom spent good money on when I was a kid was no fantasy herb. It might not have cured my so-called hernia but it gave me back a testicle. I am now as endowed and balanced as Nature intended. Roarrrrrr! Amen to that.

Note: Those TCM capsules that I was prescribed were prescription only; they cannot be bought from the local TCM shop. (Trust me, I tried - in the whole of Yishun). Because they were so effective, Chung Hwa clinics would always run out of them. When I was coughing again, I would actually call the clinic first to check on stock before popping by. In September 2011, I decided to google "Tiger's Milk" on a whim. It was the first time after all these years that I actually tried to better understand the herb. To my surprise, there was a major news item about it in Malaysia's The Star newspaper. Please see Anecdotal Links for the full story. When I told my eldest sister about this article, she asked if Dr Mahathir had also unbalanced testicles. Well, frankly, I rather NOT know!

Remembering A Hardboard

2011-09-22T01:44:00.000-07:00

There's place in Singapore where you can literally see the biggest cork. It is out there fully in the sun (and rain) for all to see. No, it is not in Geylang, despite a fondness of our menfolk flaunting it there. And it's not that kind of cock either!

A picture says a thousand words. Similarly, a 'c' and an 'r' in a word can conjure up images miles apart.

As a kid, I was rather fascinated with materials. It didn't matter if it was wood, glass, ceramic, jade, or marble...I would think about its feel and composition.

Perhaps that is why I have no qualms about sewing or knitting - stuff we had learnt to do in school. Every type of fabric has its own variety. The same goes for threads, buttons, patches, etc. The list goes on.

An iconic material
Looking back at my childhood, there was one material commonly used in construction and interior design. It is a kind of hardboard composed of fibre and dark brown in color - very similar to the backing board found on old cabinet TVs. The reason for the picture you see at top left.

When new, this type of board is pretty stiff. But as it absorbed moisture from the air, it tended to pop a little and flex. If it gets too wet, it would become damp and spongy like some wet cardboard. So, even when it was being used as a wall partition, it could not be placed all the way down to the floor. It would be irrevocably damaged whenever a wet mop brushed against it

Standard partition material
My home in Geylang had this board as a partition wall. It was nailed to a wooded frame some three inches around. For ventilation, a wire mesh of about one and a half feet wide was affixed at the top between the partition wall and ceiling. When we first moved to Geylang, we shared the house with my grandma's family. We slept in a room that had an alcove. Some of us smaller kids naturally slept in that elevated space to make way for the others below. Lying in that high alcove, we kids would peep out and look through the whole house, thanks to this all-round wire mesh grating. If we were so inclined, we could even see our aunts don their make-up and change in the next room. Fortunately, even though we were curious about the adult anatomy, we were even more polite; we left spying to just fun and games. I liked, however, that we could look out of the windows of the next room into the street. As a kid, I didn't like sleeping early, and watching shadows pass under that street lamp outside my home was my way of counting sheep. It was poetic too!

A hardboard partition could absorb sound quite well but it was not sound proof. And coupled with a wire mesh grating above, the whole setup permeated sound rather than isolate it. Privacy in that early home of mine must have been tenuous, given that two families also lived there at the same time.

History
According to history, this kind of hardboard was invented by a man named William H Mason in 1924. He pioneered its production process and so the original hardboard was called 'masonite' after him. Many different types of masonites were produced. Some were based on hardwood and used as house siding while others were soft and bent into useful shapes. The old houses you see peeling in the deep U.S. South were probably sided up with hardwood. The aged wood and paint give such old houses its weathered look. Besides house construction, masonite materials were also bent into the shape of canoes. Used like this, I think the canoe became lighter. But it had to be pretty well lacquered up to keep it from soaking up water!

A versatile material
In 60s/70s Singapore, brown hardboards could be found in products as diverse as school bags and school chairs, not to mention the ubiquitous cabinet TV back. This kind of hardboard was very easy to drill, so it lent itself well to perforation - why it usually was a preferred material amongst engineers when it came to using it as a ventilated backing for TV, radio, and speaker cabinets. To make it waterproof and last longer, such hardboard materials were often waxed smooth on one side. The other side would be rough with a micro mesh texture.

During my primary school time, classroom chairs constructed from iron frame and hardboards were very common. The hardboards formed the back and seat. Because of this, the seats absorbed sweat and would smell. More than that, in Singapore's tropical climate, these chairs became ideal breeding places for bugs, especially bedbugs. Often, our school would rotate our chairs through a Clean and Fumigate cycle to get rid of them. But, with so many kids in school each day, the infection was hard to contain and so we all got bitten sooner or later. No doubt our mums got all very frantic and concerned. This added to their worry us kids catching head lice too!

But fortunately, my family had Anthisan cream, a tube of ointment that was very effective against itchy bites (such as mosquito ones). Unfortunately, from Year 2000 onwards, Anthisan cream could not be sold anymore over the counter without a prescription. You could still get it from JB then, along with other banned medicines.

Even used in schoolbags
As mentioned before, hardboard materials were also used in the making of school bags. Actually, it was a popular material used in all luggage then, giving rise to the term 'hardcase'. Of course, since our school bags were small, the hardboard used had to be thin. It came in pretty printed patterns too with a 'gathered' pouch on the inside lid. To protect the hardboard case from bruising, plastic corner caps were often riveted on. Studs too were placed at the bottom to keep the bag off the floor. Whether it is a school bag or luggage, they were all equipped with spring-loaded catches and locks. These locks made a loud "brrr-tud" sound each time they were sprung open. And although these locks came with very puny and toy-looking keys, being able to lock the bags gave us kids a sense of ownership and power!

Losing to plastic and cork
When plastic became the new marvel material in the 80s, masonite and other types of hardboards slowly receded into niche areas. They were no longer used in the manufacture of luggage and school bags - not even as a partition board. Yup, the times we lived in can be defined by the materials around us. I remember a time in the 80s when even cork was fancied as a floor and wall tiling material. A foot-square of cork does give off a folksy Western charm. At the time, many of us know cork through 'stick-on' notice boards. For me, I remember it best as a covering for a computer table I built for my XT PC (with an astounding 20MB hard disk then!). The table looked woodish, loggish and best of all, I didn't need use a coaster each time I had a cold drink with me. The cork top absorbed it all!

Now, isn't cork something? Hmm, where's that giant cork again? Hint: It's not in Geylang. It's at a place where bottle-shaped trees can be found. (For a picture, check out the Geylang Stories Pics album.)

Old Provision Shop

2011-09-20T23:14:00.000-07:00

Shopping is such a civilised activity. I mean, if you can stroll, look at goods and bargain a price, chances are that you are in a good place and time, not trying to evade an invading horde or being eaten by some wild jungle animal.

Civilisation begets shopping, and shopping fuels civilisation.

Back when I was a kid in Geylang, shopping complexes did not exist then. Even Yaohan at Plaza Singapura was not yet built. The nearest thing we got was the Sin Wah Chinese Emporium in Gay World with its gleaming glass shelves/cabinets casting a spell on us kids. And aircon. Aircon was a novel experience then. There were only two places where I lived that had aircon (besides the cinemas): (1) the Chinese emporium at Gay World and, (2) the OCBC branch at Lor 19.

Aircon novelty
As a kid I was ambivalent about air conditioning; the reason being we spent a lot more time outdoors. Sweating was the norm. Another reason was each time me and my mom visited that OCBC bank branch, she worried about getting a headache going from hot weather to cold. "Yau yit yau dong," she would say. So we kept our bank visits short. Our trips to that Chinese emporium was more leisurely as it would be at night. Its aircon seemed a natural extension of the cool evening breeze.

Going to the Chinese emporium was both a shopping trip as well as an outing. We would normally buy our clothes, towels and sporting goods there, including underwear. My dad liked wearing those 'ah pek' white shirts and we boys our singlets. My school-going sisters were also bought their singlet-like undergarments from there.

My mom liked us to wear singlets because they kept our school shirts less soiled from sweat. These inner garments would absorb it all instead. So, instead of changing our shirts everyday, we did it once every midweek. We thus had to take care to keep our school uniforms clean from Monday to Wednesday. For us active boys, that was a tough thing to do - what with games like 'hantam bola', marbles and the lot. And to make matters worse, my shirts were also starched to make them look extra smart! Needless to say, they were highly uncomfortable to wear.

As for towels, we would buy often those white Good Morning ones that came with a blue trim. We bought our towels from Sin Wah as well as from the pasar malams (night markets). I remember these towels fraying often. They were better off as tea towels than facial ones. Today, many hairdressing salons still use them these cheap Good Morning towels in their hair-perming business.

Pasar malams
Of course we kids loved going to the pasar malams. They were noisy and colourful. Mostly, we liked the snacks and drinks. We would have potong ice cream, kacang puteh, steamed peanuts, sern pow (iced tubes) and roasted chestnuts. There were also the hot and cold desserts like cheng tern, red bean soup, kueh tutu, and fake Bird Nest drink. This drink was always very cold (it was kept in a metal tub) and so was very enjoyable. There were also snacks like banana and bean fritters, mua chee and mak ah tong (malt candy pulled onto a short stick).

Pasar malams in those days were street affairs with goods and merchanise displayed on canvas sheets on the ground, like what Sungei Road Market is today. For light, the vendors would use a pump kerosene lamp. This lamp could get glaringly bright, its mesh bulb mesmerising. It reminded me of the sun and I often imagined it exploding into a million pieces like in some sci-fi movie. For that reason, I would never stand too close to one!

At the pasar malams, besides towels, my mom would pick out clothes for us kids as well. With the towels, she would complain that they colour run. Other things we bought were slippers and second-hand records. I remember clearly stalls selling men sarongs. Even Chinese men wore sarongs in those days. They were more airy than most pants (except perhaps the 'Ah Pek' drawstring blue-striped cotton pants!)

The night market stalls were also great for buying small items like sewing needles, shaving blades, nail clippers and that particular thing called a tongue scraper. We have been using tongue scrapers since young so it was quite amusing to see it being employed in toothbrushes only now.

Neighbourhood provision shop
When it came to sundry goods, we didn't go to a supermart. Sure, there was Fitzpatricks and Cold Storage, but they were not exactly your neighbourhood NTUC. Besides, we had a provision shop downstairs from where we lived from where we could buy almost anything, except perhaps temple joss materials. For joss stuff, there were a couple of specialty shops along Geylang Road between Lor 17 and Lor 19. You can still find such shops near Lor 27. I don't know why but there are many temples in Geylang still. Perhaps the many clan associations there kept traditions alive.

The provision shop below my home was run by a couple and their son. I don't recall their shop name now but the signboard was old with letters carved in. The shop was setup in typical fashion with goods to the side and a little aisle in-between. The proprietor's desk was at the back. The shelves were made of dark wood and very neat. Most visible were the sacks of rice, beans and flour; and the drink crates, sauce bottles and very large biscuits jars. A rack stuck with brooms and mops stood by the side at the front. In those days, rice were packed in huge 90/180 katie (approx 55/110 kg) gunny sacks. They were offloaded in this form from the tongkangs at Boat Quay into one of the many godowns there. Or they were ferried to the distributor shops on the backs of lorries. Labourers or coolies used hand-hooks to load and off-load them, often on their backs threading up and down a narrow plank. Parents used to point at them to reprimand their kids: "If you don't study hard, you'll end up a coolie just like them!" The coolies' work was indeed back-breaking.

Back then, these long rice sack lorries had wooden sideboards that were painted with the company's name in red and in Chinese. These sideboards had black iron hinges and could be let down during loading/unloading.

At the provision shops, these rice sacks were displayed with the top open. A stake or cardboard would be stuck in to show price and type. A typical shop would have at least four sacks. You simply indicate how much you want to the provision shop proprietor and he would weigh and wrap it up for you. In those days, rice was packed in brown paper bags and tied with plant cord, the very same string that was used when tapowing (packing) fried Hokkien Mee. This cord was later replaced by raffia string.

Long bar soap
Another thing that was quite unique shopping at a provision shop was that you could buy your preferred length of soap. General purpose soap used to come in a long bar. Simply indicate how much you need and the proprietor would hack it off for you. You could wash clothes with this soap or as my dad liked, wash greasy hands with it after fixing the car. It was pretty effective.

Yes, besides chopped-up soap, almost anything that can be weighed or packed in odd quantities could be bought from a provision shop. Biscuits, coffee, hei bi, mushrooms, red/green beans, etc. It's kind of nice to be able to buy stuff in that way. You need not overstock your kitchen pantry all the time. But importantly, you could have a conversation with the proprietor. These days, when we enter a mini-mart, we head straight for the shelves. When going to a provision shop, the first thing you approach is a person, the proprietor. You'd ask him if he had this and this or tell him you needed that and that. He would serve you with a smile and enquire about your day or what you planned to cook up. He would be pretty savvy with your routine too, like how often you bought your sanitary napkins, cotton wool roll or cooking oil.

As errand boy, I would be tasked to buy sanitary napkins for my family. Womenfolk were secretive about having their periods back then. The proprietor was always discreet and would wrap the shy items in newspapers to preserve their anonymity.

Refillable insecticide
Other things we bought from that provision shop were pails, brooms and scrub brushes. I remember buying those black or brown bristled brushes often as we usually wore them out pretty quick. There was also that short broom made completely of plant stalks great for sweeping water off floors. Both of these were handy when we had to clean our bathroom and rear spiral staircase. Those staircase steps were pretty rough and if left unattended, algae would grow amok on them. Another thing we could buy was Ridsect insecticide. We didn't have them in spray cans then; we hand pumped. We could refill our handpumps at the provision shop where the liquid was kept in a 'kerosene' tin. The proprietor would use a small metal siphon pump to fill it up for you. Neat, isn't it? No worries about damaging the ozone layer with fluorocarbons!

Pulley money bin
One mechanical thing I liked in our neighbourhood provision shop was the money 'tung' (bin). It's often a recycled Milo tin that hung from a pulley in the ceiling and worked as a cash container. You would pull it down to put money in and then release to let it go back up. It was a very convenient and secure way to keep monies collected from paying customers. Most times, the proprietor would have a tung near the front of his shop and another one near his desk at the back.

A news central
Many of our neighbours also patronised this provision shop below our home turning it into a kind of News Central. It wasn't so much gossip as who/how everyone was getting on. For me, every post-exam time, the proprietor would ask my mom how I fared. I would be shy but my mom was proud of my achievements. I often did well but was a reluctant student. It means I preferred to be doing something else most of the time!

On school days, school kids who were home early but were latched out would sit outside the provision shop on a stool-bench to wait for their moms to return. The proprietor would help keep a safe eye on them.

As a focal point for the community, and a place with a telephone, this provision shop also became an utility post. Neighbours who didn't have a phone line would use the shop's, usually in the event of an emergency. The proprietor didn't mind; it was simply the right thing to do in those days. Before we got our phone, our g cheong fun maker neighbour was our phone reference. Peopled called her to get to us. She would shout out up to us from her open shop rear, "Leong soh, din wah!" I had also used her phone a couple of times when uncertain about school excursion matters. My mom would at times make me leave 20 cents after some calls. She said we shouldn't take advantage of people's kindness.

Phones back then were the rotary type; not many homes had them. At other times, this provision shop would help accept mail parcels on our behalf if we weren't home.

An iconic item in this provision shop was its freezer-fridge, you know, the stainless steel double-door sort with see-through glass and a freezer compartment below. The proprietor kept soft drinks, stout and beer, ice and butter in it. The ice were not kept in cube trays but zinc boxes the size of a small shoe box. I was often sent to buy ice when we needed it for guests. Or when my dad needed it for his stout.

More than just a shop
So you see, the old provision shop was more than just an old-style minimart. It was a social place, a friendly place, a place with ties to what went on in the neighbourhood. It was also a place of comfort and security. Provision shops also made deliveries, something we didn't need because we lived upstairs. Our shop below would make deliveries on a 'grandfather' bike or in a blue beat-up Datsun pick-up. This type of pick-up (Datsun model 520) remained popular in Singapore for over three decades, used by almost everyone in business.

Last of its kind
It was with these reflections in mind that I decided to drop by what could jolly well be the last Chinese provision shop in Geylang and Singapore, something I'd learnt from the folks at the Singapore Memory Project (a group run by our National Library). The proprietor of that shop was a Mr Teo. He cut a portly grandfather figure. And as expected, he was very friendly and hospitable. He was very happy that I showed an interested in his shop. Looking around, the shop was indeed old and original. It didn't look like the provision shop below my old home but it was a provision shop nonetheless.

A few things in that shop were reminiscent: (1) An alcove: This was quite common. It served as an additional storage space and also sleeping quarters for the shop's helpers. The idea of alcoves was quite common back then - even my home had one. We were a big family and the alcove came in handy.

(2) A bamboo ladder. Mr Teo said this kind of ladder needed no nails to make. I believe him. I've studied furniture design before and nailless and glueless furniture was something the Chinese were very good at. An old neighbour of mine used a few of these ladders before. They ran a sweets and snacks distribution business and their shop was set up like a warehouse with walls lined to the ceiling with storage cubicles. So, having ladders was a necessity. I've climbed a few in my time and could still remember the straining 'ack-ack' sound it made when someone put weight on it. Bamboo is a smooth, hard, cool and flexible material that was commonly used back then. At home, we had a couple of dual-purpose bamboo chair-stools. When flipped on its side, the chair became a baby-feeding seat. Me and my siblings grew up being fed in those baby chairs.

(3) A very large daching. Mr Teo showed me a very large daching his men had used to weigh huge sacks of rice in the past. He said the sacks of rice weighed some160 kg each - the maximum weight this daching could handle or indicate on its rod. It was about 3-4 feet in length and weighed some 3 kg itself. But he couldn't recall where his workers had left the weights. Back then, before compression-type weighing scales became common, people at wet markets used dachings all the time. So did the proprietors of Chinese medicine shops. But theirs was smaller and daintier. You don't need a big daching to weigh herbs!

(4) A green door. Past Mr Teo's desk, we came upon a pair of green doors. They were old and crinkly from years of repainting, but it was the color that piqued my interest. The shade was a kind of green that was commonly found on shopfront boardings in those days. The other two but less popular colors were gun-grey and sky-blue. Quite a few shops in Tiong Bahru were painted gun-grey (especially the laundry shops). Red was mostly used on temples and joss material shops.

(5) A wire mesh. This wire mesh I saw ran round the top part of Mr Teo's shop, right above the boardings as a kind of ventilation grating. Its design is old-school. I recognised it because shops used to hang stuff from it: bags, lanterns, brushes, hoses, etc. It doubled as a hanging storage space.

(6) A liquor cabinet. The glass cupboard behind Mr Teo's desk was lined with many types of liquor. Johnny Walker, Chivas Regal, Hennessy, etc. It's like a trophy cabinet and is typical. Bars and restaurants used to buy liquor from the provision shops then. Same with families when deciding to bring a bottle to a relative's wedding.

A very civil experience
The visit to Mr Teo's shop was indeed a trip down memory lane. It made me realise that shopping does fuel civilisation; well, at least shopping at a provision shop does. We were less 'shelf conscious' and more civil. It was what neighbourhood shops were all about then, especially provision shops such as Mr Teo's.

Street Hawkers

2011-09-19T12:21:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned various street hawkers in my blogs before but I think it is good to recap them all in one place.

Perhaps I should start by describing the area I lived in then. My home was an apartment in a terrace block between Lorong 17 and Lorong 19 along Sims Avenue. Back then, Sims Avenue was just a narrow two-lane bi-directional road, with the occasional no. 70 or no. 71 bus rumbling along. Traffic was pretty sparse then. A kid could cycle on the road and not worry too much about being crowded out or hit by a passing car.

What is Geylang
Geylang is quite large, almost like a housing estate. In fact, it is a housing estate made up of three-storey apartment terrace blocks and two-storey shophouses. It is charming in that way.

Geylang has lorongs numbered from 1 to 41 with the even ones bounded by Guillemard Road and Geylang Road on the one side and the odd lorongs bounded by Geylang Road and Sims Avenue on the other. These three roads run parallel to one another. If you look at Geylang Road from an aerial point of view, the lorongs spread out evenly like vertebrates from the Geyland Road main spine. Geylang Serai is further down after Lor 41, where Eunos and Katong begins. If you head back to Lor 1, you'll find where Gay World used to be, right next to the old Kallang Airport (where Mountbatten Road starts). It is now a vacant field.

Geylang uniqueness
Two unique features of Geylang buildings are their spiral staircases and backlanes. In the past, these backlanes were accessed by lorries to collect rubbish and night soil. Once these activities were stopped, low stone plinths were erected to prevent large vehicles from entering.

From a map, you can see that these backlanes form a kind of maze that connects one building to the next, crisscrossing the lorongs and main roads. As a kid, we had loads of fun cycling through these backlanes. But we had to be careful as the lanes were full of activity: from residents sunning stuff to small producers preparing ingredients. Sometimes aunties would sit around to chat cracking peanuts and kuah chee.

There were also the many hawkers selling food. But overall, there weren't anything too industrial or toxic to prevent a kid from wandering about on a bike as I recall. Light industries were into printing, ice/ice-cream making, g cheong fun manufacture, garment cutting, baking, laundry, metal pressing, etc. However, many of these light industries have been moved out to industrial estates long ago leaving behind only the import/export businesses and other types of office work. Maybe the reason why the bars still remain.

No more families
Families too have moved out, as ours did. So, after a while, the complexion of Geylang changed, from one teeming with families and children to one with office renters and old folks. A recent walk through my neighbourhood saw many ground floor shops closed or shuttered up. Without the families, retail businesses like the sundry goods and food outlets find it hard to sustain. After all, when office workers head home, who would be left in the neighbourhood to patronise them?

The red light district
The other side of Geylang behind my home, where the even lorongs are, still thrives. But it is all down to one reason: the red light district.

This red light district used to be restricted between Lor 2 and Lor 8, but a walk the other day revealed that they have now extended all the way to Lor 22 right where Aljunied Road splits Geylang into two. So, even when the backlanes are no longer occupied by residents, light industries and hawkers, they have now been replaced by street hookers. At a few places where residents object to such activities were placed police CCTV cameras. Still, at the other backlanes, I was surprised to find hookers soliciting for business right after lunch. Didn't they used to appear only after sundown? And how the hell can you have sex on a full stomach?

In any case, this piece is not about hookers but folks of other mobile trades.

Plying hawkers
When I was growing up, various hawkers used to ply along this lorong-maze haven called Geylang. On weekdays, I was mostly in school during the daytime, so I could only encounter hawkers in the evenings. I remember the man who used to cycle along to sell bread. He would honk his squeeze-air-horn and we would know he is around. He had a wooden box behind his bike with a lid that he could flip down and use as a cutting tray. Ooh, I ate quite a few orange kaya slices from him. Back then, we could only buy "cheem joi meen pow" (local French loaf), cream buns and brown bread from him. The kopitiams only sold white bread.

Bread in those days came straight from the bakery as a whole loaf and with the top crusted. So, before the kopitiam uncle could sell it to you, he first had to shave off its top crust and slice up the rest for you. You could ask to buy half a loaf or full; in thick or thin slices. For me, if I saw that the discarded crust was not too burnt, I would ask the uncle to give me a slice. It was like eating toasted bread!

A slice of this old-style bread was shaped like a chef's hat. And with a little bit of crust remnant, it tasted great, like soft white bread with a little toasty aftertaste. But it all came to an end when square oblong loaves were introduced. They were evenly baked on all sides and no longer crusty. Also, instead of the uncle cutting it up for you, he would shove the loaf through an electric slicing machine. These days, we get bread delivered packed and precut to the supermarkets and even vending machines. If you want toasty bread, you just have to buy them from a specialist bakery. (I just discovered that such old bread (all sliced up) could be bought from 7-11 stores at $1.40 per pack).

Besides the roti man, the chicken porridge seller who lived never my home also went on his evening rounds. At a certain time, I would know he was parked near his home. We never ate at his cart but brought our own pot to tapow. If we wanted to add an egg in our porridge, we would bring our own along. It was common practice then, same when we bought char kway teow and Hokkien mee. His chicken porridge was rustic and full of ginger flavour.

My fave two lady hawkers
On weekends, the area around my house would have more passing hawkers. A pair of my favourites were these two ladies who sold "chee ma wu" and "fa sung wu" (black sesame and peanut paste respectively). They sold them from boxes they carried on a flat bamboo pole across their shoulders. These ladies also wore a blue cloth 'hat' across their heads, the same sort that Samsui women wore but of a different colour. They would call out "chee ma wu, fa sung wu" one after the other.

One thing they would do is stop by my neighbour g cheong fun maker shop to eat unborn mice. They swallow them whole wrapped in lettuce and gulped down with a little wine. This was a common tonic back then, meant for keeping fit, especially if you had to work in the sun and rain like these two resilient old ladies. The way they carried their boxes and walked their bouncing gait is forever edged in my mind. By the way, the mice were hygienic because they ate rice grains and were not lonkang rats. You need lots of rice to make g cheong fun.

Not aluminium
Before Sims Avenue was widened, the houses across my home had courtyards. A hawker who sold chwee kueh (steamed rice cake) used to park his cart there around 4-something in the afternoon. Chwee kueh these days are steamed in small aluminium cups, but back then, the cups were made of clay. I am very sure the clay imparted a different taste to the chwee kueh. And the man did not scoop the kueh off the cups with a spoon. He did it with a small flat bamboo stick Buying this chwee kueh would often come with a warning from my mom: "Sui sum kor ma lo" ("Be careful when crossing the road.")

Along Lor 17 would come the kok-kok mee seller. He sold fishball noodles. But we didn't have to go to his cart to buy because the boy (presumably the son) would walk around with his kok-kok instrument to take orders. You could give him a pot and he would come back with it steaming with noodles. Most times, we would just lower a pot to our g cheong fun neighbour downstairs to tompang an order.

Missing the stewed pig's ears
Around 5-something just before dinner would come the "lo g yuk" seller with his wide basket of stewed pork and duck meat. He would park himself outside the kopitiam. I loved eating his crunchy pig ears and blood cubes. This hawker actually came from a stall set up at the mouth of an alley in Lor 19. I think it is great that they still bother to hawk their wares around the neighbourhood despite having a fixed location. I believe I first learnt to eat hot stuff from dipping those succulent pig ears in chilli sauce, sauce that was not too different from those served with chicken rice.

Nuts and sweets
Another hawker was an Indian man who sold kacang puteh from a heavy round tray he carried on his head. He would walk through our backlane crying out "kacang puteh, kacang puteh". At other times, the "ting-ting tong" (chiseled flour candy) man would come by with his round tray too. Unlike the Kacang Puteh Man, he carried with him a collapsible stand for his tray to rest on. He got his moniker Ting-Ting Tong Man from the way he knocked his nickle chisel and hammer together to cut the quasi-hard candy into cubes. This pink candy was then mixed with icing sugar and edible flour. His hammer was more like a bent rod with a knob at the head. Near my school, we got a couple of fellas who sold mua chee and ting-ting tong together. But for some reason, mua chee survived till today but not so ting-ting tong.

Scoop ice cream factory
Another backlane dessert was scooped ice cream. At the time, I took these fellas for granted because their ice-cream supply shop was just a block away in the next backlane. When it was time to fill-up their tubs again, they would all congregate there in that yard. The best time was when they sold durian flavour. That alley would be filled with loads of discarded durian husks as well as uncles sitting one-legged on stools munching on that king of fruits. The whole place would be filled with that wonderful pungent fragrance. Hopeful children from nearby would hang around the uncles waiting for scraps. Another favourite ice cream flavour was the one with red bean and atap chee.

An antique market building
Lor 17 was also home to a small meat and vegetable indoor market. An uncle who sold "tau fah sui" (soybean milk), "tau fah" (sweetened beancurd) and "leong fun" (chin-chow drink) would station himself by the market. He was the extra incentive to go marketing with my mom because we would always stop by his cart on the way home, to eat a bowl of curd or drink a glass of soybean milk. Often I would have my soybean milk mixed in with my chin-chow, so the drink order was "hark-bak" (black-white). The uncle would oblige without missing a beat. We would sometimes tapow bean curd with a metal tin for my other siblings waiting eagerly at home.

At other times, the rojak man would come by on his tricycle with his mini-kitchen. I don't know why, but all these hawkers liked to stop along Lor 17. I think it is because there were more terrace houses on that side than Lor 19. Or maybe they were just working their way down the lorongs by the numbers. In any case, I am glad they stopped by. They made the place more lively and our diets more adventurous. They also provided a kind of teatime and supper service to the light industry workers there, something I've not thought of before.

Not just food but sundry
Apart from food, there was a hawker who sold brooms, feather dusters, pails, bamboo poles and such household items all stacked into an enormous pile on his tricycle. It was like the width of a bus! I sometimes wondered how he could see his way in front riding behind the whole thing! Maybe there were strategic gaps between his goods for him to look through. This man travelled far. I would see him along North Bridge Road when I accompanied my mom there on her shopping trips.

Losing character
I am sure if they bring back the families to Geylang, the hawkers would find it an incentive to ply their trades again. But this is just wistful thinking, like wanting the ability to travel back in time. It is enough just to remember them the way they were. And besides, many old buildings in the 30+ lorongs have been demolished to make way for apartment complexes, just like what happened to the Kembangan area near Still Road. Once that happens, Geylang will become a fortress of souless apartment buildings with no more two-storey shophouses, five-footways and even backlanes. Geylang would not be Geylang. It would indeed be alarming to our heritage, not to mention to both aged and new-school hookers. Geylang, after all, is Geylang.

Note: Check out the link to Ting-Ting Tong Hawker in the Anecdotal Links section. But I remember eating my ting ting tong pink and with sugar and flour.

"20 years ago..."

2011-09-18T21:45:00.000-07:00

In the 60s and 70s, I remember the Chinese movies we watched on TV were mostly flicks from Hong Kong. They were either modern dramas or period wuxia films.

The wuxia films had some sub-genres. There's the Very Ancient Sword-Fighting ones and the Near-Present Pugilistic. The VASF featured opera costumes, swords, spears and extreme 'qi' techniques. The NPP ones had few or no weapons, mostly relying on fists, kicks and flips and set typically in a small "chun" (village) or town.

The VASF stars of the day were Tho Tat-Wah, Nam Hung, Leong Seng Po, Tang Pik Wan and Shek Kin. LSP was the older of the group and would often play (1) patriarch of the family, (2) clan head, and (3) family "koon kar" or head servant. Besides him, these roles also went to Cheong Wood Yau and Ng Cho Fan, who, with their gravitas, were both very ideal as martial arts elders. Shek Kin, with his natural evil looks, often played the bad guy. If there was a kid, it was usually Fong Bo Bo, the Shirley Temple of Asia.

In these stories, Tat-Wah and Nam Hung were often fellow disciples along with Pik Wan. There's usually some love triangle going on amongst the "si mui" and "si heng" (fellow disciples) - something frowned upon by their "sifu". Wu Fong was also in the mix but I saw him and Pik Wan more often in modern dramas.

Mythical martial arts
The martials arts that were depicted in these VASF films were "Yu Loi Sun Jeong" (a palm-energy technique), "Luk Chee Kum Mor" (six-fingered evil lute), "Tin Sun Geem" (heavenly sword), "Ying Yeong Siong Kim" (Yin-Yang double sword), "Bak Kwatt Mo Chau" (white bone claw technique), "Kum Koi Gong" (frog technique), "Hut Yee Guan" (beggar-stick technique), etc. Some of these kung fu techniques were later introduced to a new generation through Stephen Chow's most hilarious parody Kung Fu Hustle in 2004. It was a mega box-office success in Asia.

In these VASF films were also timeless items such as "Tin San Suit Lin" (snow lotus) and "Sin Tan" (saint medical pills). TSSL was a hard-to-find cure-all, especially if one is badly poisoned or hit by "Yu Loi Sun Jeong". If you were on the verge of death, a last-resort-cure would be Snow Lotus. But to add to the drama, it is usually very, very hard to find, requiring you to cross rivers, climb mountains to even catch a glimpse of it. It was definitely not sold at the local pharmacy! As for ST, the effects were the same, but it is usually bestowed by a heavenly saint, hence its name. In the 40s and 50s, before Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng came along, many of the wuxia films were based on real kung fu and mystical story elements - why in some films, we see the wuxia disciples talking to deity figures in the clouds.

Pioneering authors
It was writers like JY and LYS who elevated wuxia elements to a fine art, with things like "dim mak" (pressing of sensitive pressure points usually to immobilise an opponent or to slow the flow of poison through the body), "Qing Gong" (leaping skill) and the various fighting formations found in Wudang and Er Mei kung fu. There were lots more including those found in dark martial arts such as "Jiu Yang Zhen Jin" (Mandarin, Nine Yang Manual) and "Jiu Yin Zhen Jin" (Nine Yin Manual). Both JY and LSY, through their scholarly knowledge and imagination, mapped out the nature of the "Mo Lam" or "Wu Lin" martial arts world where none existed before. Their martial arts novel were neither pulp material nor high-faluting stuff. You could call them a mix of Lord of the Rings (adventure and valour) and Shakespeare (politics and personalities). Here, students of Higher Mother Tongue subject often start reading JY and LYS in Sec 2.

A veritable Master Wong
On the other hand, NPP movies were often set in a village or small town that needed a hero's help in combating an "orc ba" (bully) or "san chart" (mountain bandit). Many a times, these movies played up folk hero Wong Fei Hung. Before Jet Li, Kwan Tak Hing was synonymous with this titular role. TH's bulging eyes, gaunt face, lean frame and operatic way of speaking, especially when delivering some gem of Confucian wisdom before dispatching the bad guys were highly impressionable on us young kids. We would swear off doing bad deeds after watching him; probably why our parents encouraged us to watch his films in the first place.

TH wasn't young and I remember thinking what a great grandfather he would make. As a matter of fact, many of his WFH films were done in the early to mid-50s. In 1956 alone, 25 such films were released to the cinemas. Despite his age, Tak Hin was fit and agile.

Unforgettable baddy
A hero needs a nemesis like Batman and his joker. For Kwan Tak Hing or Wong Fei Hung, his opposite number was Shek Kin. I tell you, you cannot find a man who looked more evil in Chinese cinema. Shek Kin's slitty eyes, 'broad-sword' eyebrows and swept-back hair all make him look abrasive and conniving. He was so convincing in his bad-guy roles that he was afterwards forever known as "kan shek kin" or Evil Shek Kin, just as Eli Wallach was the de facto bandit in Clint Eastwood's spaghetti Westerns.

In real life however, Shek Kin was a very nice and generous man who once gave away a piece of land to help promote Hong Kong's cultural art scene. Despite his on-screen persona, he neither smoked nor drank and he doted much on his family.

Masters of real kung fu
Both Tak Hing and Shek Kin know real kung fu. Tak Hing learned on the set from the direct disciples of Wong Fei Hung. He would later set up a martial arts school and old folks home. As a kid, Shek Kin was weak and sickly so his parents sent him off to learn martial arts, as was the wisdom in those days. But unlike his peers who were usually sent to Chinese opera troupes, he learnt his martial arts direct from the schools. There was Laohan, Chaoyan and Baoding (boxing). But probably the most famous was Ching Woo Athletic Association, an institution made famous by Jet Li in that 2006 film about Huo Yuanjia. Shek Kin did not learn from HYJ but from his direct disciples. As a matter of fact, Shek Kin was so good that he was certified a teacher-master of the Mantis Fist and Eagle Claw, an aspect of Northern Shaolin kung fu.

Shek Kin retired in 1995 after having appeared in nearly 360 films, 80 of which was as Wong Fei Hung's nemesis. He passed away at age 96. Who said bad guys don't live long?

Modern tearjerkers
In the dramas set in modern times, the usual suspects were Cheong Ying, Wong Man Lei, Tang Pik Wan, Nam Hung, Leong Seng Po, Jeong Wood Yau, Tang Kei Chan (aka Sau Ah Gun), Pak Yin and Pak Suet Sin. Cheong Ying would play the handsome chap/available bachelor, Wong Man Lai the evil or demanding MIL (with the 'kwai-lan' face), Leong Seng Po the family patriarch, Tang Kei Chan the comedic sidekick or poor suitor (because of his buck teeth), Pak Yin, Pak Suet Sin, Tang Pik Wan and Nam Hung would play the leading ladies. However, the weepies were normally dominated by Pik Wan and Nam Hung. These women could literally cry buckets!

A popular plot device
Looking back at these modern dramas and wuxia films, I am reminded of a plot device that was commonly used then, the "yi sup neen cheen" or "20 years ago" recall.

This recall often happened when a bad guy is about to get his comeuppance. The mother would say, "No girl, don't do it.... He is your father!" or something like what happened between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in Star Wars. Then the back story comes: "20 years ago, on a dark and stormy night..."

In VASF, this kind of 'reveal' would often involve rival martial arts heads, who had some liaison in the past that produced progeny who later go on to champion opposing schools of wushu. In NPP films, it would involve a mother who was once jilted by a rich family's son. Twenty years later, their paths cross and the secret is out. Or it could be that the mother was once raped by the bandit two decades ago. Sometimes, the girl in question would start the sob story by having to "mai kor chong fu" (sing to bury dead father) often in the street and in front of some rich man's home. The lady of the mansion takes pity on the poor girl (and mother) and hires them as servants. In time, the girl learns that her new employer's daughter is actually her half-sister, but not before falling in love with her half-brother. The head of the family also realises that the new servant mother was his first love and this causes friction between him and the present wife. He was the poor scholar who left her to marry the rich lady.

A complicated affair
Yup, it can get pretty messy relationship-wise in the movies of the 50s/60s. Maybe it is because back then, men had many wives and cases of incest and abandoned children/partners were plenty. But how often does it really occur in real life? In a news report recently, a sperm donor was overwhelmed when he found out that he had fathered 150 children over a period of ten years. So, ten years from now, their mothers will go "Yee sup neen chin..." or "Twenty years ago....". See how it works?

As you can imagine, things being revealed by the 20-Year Recall often elicited shock, disbelief and tears from the affected person, usually a poor, hapless and lovelorn girl. And the scene would often play out on a dark and stormy night heralded much by thunder and lightning. Mothers really know how to choose their timings. Or maybe the kids in question would engage in a bit of incestual liaison in a disused temple or abandoned hut....all because of rain. Guys do get it on easily after seeing a girl in a wet tee or samfu.

Avoid the 20-year curse
So, the next time when you find yourself taking refuge from rain with a guy you fancy in a quiet, private place, do have your wits about you. Keep your knees closed and talk about family history first. It might save your kids much pain 20 years later! Or perhaps in future, we could all carry ICs (identity cards) that spell out our degrees of separation genetics-wise. Like some Quick Response photo-snap thingy, you can email your info to a checking agency toute suit. Saves a lot of future heartbreak!

Screen Idol

2011-09-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

Question: Which actor, male or female, has acted in the most films?

The answer will surprise you. According one source, the actors are:

1. Mel Blanc (LA, US) 876
2. Adoor Bhasi (Kerala, India) 549
3. Tom London (US) 512
4. Bud Osborne (US) 505
5. Prem Nazir (Malayalam, India) 483
There's a female in the list at No. 8 (454). Her name is Bess Flowers.

If you didn't know, Mel Blanc was the voice actor behind Bugs Bunny and some other cartoon characters in Loony Tunes. The other actors and actresses on the list have had long careers, so their film credits pile up. Unlike Mel Blanc, they were mostly famous in their own part of the world. You might act long but world fame can still elude you. On the other hand, actors who act short can gain disproportionate fame - like James Dean.

Most films in one year
A more intriguing question could be: Who has acted in the most films in one single year?

Aha, now the answer is not so straight forward. These days actors and their agents worry about over exposure (and for young actors, peaking too soon). Movie investors worry about risk, as more movies tank at the box office than succeed. So finding an actor in three or more films in a single year is rare, even more so if the role is leading-man or -lady.

There's also the fact a movie takes on average 6 to 36 months to script and film, so it would require special circumstance and deliberate arrangement for an actor to be in so many set locations at the same time. Of course, if a sequel has been planned for a movie, then the film gets made faster - even before the main one has wrapped up shooting. This was the case in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings The Two Towers and Return of the King.

Economically, it is sensible to sequel a film, especially if it involves loads of special effects, such as the Transformers series. It would be a waste if an expensive f/x team is disbanded after just one movie. The new Hobbit movie is the same - it is filmed at the same time as its sequel. This method of making movies can help also protect 'actor assets'. I doubt the Harry Potter movies would have been made if there was too wide an age gap between sequels.

Which actor?
So, back to our question: Which actor or actress has the most films in a single year? And what is that number?

My instinct is to think of actors and actresses with short careers but big demand. The first thing that comes to mind are the Youtube wannabes. But they act in clips or webisodes, not full-length movies.

Another category of actors and actresses to consider would be those in the porn industry. For example, Tori Black appeared in 200 films during her first three rookie years. It is understandable for a hot actress like her to be in such huge demand given the industry she's in. Two hundred films in three years means 63 films a year, a very high number for any working thespian! Even for one who regularly works in the buff.

I'm not sure if she values such a record but she might be sore losing it or sore about creating a new one! Either way, that's a very productive figure. However, porn films shouldn't count. I think they use the same sets over and over again (what I imagine to be). Maybe even the same script but in a different accent! ("OH MY GOD!" in French, German, Albanian, etc) So maybe 63 films a year is rather easy to achieve.

In the 60s and 70s, the Chinese movies we get on TV were mostly those from Hong Kong. They were in Cantonese mostly. As one of that dialect group myself, I often consider myself privileged to be watching them in my mother tongue. But it was unfair to my friends of the other dialects. In those days, even TV serials were in Cantonese or Mandarin. Only the Chinese operas were in Hokkien, Teochew, and Cantonese. I don't think boys in their prepubescence years are excited by such performances!

Two megastars
The two most popular stars in the 60s and early 70s then were Siu Fong Fong and Chan Po Chu. They were young but incredibly famous. I think it boils down to three reasons:
1. They were young and pretty;
2. They could sing;
3. They had Peking Opera background training as well, which meant they could dance and move well in period films.

These three talents or gifts are what the movie industry folks call Triple Threat - actors and actresses who could not only act but sing and dance as well. Normal actors are usually very wary of such talented people. They worry their leading man/lady roles will be stolen from them. Or that they end up in supporting roles. But if you are TT-hot, the studio will go all out to make a quick buck off you. And that's what happened to Siu Fong Fong and Chan Po Chu. Incidentally, they are called Josephine Siao and Connie Chan on the international stage.

Of the two, Connie Chan was the most productive. Between 1959 and 1972, she made some 105 movies. In 1967 alone, there were 32 of them. 32??? How does one make 32 movies in a year?! It's mind-boggling! Even A-listers in Hollywood don't make that many, then or now; not even in a whole decade!

Josephine Siao herself made some 62 films, a lesser number but she was no less famous. Her advantage was that she had already made a name for herself as an award-winning child actor starring with mommy-favourites like Toh Tat-Wah and Yu So-Chau, often in period mystical stories. She would be the naughty girl who creates unwitting trouble for everyone.

Opera trained
Both JSiao and CChan studied Peking opera under famed master Fen Juhua. And as they got more popular on stage, they were soon transplanted to wuxia film roles. Interestingly, JSiao would often play the male lead and CChan, the female...often as heroes in love or disciples of opposing kung-fu masters. (I was always tickled why the other characters in the movie can't see that JSiao was actually a girl!)

Later, as both grew into young pretty women, they would be paired off with handsome actors like Lui Kei, Cheh Yin (Patrick Tse), Wu Fong and Shek Kin. With them, during the second half of the 60s, the studios churned out numerous musicals, rom-coms and action movies. I particularly remember the cat burglar or Robin Hood 'do-good' movies with JSiao as the Bat Girl and CChan as the Black Cat. These films were actually influenced by the James Bond genre which took off with a bang in the 60s. Even Japan was not immune, as characterised by their own 70s spy films (e.g. the hilarious "What's Up, Tiger Lily?").

Singers too
As JSiao and CChan driffted into their own respective leading lady roles so too did their fans segregate into two rabid camps. They would scream and fight whenever these two stars dropped in a city for a visit. I wonder how they will behave in this day and age with social media like Facebook and Twitter. The fact that JSiao could sing English covers of popular songs was one up against CChan. This particular ability of JSiao was featured in a number of her movies. She could speak English quite well too.

Watching such thief and spy movies should have encouraged me to become one; they did. And they were reflected in the toys I bought and played with. Two favourites were a gun and torch concealed in dug-out books. They were small and could easily be concealed in the palm. You can see pictures of them in the link Paraphernalia From My Mattar Primary School Days. I had also a set of collapsible 'spy' binoculars too, you know, the one that collapsed into a flat case no bigger than a pack of cigarettes. They were popular in the 70s for watching soccer at the National Stadium. You can still buy a pair of them today. (I even saw one used in a futuristic sci-fi TV series like JJ Abrams' Fringe in Season 1, by one of those mysterious Men-In-the-Hat!)

A charming aunt
Of my two screen idols then, my favourite had always been JSiao. She had big eyes, a nice profile and high cheek bones. She could easily have become a model! She was skinnier and taller than CChan and looked more sophisticated.

You might think growing up with so many of JSiao's movies was a blessing, but in my case life was rather difficult. Probably "uncomfortable" would be a better word. You see, I had a young aunt who looked like her, and so every time she visited, I would look at her funny. She must have wondered often if there was anything wrong with this nephew-kid of hers. To make matters worse, like JSiao, she also had a rather unique voice. I would listen to her and become spellbound.

One day, the dream broke. This aunt went and got married. I remember regretting not growing up fast enough at the time. I was curious as to who this handsome guy was who stole my 'idol' away. I mean, he better be better looking than the grown-up me! Perhaps someone looking like Lui Kei or Patrick Tse?

Turns out that he was rather crap-looking. His face was pockmarked and chubby - features I thought not possible on the same face. Tough guys (like Charles Bronson) have pockmarked faces and square jaws. Chubby guys got smooth skin and puffy cheeks. But he had them both, which was rather weird. My other aunts nicknamed him "fatt sui meen pow", which is Cantonese for waterlogged bread.

I don't think my aunts were mean about it; they just have nicknames for everybody then.

Though my young aunt's new hubby had these weird facial features, he was actually rather pleasant. He was a nice and friendly man generous with his ang pows during Chinese New Year. So overtime, this nephew was rather appeased and became less disappointed with him for being so incompatible with his beautiful screen idol stand-in.

A yen for education
Despite their star power, JSiao and CChan retired at the peak of their popularity. Both went on to further their studies, which had been put on hold because they started acting young. CChan came from an impoverished family and was given away to begin a career in Peking opera. She would return some 25 years after her retirement to perform again on stage opera or modern. Stage seemed to be her favourite medium. Her latest outing was in 2006 with Adam Cheng in the stage play, Only You.

After her retirement, JSiao had a brief marriage. She remarried again and furthered her studies. JSiao did make a return to acting in 1977 and a few more times in the 80s. She even did well as a director once. But to many people, her real comeback was in1993, in Jet Li's wildly successful Fong Sai Yuk. She played his mom in that historical dama. During this time, the media discussed her absence from the silver screen again and brought to light the real reason for her leaving the Hong Kong movie scene. JSiao, who was born deaf in her left ear, was slowly going full deaf in the other. She had such a tough time concentrating on her role in FSY, that she had to rest between takes.

I am very sure she has gotten better since. There have been tremendous improvements in audio technologies for the deaf or near-deaf. Cochlear implants are safe, effective and common. But I am sure deafness will not slow down someone like JSiao. She has now a masters in Child Psychology and has founded in 1998 a movement to end child sexual abuse. Today, she leads the ECSAF as president. I read my first book on child abuse not long after leaving Geylang, so she is my idol in more ways than one. Then and now.

[I've only just found out that JSiao was the original singer of that children song classic 'Mama Hao' (see Anecdotal Links). We have a copy of that record still, which we often played living in Geylang! My oh my!)

Note: I don't care much for the porn industry, but economically and technologically, it is interesting. Many advances in the IT field have been driven by their need to send content over high-speed networks and with video-on-demand. Now, they are driving next-gen Web interactivity and visuals through stuff like remote sensorial devices (moving actuated dildos at $7 a minute) and 3-D augmented reality. As one insider commented, "Any 18-year-old with a high-definition camera can make a sex film. The studios need to provide more interactivity and depth in content." By depth of content, I think he means more parodies in both film and computer games. "Bonecraft" is a parodied game of "Starcraft" and "World of Warcraft". The aim of the game? To have more sex with Elvin women. I think JRR Tolkien will turn in his grave. Or maybe chuckle?

Billy The Cat

2011-09-12T22:04:00.000-07:00

Remember the Beano comics from the UK? As a kid, I had a neighbour who loved that comic book. I would hang out at his shop/home to read. Later, I pestered my dad to buy a few copies from our regular book haunt - Sungei Road Market. Back then SRM was like the famed Thai Chatuchak Market. The stalls were proper stalls and had a great variety of goods - perhaps British troops withdrawing from the country a reason. The Beano comics we bought were thick annuals, which was a great read on a rainy day.

Besides the antics of Dennis the Menace, there was another story series that I liked: Billy the Cat. Actually, it was Billy the Cat and Katie, the girl and other half of this cat-suit wearing/crime-fighting duo.

But their suits were nothing feral like Cat Woman's or Batman's. They looked racer-like with the helmets and visors covering their heads and eyes. They remind me of blind Geodie in Star Trek: Next Generation, altogether pretty advanced. I don't think it was ever explained how the visor worked; it just was. As a kid, I found that visor to be quite cool.

Cool too was that claw-like thing that hung by their side. The kids would use it to haul themselves up high walls and to catch the bad guys with. That claw was also handy in rescuing themselves from binds and such. As a kid, I would make myself a paper claw and throw it at the railings to pretend scaling them. At one time, someone gave me a keychain that came with a small alligator paw. I would pretend that it was Billy's claw and play with it as such during my idle moments. It's funny how memories are sometimes triggered!

Besides the claw, the kids also fought crime with a mission backpack that held all sorts of tools and tricks. That made us kids feel like we were mini-James Bond spies or spy kids (like in those movies).

One particular gadget Billy and Katie later deployed (and that I enjoyed tremendously) to fight crime with was this bunch of remotely controlled robots that moved and behaved like real people. They were not huge - just a foot high, which made them the more endearing. At a time of clunky robots, these smooth walking/talking humanoids were quite something. I remember thinking: "Woah, how advanced! When will we ever see something like that!?" Besides behaving like humans, these robots were also able to act together in a sort of group dynamic - perhaps empowered by swarm intelligence? I recall the tiny robots looking very much like mini-versions of Billy and Katie in costume which meant they looked like miniature Iron Man running around!

That was my first introduction to remote control, robots and advanced robotics all at one go. Those tiny robots now remind me of the ones Arthur C Clark imagined in his Rama book series - robots that were brought into space to help explore an alien object. A better visual of the robots would be the agile ones in Will Smith's I, Robot, albeit at a much smaller scale. You know, if such tiny intelligent dynamos do exist and go rogue it would be very very scary indeed!

In the past year, I had worked hard to bring in programmable robots to help kids better learn robotics at a center. These were also foot-high and could be programmed to dance, perform tai-chi and even do a slow cartwheel. These robots had a somewhat humanoid but skeletal look, made of aluminum and interconnected by servo motors at the joints. At the time, a local polytechnic had also created a software version of them - one that you could program and place in a virtual environment. The best thing was, with the friendly computer interface, you could actually also control the real-world robot with whatever the virtual robot had learnt. It was all pretty useful and convenient at the time. But the real gem was allowing it to navigate in 3-D virtual space. One could indeed play the role of virtual 3-D architect.

There have been many advances made to such small humanoid robots. Many of the cheaper ones now come from South Korea. I, for one, hope to see a small agile robot with a smart vision system or one with true artificial intelligence. It's not so different a wish I had back in the 70s when I was reading Billy The Cat. Sigh, sometimes advanced technological ideas do take a long time to become reality, just like 3G networks and their companion smart mobile phones!

But at least one good thing did come out from reading Billy The Cat: it inspired me to go on to learn electronics. I am actually and naturally a more mechanical guy but I thought learning electronics (and RF electronics at that) would aid my natural abilities. How true!. Perhaps one day I will return to fiddling with transistors, diodes, servo motors and programming software to build a humanoid robot. After all, I was nominated once for a national technology award for building something very useful. Stuff like this is not beyond me. Sci-fi dreams can come true, don't they?

Modesty Blaise

2011-09-12T00:29:00.000-07:00

Reading comics is not necessarily a nerdy activity. Back in the 60s and 70s, comics with long story arcs ran in our local English dailies such as the Straits Times. Remember Tarzan? Or the sci-fi one called Garth?

They were the soap operas of the day for avid newspaper readers, dispensing action, gems of wisdom and action across all three panels of confined but glorious space.

My own favourite strip of that time has always been Modesty Blaise.

Modesty Blaise with her skills and adventures make her seem like a female James Bond; but she is not. She's more like the bored rich lady with the killer body and equally deadly skills. She could fire a pistol at a coin from 50 paces and drop-kick a big-guy goon from a standing position, all dressed in her signature black pant-suit, high heels and bunned-up hair.

Unlike Bond, she answers to nobody but herself. She has her own set of values and sense of justice. Her sexuality is classy, mature. She is not adverse to spending a night with an old love who has stopped over in town. Men of substance and grit pursue her. Certainly, there are similarities, but is Blaise a female James Bond then? No. She is a creature of her upbringing as well as life experience - all international. She is also a chick of 60s London.

Peter O'Donnell, the creator, conceived Modesty Blaise the strip after a chance encounter with a girl while doing his wartime service in the Middle East. This is the reason why Blaise was given such an exotic background story.

In some early-story panels, you see a young and naked Blaise meditating with an 'Indian guru'. Blaise is learning self-awareness or some deep mysteries of the mind and spirit from him. In actual fact, she is an orphan and that 'guru' is an acetic Hungarian scholar. As a child, Blaise was a prodigious talent. By age 12, she was deemed mature enough to take over a criminal gang based in Tangiers, Morocco. This gang was later referred to as "The Network" after it disbanded. It at The Network that she met and gave Willie Garvin his purpose in life. From then on, Garvin became her loyal friend and able sidekick. He was more like the 007 agent: he could fight, throw knives (he always carried two) and he liked his ladies and drink. But Garvin was never sleazy and always the gentleman. When not on a mission with Blaise, he ran his own pub.

Blaise grew up and later married a British guy named Turner and obtained British citizenry. That's how she ended up in London. But her marriage did not last long with Turner, who was an alcoholic. He died soon after divorcing Blaise. In London, Blaise got to know Sir Gerald Tarrant, a top official of the British Secret Service. It was not a chance friendship. Tarrant had been aware of Blaise's history (and abilities) through his investigation of The Network. However, he has nothing but fond respect for her. They shared an interest in ridding the world of some very evil and diabolical monsters. In his duties, Tarrant would often call upon Blaise and Garvin for help, especially when it was more discreet and expedient than involving Her Majesty's spies. This is where it gets all exciting and dangerous for Blaise and Garvin. For often, this is when and where the adventures of Blaise and Garvin would take off. Other times, the adventures are also triggered by loyalty to friends.

So you see, the Modesty Blaise comic strip is not your usual cup of tea. It is international, it is complex. More than that I like the way Peter O'Donnell crafted his stories: there's always something to learn, whether it is an exotic weapon used by Blaise or Garvin, or some tactic/technique to get some spy-ish job done. In one story, Blaise and Garvin even talked about memory mnemonics, of how ordinary objects could be used as aids to memorising long sequences of stuff like coded numbers. Stuff like this was only talked about in Singapore in the 90s!

In the comic strip, there are often sparring scenes between Blaise and Garvin in their dojo: it's a place where they keep and stay fit and agile. It is also when they have private time to discuss a case. While Garvin prefers to use throwing knives, Blaise relies on a kongo that also doubles as a hair roller. She can shoot darts with it too. A kongo is something a girl would use to deliver a deadlier punch or knock someone unconscious on the head. Between the two of them, there are more clever tricks.

Almost all the stories in Modesty Blaise are timeless. It was done intentionally by O'Donnell. He said the 60s was just an incidental backdrop where the stories were set. Replace the rotary dial phones, walkie talkies, period cars, etc., and the whole story could be transplanted to another era. How is this even possible?

Well, it can be done because Modesty Blaise stories are about encounters with exotic criminals carrying out nasty intentions. They could be drug peddlers, kidnappers or some king pin. For folks like these, you can find them across the millennium, not just the 60s. Also, fighting crime, solving international intrigue and overcoming danger - are stuff of James Bond films that have been attracting crowds to the cinemas for decades! So, O'Donnell's formula works. Besides, his engrossing stories are superbly illustrated by Jim Holdaway and then later by Enrique Romero. Both their pen-based drawings are timeless in flair and execution, although I have a slight preference for Romero. Really, you could just collect the Modesty Blaise comic books for their exquisite drawings alone! You can consider them 60s Period Art.

However, on the point of timeless-tale telling, O'Donnell did make an exception with his story Bad Suki. It is obviously (and delightfully so) set in the Swinging 60s. (It was quite prescient because it was set two years before all that swinging happened). That aside, it was a serious story about murderous drug peddlers.

One of my favourite stories is titled Uncle Happy. It's about a seemingly jolly and rotund philanthropist who actually runs a call-girl racket from his own private island. (In Modesty Blaise stories, the villians are often not what they seem.) When the missing girl of a friend turns up dead, Modesty and Willie decide to investigate. But once on the private island, they are captured and later made to play life-and-death games to survive. Along with them is captured also an American CIA agent named Steve. In one scene, Willie and Steve are forced to fight each other "to-the-death" beside a cliff. It is in this story sequence that I first learned the idea of "to roll with the punches" as a kid.

Steve and Willie then contrive to escape while seeming to fight each other to the death. In the end, Willie throws Steve off the cliff just as a swell was rolling in. It cushions his fall onto the rocks and he was then able to escape but not before faking his own drowning. Meanwhile, Uncle Happy continues his death inducing games, this time with Modesty. As a reader, you wonder how long these kind of game can go on before Modesty or Willie gets hurt. (And they often do.) Steve later returns with police reinforcements at the nick of time. It's an 'edge-of-the-seat' kind of suspense. Quite terrible if you have to wait a day (or over the weekend) for the next installment of panel story.

However, patience is not without its rewards. For a kid, there's a lot to learn from an intelligent comic strip like Modesty Blaise, as it ran day to day, week after week in the dailies. For everything else, there was Peanuts, Blondie, Bringing Up Father, Andy Capp, and Nancy.

What amazes me today is that some of these comic strips have been launched many donkey years ago and stayed published for decades. For example, Bringing Up Father was first published on January 12, 1913 and ran till May 28, 2000. Some 87 years!!! Fortune 500 companies don't even last a quarter that long! The lesson? Humour lasts.

As I grew up and worked and travelled, I would take any chance to hunt down a copy of Modesty Blaise comic book. For a time, they were re-issued and sold in Singapore, England and the U.S.

I am glad to say that I have a good collection of them now, but there are a couple more to trace. The sad news is that the author passed away in 2010 after suffering from Parkinson's in his later years. He was 90. But despite that, he set up a website in 2007 to be closer with his fans. (I was in London once and did not realise that he lived there. I would have dropped by to say hi and thank him for his wonderful stories. Quite a few of his Modesty Blaise stories also appears in book form (13, with another nine written under the pen name of Madeleine Brent). Modesty Blaise books are much harder to find, almost impossible here.

One thing I don't get: Nobody has been able to translate Modesty Blaise successfully to the big screen. The first attempt in 1966 starred a very youthful Terence Stamp as Garvin. It turned out to be rather campy. The second was in 2002 and hence more modern. But it took a different tack focusing on Blaise's early life instead. It was so badly casted and acted that it made viewing uncomfortable. No wonder it went straight to video instead of a cinema release. Incredibly, that same movie was even introduced by Quentin Tarantino on the cover of the DVD. He must have known that it was a crap movie. Did QT do it for a quick buck?

The core mistake these producers make is to bill Modesty Blaise as a secret agent. She was never one. The story of Modesty Blaise is that of a woman's journey - from her adoption as an orphan by that Hungarian scholar in Morocco to her retirement as The Network chief in London. There's also the story of Willie Garvin. Everything else is incidental, including her friendship with British top brass Sir Gerald Tarrant. He and Blaise help each other both ways, so, there should be enough material to craft a Modesty 1/2/3 trilogy, not to mention a long and engaging TV series similar in vein to 24.

Of all the actresses and movies that have graced our screens recently, I thought SALT (2010) comes closes to showcasing a woman who could take on the best criminals and spy agencies have to offer. If anybody can play Modesty with a bit of Middle Eastern mystic and charm, it is Angelina Jolie. I hope someone will take a look at Modesty Blaise again. If they could revive an iconic show like Hawaii Five-O, then there is hope. Besides, with Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise stories, the script source is already there. Seriously, his MB creation deserves enlightened treatment and the introduction to a wider audience.

If one has to put a tag on Modesty Blaise, it is that she is a female ex-crime boss. How many movies and films out there are about such female protagonists? None? So you see, there is a great opportunity and scope here. You can even pen her to be a female Robin Hood saviour sort of person, although that will make here character a bit idealistic. I prefer Blaise and Garvin mature and grounded the way they are.

Haha, maybe that is just the fan bit in me talking! And certainly there is no harm in me trying to write a script for a possible TV pilot. I am sure I can do a better job than what that has gone on before. Anybody up for a bit of 60s nostalgia and crime fighting?

Note: For pictures of Modesty Blaise comic strip, see Modesty Blaise Artworks under Anecdotal Links.

Precious Water

2011-09-11T09:24:00.000-07:00

The year I was born saw the first woman in space. The month I was born Astro Boy animation debuted on Japanese TV. The day I was born my mom screamed bloody murder.

She screamed twice actually. Once during my birth and the other during water rationing.

According to her, that year was particularly bad. The government rationed water quite frequently. We had only three reservoirs then and a severe drought that year caused the waterlines to drop and officials to panic. My eldest sister remembers the government trying even to seed clouds to make rain, a novel practice then. But despite all that money spent (some SGD$1 mil) apparently all that fell from that desperate attempt was disappointment and heavy hearts.

In Japan, things were quite the reverse. Very heavy snowfall caused a number of homes and buildings to collapse, killing over 230 people. Perhaps even then, Mother Nature was wreaking her global warming havoc all over the place.

My mom said that although the water rationing was frequent, it did not last long each time. It would be just for a few hours at most. People were also given early notice to prepare. The smarter folks would top up their empty containers first.

My dad, who worked in the heavy plant industry, managed to bring home a small water tank of sorts. I believed it was something formerly used on a ship or barge. He was at the time frequently in Thailand working for a company that supported the American effort in Vietnam. We were living in Changi in a terrace unit not far from where Kembangan MRT station is today.

After getting that tank, my mom wasn't so sure about its origins and its pre-loved use, so she cleaned it out and kept only water for washing in it only. For cooking, we used other saved water instead.

With water rationing so frequent, preparing milk for a new born like me must have meant sacrifices from my other siblings. Luckily, I am not born of twins, else the rationing would have extended to breast feeding too.

As I fortunately grew older, we moved to Geylang. Rationing still happened but with less an intensity than before. I remember the large ceramic urn we had in our bathroom, you know, the ones that could hold an adult or two curled up inside? We used that as a water container. We also had large plastic bins, courtesy again of my father's connected ways.

I remember being told to be careful with the use of water whenever we bathed. Sometimes, we were sent in twos, so as to conserve some water. The toilet was never flushed during water rationing. We scooped water from a pail instead.

As the monsoon rains returned regularly, so did the water rationing stop. In fact, the monsoons frequently caused floods. Along Sims Avenue, the floods were never too bad but still we had to be careful as the drains were not covered and often overflowed. Then, as we walked, we had to look out for road signs that stuck out. These told us where the side of the drains were. At times like these, we often hear of children being swept away playing in monsoon drains and canals. As my school was near a canal, I often worried for the safety of my classmates who lived near them. Fortunately nothing untoward ever happened to any of them. Me and my siblings might go hunt for spiders/climb trees but we never ever loitered in a canal. My mom would have screamed bloody murder.

Different Sky Same Wok

2011-09-06T00:50:00.000-07:00

I have a remarkable book that I bought from Amazon a few years ago. It's called My Grandmother's Chinese Kitchen - 100 Family Recipes and Life Lessons. Actually, I've stopped buying books a long time ago, preferring to instead borrow them from the library. I'd run out of space and the books turned yellow with age, making them rather unpleasant to read. But one yellowed book I don't mind reading over and over again is Dream Science, written by Thomas Palmer. Palmer did not write many books (two, I think), but Dream Science is truly exceptional. If there is a book I want to write, this would be it. And if there is one sci-fi book to recommend you, a non-fiction reader, this would be the title. I know you will not regret it.

In any case, why did I buy a book from Amazon then? Well, surprisingly, many of the recipes inside MGCK mirrored food my mother cooked when I was a kid. The author, Eileen Yin-Fei Lo, is Cantonese, and both she and her grandma came from the village of Siu Lo Chun, a small enclave in Sun Tak District in Guangdong Province - where my grandfather hailed from. I was curious as to how the recipes of my mom's and Eileen's grandma's were so similar. Did they come from the same village or thereabouts? Did all Cantonese cooked the same at home?

One can dismiss this as nonsense. After all, my mom and her grandma were both Cantonese and should originate from the same province in motherland China. Still, in our modern times, we cooked the same only if we went to the same culinary school, watched the same cooking shows, or grew up in the same family. So, how did these recipes get passed around from eons and distances apart?

Staple Cantonese dishes
When I was a kid growing up in Geylang, our meals consisted of a few staple dishes. We were a brood of seven so my mom had to cook in a fashion. A common dish was 'tung choy zeng g yoke' or Steamed Minced Meat with 'tung choy' (a brown preserved veg). Our TCZGY would normally be cooked and served on a medium-sized yellow enamel plate - common cookware in those days. TCZGY was easy to prepare, so we had it often. In fact, we had it so often that I can recall still the circular metal stand that was used in the steaming wok. It's fresh in my mind because I would help my mom transfer that hot steaming dish to the dining table with a three-legged clamp. As a kid, that was fun to use and unnerving at the same time. That three legged clamp was kind of rickety. TCZGY is a salty dish. It works very well with plain porridge, good when one is sick and low on appetite.

Another steamed dish was 'zeng gai tan' or Steamed Egg. This dish was often done with minced meat, salted eggs and century eggs mixed together. Fish cake was also sometimes added to give texture. My mom's ZGT was always smooth and silky, with a layer of gleaming oil and soy sauce on top once it's done.

'Si yau gai' or Soy Sauce Chicken was another staple dish. Today, you can find SYG at most zhi char stalls in the kopitiams. I once managed to cook it myself, in the same way my mom did. The amount of oil, soy sauce and ginger has to be just right. My mom was quite experimental in her cooking and modified this recipe over the years. She would add black bean curd strips, 'muk yee' (Wood Ear Mushroom), button mushrooms, etc., - almost anything that can and could be 'mun' (stewed).

Stewing was common in my mom's kitchen. It made sense: A stewed pot of stuff can serve a large family for a few days.

If you replace the chicken in SYG with pork and add star anise and cinnamon, you'd get 'mun gee yoke' or Stewed Pork. Together with chestnuts and tau pok, this dish would be eaten with rice or porridge. We sometimes ate it with 'gi cheong fun' scraps, courtesy of our neighbour making gee cheong fun downstairs. Broken gee cheong fun was of no use to them and so we ate it similar in fashion to 'kway chap'.

A dish quite similar to SYG was 'bak jau gai' or Chicken in White Wine (rice wine). For some reason, muk yee works really well in this dish. I doubt you can find anything more appetising than this rice wine dish, perhaps second only to red glutinous wine chicken ('hung lor mai chau gai'). Well, if you can tolerate alcohol that is. My mom wasn't too worried that we kids were underaged or not. Her philosophy was: "A little of everything won't kill ya."

Vegi-good
In terms of vegetables, I remember eating a lot of 'choy sum' - either stirfried or in soup. As soup, it was often accompanied by fish balls made from 'sai toh yu' or Wolf Herring (Ikan Parang). We also liked her 'harm yu nga choy tau foo' or Salted Fish with Bean Sprouts and Bean Curd. The salted fish would be bought from Chinatown. We had 'kai lan' in oyster sauce as well but it was a veg we kids found bitter in parts.

A soup culture
People often equate drinking lots of soup with the Cantonese. Well, it's true. In my days of growing up in Geylang, we had lots of soup, often brewed in a large green enamel pot that was white inside. They still sell such pots in Ang Mo Kio. We often made red bean soup in that pot too, the red contrasting with the white. My mom learned from her neighbour to flavour it with dried 'kum peh' or Tangerine Peel.

We almost always had soup with rice and dishes. The thinking was that food with soup went down better. Also, soup can have healing properties if cooked right. Speaking of cures, we kept a claypot and charcoal stove especially for cooking Chinese medicine. After it proved too smoky and messy, we switched to gas.

For general health, a good soup to have was 'lin ngau tong' or Lotus Root Soup. The lin ngau was cooked with pork or pork rib and black beans. Some times peanuts were used in place of the black beans. At times, both. Eating the lin ngau was quite fun then for a kid. You bite into one and out comes this spidery web. The holes in the root was interesting too. I think one reason why my mom cooked this soup was it went well with rice. It's a complete meal by itself so it made feeding seven children that much easier. Also, lin ngau was supposed to be beneficial to the body. (The root is actually rich in iron and other nutrients, a Top 9 food to have according to TCM practitioners since ancient times.)

Another oft-drank soup was 'sai yong choy tong' or Chinese Watercress Vegetable Soup. It's a signature dish of my mom's. I like its taste and the fibrous nature of the veg. Most times, my mom would boil this soup together with pork ribs, red dates, 'gei chi' (wolf berries) and 'gung yu jai' (anchovies). Unlike the same soup sold at food stalls, my mom's SYCT wasn't oily at all. Boy, I could never get enough of the watercress!

We had other soups like 'lo wong kua tong' or Old Cucumber Soup, and 'jit kua tong' or Winter Melon Soup. JKT with salted egg had a distinctive flavour and very refreshing. It is a great cooling soup to have after a day in the sun.

If we got sick, my mom would make 'gee gon tong' or Pig Liver Soup. This gingerly broth feels wholesome and life affirming. Quite appropriate as a convalescent soup. You can smoothen out the harshness of the liver in the soup by adding rice wine to it.

Perhaps my all-time favourite soup as a kid was 'she jai tong' or Potato Soup. Unlike the Western version, this semi-clear soup is made with diced potatoes and carrots, sliced onions and minced meat. It is an easy dish to prepare and very nourishing - very suitable for busy, working people to make. I've made it myself a few times. All you have to do is slow-cook it overnight. You can also make it more flavourful by adding in herb roots and vegetables such as Chinese celery. Just get the proportions right, else the taste would go off kilter!

As kids, we didn't take to strong smelling vegetables like 'fu gua' or Bittergourd very much. My mom had a dish called 'tau si mun fu gua' or Bittergourd Stewed in Bean Paste, which I like very much now but not as a kid. At the time, my mom would complain that we 'sek fun sek tho oy sei' (literally "eat dinner until like wanna die") whenever we were served fu gua. To entice us, she would claim that fu gua was good for our skin and pimples. Still, we ate it sparingly. Later, as we got older a bit, we would joke that life is tough, why we were still eating fu gua. ('Mang fu sek fu gua' - was this a line from Man in The Net?)

There would also be 'fu gua tong' or Bittergourd Soup, often cooked with a dropped salted egg. This is actually quite similar to the jit kua tong mentioned earlier. This JKT soup is very commonly found on Western Chinese restaurant menus. It's one of those heritage soups that the angmohs first got acquainted with dining out Chinese.

Another vegetable that didn't find much favour with us kids was brinjal. Its 'lum pat pat' (mushiness) texture turned us off. I only loved it as an adult and now like it cooked in sambal belachan. I would often have it together with fried white beehoon as breakfast food. A zhi char stall below my block does both very well. It is a pity that they got replaced recently by another stall. The new zhi char fellas don't cook the white beehoon as wet, soft and less oily than the previous guys.

No fried foods
As kids, we seldom ate fried food, not even chicken wings. Our chickens were often cooked 'bak cham', that is, broiled. For my birthday, my mom would always buy me a 'bak cham gai geok' (broiled chicken drumstick) without fail. If there was any fried food, it would be banana fitters. The stall we bought them from would also sell 'muk she go' or tapioca fritter, including my other favourite, the 'luk tau' or green bean fritter.

Mom's signature dishes
My mom had a few more signature dishes. One of my favourites was 'kum dau mun g yoke' or Baked Beans Stewed w Minced Meat. It's a very simple dish that takes only minutes to prepare. To make it even more fillling, my mom would add potato and luncheon meat cubes to it. It's what I call a 'fai chan' or fast food dish. For some reason, I can eat baked beans anytime. I am not sure why, perhaps I was a Mexican in a previous life!

Another baked bean dish my mom cooked went well with pork chop. This pork chop is first breaded and then fried to an orange color. Baked beans, peas and onions are then dished on as condiment, all steeped in a sweet, tangy tomato sauce. I think my mother first fries her pork chop with a prepared mix, why the strong orange color. It left a deep impression in my memory. I used to find this pork chop dish (sliced up) at zhi char stalls in the 90s, but not any more. But you can still eat a version of it at Nam Kee Chicken Rice Restaurant, the one along Upper Thomson Road that is just a few doors away from Fatboys Burger.

Wok with beans
Speaking of beans, my mom enjoyed cooking with long beans and French beans. Both would be done with 'har mai' (dried shrimps), onions and anchovies. Sliced fish ball and fish cake ('yu yun' and 'yu paeng') would sometimes be added too. I think when you have kids, fish ball and fish cake are two great ingredients to have in the fridge. They make vegetable dishes more appetitising to children. As kids, however, we never had any problems with vegetables, unlike our Western counterparts if TV sitcoms and talk shows are to be believed. We were expected to eat a variety of stuff. If you didn't, you were either weird or being difficult. You could get caned too.

My mom also made yong tau foo herself, sometimes cooked in soup or fried as a dish. I remember helping her scale the fish and scoop fish flesh off with a spoon. The fish meat would be used for filling up the tau foo, tau pok and fu gua.

Fave rice dish
Another specialty dish of hers was 'harm fan' or Soy Sauce Rice. This, like fried rice, was another single dish that could easily feed a big family; it was all cooked in the rice cooker. The ingredients were few, like soy sauce, ginger, har mai, Chinese sausages and fish cake cubes. Sometimes chicken was added. If I knew my mom was cooking ham fan on a particular day, I would make it a point to get home early from school. It is a bit strange, but I find ham fan to be like fish head curry rice. You can eat and eat without stopping, why some folks end up with indigestion. I literally have to limit myself to avoid that, now and when I was a kid. And ham fan with pepper makes it even more scrumptious!

You could consider my mom a good cook. She was a full-time housewife and so had time to experiment. One of the more exotic soups she came up with was 'baht chau yu tong' or Octopus Soup, often times cooked with pork. She even cooked rabbit soup once but didn't tell us what it was so as not to upset us. At the time, we owned a pet rabbit then. I sometimes wonder if that rabbit in the pot was a recently deceased one that belonged to us. For every time we tried to buy a rabbit companion for our pet rabbit Bumble, these other rabbits would invariably die, and die of diarrhea. The whole thing was kind of weird. And not that Bumble was an unfriendly creature. After a few tragic results, we simply gave up.

CNY heralding dishes
Like many mothers in Singapore, come Chinese New Year, my mom would up her cooking a few notches. She would then cook dishes with auspicious names that had a lot to do with wealth, long life and happiness. Things like, 'fatt choy mun tung ku', 'tan bak gei zi cheng har', 'gee pei mun fut sao', 'ho see mun fu chok tung fun', etc., etc. I won't translate as it would take too long.

During this festive season, my mom would make 'kok jai' or Peanut Puffs. Kok jai looks like miniature curry puffs but are filled with sugar and peanut instead. We kids loved to help our mom make this pastry. The process is quite similar to making curry puffs. We would first measure and cut the dough patties. We did this simply, with the aid of a large F&N drink bottle. We would use its bottom as both measure and cutter. Then, we would put the filling in and wrap it into a puff. Next, we turned the edges into curly folds. As kids, we had smaller fingers, so it was easier for us to do this than the adults.

Traditional no more
Like most people, we too lamented when our mom stopped making such traditional delicacies. I am not sure when that happened and I sure miss those times playing with the dough on our round marble-top dining table. I am not being bias but her kok jai tasted so much better than any sold today.

At the tail-end of Chinese New Year, my mom would slice up any left over sticky 'nin go' or New Year Cake and fry them in batter. She still does this every CNY.

My mom has never been shy of innovating in the kitchen, partly out of necessity and having so many mouths to feed. Because she visits often with Chinese doctors and medicine shops, she learnt to combine food taste with medicinal cure. She doesn't cook Western but hankers for a good steak now and then. As a matter of fact, as she got older, she liked to sample different types of food. A recent trip was to Prince Coffee House in Beach Road for their signature Ox Tail stew.

Food that binds
I am well aware that my mom will leave this green Earth some day. So, it is good to learn some of her recipes while she is still alive and her mind not ravaged by some disorder. Such knowledge is what binds a people. For me, I feel lucky to have found that book by Eileen Lo. She showed that my food heritage went further back than just my mom's kitchen. Back to a time and place where my parents' parents were kids themselves once looking forward to the same dishes as I did myself in Geylang. Now, isn't that a remarkable thing?

Note: Another remarkable cookbook is The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen by Grace Young. It has more of a medicinal bend. It's a worthwhile addition to any Cantonese cookbook collection.

A Western Education

2011-09-05T01:55:00.000-07:00

A movie like Cowboys and Aliens (now showing in the cinemas) should appeal to me - someone who enjoys Westerns as well as Sci-fi; it is like the best of worlds. But I am not rushing to see it yet. Somehow, the two (cowboys and aliens) seem at odds with one another. A typical Western runs at a languid pace, the vistas span the horizon larger than life. The reluctant hero speaks little. And when there is a stand-off, the characters squint and look at each other for a long time - no one wants to be the first to twitch. Even flies get bored and fly away.

The alien movie, on the other hand, thrives on confined spaces often to create a sense of foreboding. Space might be huge but it has no horizon, so you don't really have an affinity for it. If its blackness does not suffocate you, the boredom will after a while. The aliens don't typically move at Usain Bolt pace; they tended to drag their sorry asses (or whatever appendages the director deemed fit to put on them) along. Aliens that move at a fast pace simply look like ants. What's so scary about that? They should hide in tight spaces and surprise you when you least expect. Drooling even, in anticipation. An alien in a Western setting would just go beserk. It will soon scurry and hide under a rock or cave. Open land spaces scare aliens, why they seldom survive. Unless they happen to crash in an area known as Area 51. There they would be kept alive and probed, just like the recent smart-mouth alien, Paul, in the movie, er, Paul.

A love for westerns
My love for Westerns grew, I suspect, from watching one too many as a kid. In the 60s and 70s, there were plenty of them on Singapore TV - mostly in black and white. There was Gunsmoke, Rifleman, Have Gun - Will Travel, The Big Valley, Zorro, Bonanza, and The Wild Wild West.

I enjoyed them all because even though they were of the same genre, they each offered something different.

Everybody needs a 2nd chance
In Gunsmoke, James Arness was the leader, a marshal who treated everybody with equal fairness even if you were a native Red Indian. That showed a universal respect for human rights and above all, that justice should prevail regardless of skin colour. Red Indians in the show (now given more lines than the token "How, kimo sabi" speech) became more believable. The show also gave starring roles to 'coloured' actors. I saw for the first time blacks dressing as successful persons other than just slaves or labourers. It told me that you might be a minority race but if you had the flair and the smarts, you could be your own person. Another aspect of this show I found intriguing was the character of Kitty. She worked in a saloon and you could guess that she was a call girl of sorts, always having a soft spot for the Arness character, Marshal Matt Dillion. As a kid, you don't see her in any sexual way (ok, maybe her buxom did) but as the companion and good person that she was. She gave that "oldest profession in the world" a human face. Really, as a man, your confidante need not necessarily be your best drinking mate or spouse. A woman can play that role too.

As a Western, I found Gunsmoke immensely different, maybe why it ran as long as it did. It didn't treat the Old West as the usual place: an idealised outpost of pioneer versus native, or as a wham-bang 'shoot-em-up' place. Every week, the situations were realistic, the themes adult. Probably the doctor character, Doc Adams, best sums up the show: not everything in the West is what it seems. Each person has his or her own back-story, one that he/she might be desperately trying to forget. And in arriving at Dodge City, everybody is equal and start afresh. How cool is that?

Another character in Gunsmoke that was quite unforgettable was that of Festus. His whiny and nasal voice might be irritating but it is kudos to the actor himself that it came across as one of compassion and folksy humour. From him, I learnt not to judge a person like I would a book cover. Even idiosyncratic people can be fun and relied on in a pinch. He was indeed the most unlikely of law enforcement deputies.

Violence not the answer
In Rifleman, I was at first enthralled by that rapid fire weapon. That's how the show always begun. But as you watched on, you realised that Chuck Conners wasn't a man who liked violence. He often conveyed this to his son. And surprisingly, he seldom if at all carried a six-shooter - quite odd for a Western or a man living in those times. The show brought home the fact that it must have been tough growing up without a mom. And that as a single kid with no siblings, you had only your parent as your world. I was glad I had a brother and many sisters, even if we quarreled some of the time. And in a pioneer setting, having a kin mattered a lot. Although the Chuck Conner's character came across as independent, I realised that to survive, no man can be an island. Chuck Conners also had a face and physique that was hard to forget and he stayed in my memory for a long time. You could say he was my first action hero. An "ang-mo" (foreign) hero, that is.

Gun justice for hire
Have Gun - Will Travel, I remember for a variety of reasons. First, the opening song: "Have Gun Will Travel reads the card of a man. A knight without armor in a savage land. ...Paladin, Paladin, where do you roam. Paladin, Paladin, far far from home." I think it was sung by Pat Boone. I would hum it cycling. Paladin gave me the first indication that I could leave home and make a career of being a gun for hire - albeit for good. And for many days, I would dream of being independent and travelling to troublesome places. I even made up a business card just like Paladin. But mine featured a rabbit instead of a chess knight. Rabbit was my zodiac sign (or so I thought).

I also drew Paladin's chess knight emblem on the back of my erasers. Paladin was almost the anti-hero. He read books, showed a preference for salons with nice draperies, and attended theatre. He might be in a Western but he took time to change into nice duds whenever an event called for it. Paladin liked the good life in an understated way - a gentleman of principles with firepower strapped to his leg. Travel, do good things, any decent boy would love that!

Strong woman
The Big Valley was a girl's Western (as my sisters will attest). It starred actress Barbara Stanwyck as a feisty ranch owner. At the time, this was quite unusual as many of the stories on TV had women mostly in housewife roles such as Father Knows Best, My Three Sons, and even Bewitched. Stanwyck's character showed that as a widow with children you could still pick up the pieces after a husband/breadwinner's death. She was no lame dame and many a time, she had to fight off greedy businessmen intent on acquiring her ranch - legally or otherwise. She battered sexism, she battered intimidation. Stanwyck wasn't the most alluring actress at the time but in her role, she came across as classy, smart, and tough. I think there was a good man who pined for her attention. There always is in this kind of story.

A fencing good time
No kid can forget Zorro, why the studios went and made a movie starring Antonio Banderas in 1998. By then, we were all adults nearer the side of forty. Is that the age when we hanker for remakes? Zorro I remember mostly for his mustache, fencing and that fat soldier who was always trying to catch him without any success. Zorro was no different from Robin Hood in his altruistic nature. But his need to keep his identity secret was an incredible hook to millions of fans. The show was actually very slapstick and utterly predictable. For a long time, I hankered for a sword like Zorro's only to find out at a 2nd-hand goods store near Newton Circus that an actual blade weighed like a ton (esp. to a scrawny kid like me).

Family drama out West
Of all the Westerns, Bonanza was perhaps the most famous. This could be due to its stars, who went on to helm other popular TV shows such as Little House on the Prairie (Michael Landon), Battlestar Galactica (Lorne Green) and Trapper John, MD (Pernell Roberts). I think in Bonanza, especially for boys, one could identify with the kind of personality you were with the sons of the patriarch Ben Cartwright.

Little Joe (Landon) was young and impetuous. Horse (Dan Blocker) was warm and gentle, almost innocent (and girl shy). And Adam (Roberts), was the level-headed one in the family. Bonanza wasn't so much the typical Western but a family drama set in the so-called Wild West.

In Bonanza, the stories were rather predictable. But because of the three boys and what they stood for, they often got into scrapes. It is usually a result of protecting the modesty and chastity of a girl they happened to come across. Another popular theme was run-ins with cattle hustlers. The Cartwrights showed lots of chivalry and righteousness, but not always in the most astutest of manners. They seemed to tell me that as boys, it was alright to fight (even with fists) for what's right - the sort of thing that appealed to young, idealistic boys.

Happy skirt chasers
Wild Wild West I liked for their inventiveness and quirky humour. Somehow, action men with a sense of humour appealed to me as a kid. You could be starring in the face of death but without a sense of humour, death was usually swift. Might as well have that last laugh, was my motto then. Later, Roger Moore of James Bond fame reminded me much of Robert Conrad, the lead in Wild Wild West. Both liked chasing after women and charming them with humour.

Linda Purl - what a cat
Later on, besides Little House on the Prairie, there was another impactful TV series about a pioneering family called Young Pioneers, starring Linda Purl. Me and my fellow male classmates were quite taken by her. To us, she was the epitome of the good woman who needed protection from a strong, reliable guy. Pretty yet chaste, sweet yet tough, willing yet weak. Well, at least that's how the show portrayed her and how we fantasized about it. Haha....Later, Jodie Foster came onto the scene and we thought how similar the two were in looks and stature. Calista Flockhart (Alley McBeal) even more so. But she was SO whiny.

Fave westerns
My favourite Westerns are The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, and Unforgiven. For alien movies, it is the Alien series and The Thing, which will have a prequel showing in Singapore later this year. Looking at these movies, you can see why a movie like Cowboys and Aliens would not work; not as an actioner anyways.

I think The Thing comes closest to being a Western with its desolate landscape, isolated community and idiosyncratic characters each with his own emotional and social baggage. There was also the stand-off between the alien (infected people) and those who weren't.

Mr Strong Silent Type
I admit unashamedly that I like Clint Eastwood and his spaghetti Westerns. They remind me of a time when all a man needed to go places was a horse, a blanket, a six-shooter, a canteen and a Stetson. And yes, a pot of coffee and lots of beans. I have no issue with beans as I can eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But only the small beans though. They are less raw and more flavourful. There's a simple recipe to make them even more delicious right out of the can!

Playing Cowboy & Indians
Like the other boys my age growing up in Geylang, I too had a holster set of toy pistols, bullets and badge. Man, that sheriff badge was precious, especially if it was metal. Me and my siblings played Cowboys and Indians often. To make our pretend wagon, we would face two of our wooden living room chairs back to back and drape a blanket over. Sometimes, that doubled as a teepee.

During our time, the bow and arrows we had were made of cane, not plastic. We didn't have two, so we would use 'lastic' instead. Lastic was a weapon with paper v-shaped bullets shot off with rubber bands. For additional guns, we made them out of two interlocking pieces of paper.

Ultraman
As for aliens, we didn't know of any then, only the ones that bothered Ultraman. They were actually more like pests, the way they pop up and destroy stuff. Ultraman the Pest Remover. Haha, who knew!

Familiar Roads

2011-09-01T09:48:00.000-07:00

Presently, there are a few roads in Singapore that hold some nostalgic significance for me... you know, roads that lead somewhere but will invariably transport you back to a place in time.

'Dai Por' or South Bridge Road
South Bridge Road in particular was where my mom shopped often. We would go to a shop that sold watches. Next to it was a shop that sold books. They were all a street or so from Poh Heng goldsmith shop opposite the Sri Mariamman Temple. My mom had an interest in jade, so she would visit Poh Heng often to fixed up her jade pieces. She would suss out other places in Chinatown to buy and trade them. Some of these shop owners became friends, like the wife of the owner of the watch shop. My very first watch actually came from there. Whenever she visited 'piew soh' (watch lady), I would hang out at the next door bookshop to browse. That's how I got acquainted with the antics of Lau Fu Zhi and San Mao, that very poor boy from Shanghai. Besides these comics, this bookshop sold mainly Chinese journals and fiction. They also carried stationery items like ballpoints and fountain pens. Parker and Sheaffer were hugely popular then. My dad got his Parker (and ink bottle) from this shop. For me, it was my first 'tombow' eraser.

Outside the watch shop, in the five-foot way, was an Indian man who sold semi-precious stones from behind a glass cabinet. From him, I developed a love for colored gems. I didn't care if they were real or not. They were just pretty to look at. They reminded me of stories of pirate treasures and Arabian thieves like Aladdin.

I still have this collection of colorful jewels. One reminds me of a funny story. I was climbing up my Geylang home staircase one day when I spied something shiny lying between the steps. It was shaped like a diamond and sparkled so. But my hopes were dashed when I discovered that it was nothing but a worthless decorative piece of plastic. That shiny stone had dropped off from an aunt's defective shoe!

Accompanying my mom on her jade sourcing trips was pretty useful. It gave me knowledge about jade and its different qualities and types. For example, there is such a thing called 'pui chong yoke' or burial jade. According to superstitious beliefs, this kind of jade is very good for protection against evil spirits and so was very much sought after. But these kinds of jade are only available if grave-robbing is still a trade. Last I checked, people were more interested in robbing the living!

There was "mah lau" or red jadite, something very common in Taiwan, a big supplier. This was something I learned later during my National Service while doing R&R in Kaoshiung and Taipei. Everywhere we went people were trying to sell us ma lau. It happened also at our army base camp in Hen Chun earlier. However, much of the ma lau sold in Taiwan were the glassy type that was pretty to look at but worthed little.

In time, I learnt to tell good jade from bad. Cracks are the most obvious of defects and can be seen usually with a torchlight held from below. Cracks can be in the main body of the jade or at where the hang-hole is drilled. At times, a hang-hole is not necessary; it depended on how the jade is 'siong', i.e. attached to silver or gold to be later used as a pendant, brooch or earring. Even fragmented pieces of jade can be turned into fancy bangles with joints and catches.

I also learned to appreciate the different shades of jade green. The deepest and richest green shades are the best, but it also depended on the shape of the jade piece itself. The mix of colours is also important. Good colour variations worked especially well for large pendant pieces and jade bangles. The reason is that they have to match the skin types of the ladies who wear them. How the green in the jade bloomed is also important. My mom would tell her customers: "Jade is alive. Wear it often and long and the jade 'fah wan' (cloud pattern) will grow with you."

In the last decade or so, there has been a modernisation in how jade is used, especially in stringed or roped necklaces. In such setups, jade, combined with beads and knots were made to look tribal. Brown or dark green (what is termed as "tit lung chang" or Iron Cage Green, a kind of dark green verdigris) jade was the popular choice.

For men, the choice of jade was very simple back then. They mostly liked rectangular grass green jade 'siong' in solid gold and worn as rings, especially the business towkays. Some even liked the bigger ones to wear on their thumb finger. I've always found that to be rather Ah Pek or Ah Seng in fashion sense; even as a kid.

I have a small piece of jade given to me when I was born - something of a custom back then. I wore it on a string for a long time in primary school. It was 'siong' with gold. The jade piece did get greener as the years went by. My mom attributes this to my life force, and I think that is why she loves dealing in jade. A piece of beautiful jade is a manifestation of a person's inner beauty. As a kid, I thought that was pretty cool. Looking at some of the sought-after pieces of jade my mom has, they were indeed one of a kind. When the interior blooms of the jade are lush and bursting forth, they look as if they were infused with energy and passion!

Some of my favourite pieces are not green but lilac. I especially liked those that are carved as miniature vegetables as they worked best in different shades of green. Brinjals look natural in lilac and pink, as do longevity peaches. Other common shapes of jade include animals from the zodiac signs: rabbits, pigs, dragons, etc. There are bats, crickets, cicadas and goldfishes as well. Bat in Cantonese sounds like 'fook' for Luck, so it is an auspicious creature to wear as a pendant. The creature is often carved hanging onto a peach, which by itself is a symbol of prosperity.

My mom would also drop by Poh Heng goldsmith shop quite often to get her jade pieces 'siong'. Once there, she would take a while chitchatting. Poh Heng was busy then, with fellow housewives and "ah mahs" in buns doing business there. It was none of my business, so I would pop over to the nearby toy distributor shop. Next to this was a camera one. When she's finally done, we would cross over and stop off at the corner Crane shoe shop (at the junction of Cross Street) to look at shoes. This became a regular shoe shop for me later in my young adult life. A polyurethane soled-shoe I bought there was so freakingly long-lasting that it even outlasted a few girl friends I had.

'For Saeng' or Fire Town (i.e. Kampong Glam area)
I know this area to be the one around the Kallang Gasworks with its ubiquitous ten-storey tall gas tanks that was once at the cross-junction of Victoria and Lavender streets. That such gigantic gas tanks were at the edge of the city area was quite the sight. Many people passed by them on their way to work.

Behind this gasworks was a kampung of timber yards and houses. A Chinese doctor lived there. My mom used to bring me there to see him. Later, his daughter would take over the practice.

My sister worked for a long time in Kranji as an administrator and accountant. By the 80s, Kranji had become Singapore's major timber industrial area. The company she worked for processed raw, sawn timber planks and churned them into door and window frames for export. According to her, workers who worked with timber quite often suffered from a multitude of skin problems - no thanks to chemicals sprayed on the original tree and subsequent timber to kill off insects and other infestations. Many such chemicals were hazardous pesticides. As a consequence of treating these workers, some of the GPs in the area became experts in skin problems. One such clinic was located in Kranji itself, near the food centre. It has since moved to Marsiling.

The same thing happened to that Chinese doctor in For Saeng. By treating workers around the timber yards in that area, he built up a good knowledge of cures using TCM. He was particularly good with eczema and such skin ailments. According to a BBC documentary, no one could quite explain why TCM cures for eczema worked better than Western ones - they just did. Moreover, they worked not as a general prescription, but as a personalised 'ta mak' (take pulse) formula as well. It just made the whole thing more incredible than it already was.

I do not know why my mom brought me to For Saeng to see that Chinese doctor. I don't remember suffering from any skin problems. Measles, yes, but not any chronic skin condition. Perhaps she was enquiring about a different matter altogether. The reason why I have had time to roam around?

My visits there were full of fascination. I got to play with sawdust, saw how the timber yards worked and most of all, got to play with scorpions. Where sawdust is, scorpions are likely nest, was what I learned. That Chinese doctor also made medicines out of them. There would be jars of these creatures soaked in herbs and alcohol in his home-clinic.

On the Lavender side of For Saeng, just before the casket shops was where my grandfather and his friends had their machine shops. That area used to be full of them and walking along Jellicoe Street, one could literally smell grease and hot metal. Sparks would fly from the welding rods and din from the cutters and grinders would reverberated around that narrow street. The white shop walls, framed with green painted wood, were greatly stained with greasy fingerprints. I often wondered how the smells and stains would be gotten rid of should the shops be sold for area upgrading. Anybody who has ever worked at a motor workshop knows how stubborn these stuff can be.

These workshops were also the reason why that part of Lavender Street was home to so many hardware shops. You can still find some of them there today.

Around the corner where Penhas Road met Lavender Street, was an old tall apartment block with trademark 1950s green windows. Relatives of my father used to stay in the upper floors. My grandma would later move in with them after my grandfather's death. When he was alive, my grandfather stayed in a big bungalow in Duchess Road in Bukit Timah - one of the many properties he and his friends developed from wealth they earned building and machining stuff during the 50s-60s shipbuilding boom. I think I've got his genes in me as I liked to get mechanical from time to time, with a great interest in power tools and workshop equipment. In school, I was pretty handy with a lathe machine.

My granddad's bungalow was one of those classic Chinese types with thick red pillars in front. It had a rooftop that doubled as a patio with all-round railing. It was accessed via a circular staircase that was located in the kitchen. I liked that kitchen. It had an open design (a large air well) that made the whole house cool and airy. The house did not seem to have many bedrooms. Instead, the space was given to a large living room that was connected directly to the kitchen via a small dining area. I guess my granddad, like me, liked open spaces.

In the front small garden, my granddad had a rambutan tree that was overrun by black ants. Next to it, was a chiku tree. Whenever I am there and was 'high tide', I would be ordered to pee on the trees. Back then, the poor black ants got rained on a lot by me. It was not all fun as I also worried one might drop and bite my 'gu gu jiao'. So such visits to the tree was often a hurried affair.

On the other side of the driveway was a frangipani tree. On our visits, my mom and I would collect the fallen flowers and dry them in the sun till they turned brown. Then, we would use them like tea leaves and make a brew out of it. How did it taste? Well, very pleasant, like Jia Jia Liang Cha (a popular canned herbal drink).

Every time I visit this relative of mine in Penhas Road, me and my cousins would roam the area. We would observe the nearby casket shops and be fascinated by all that grieving and embalming of the dead. I was never afraid, believing death to be part and parcel of life. The only thing I didn't like was the way our Chinese cemeteries were organised. It was all very haphazard unlike the neat affairs in Hong Kong. My previous visits to sweeping tombs at the old Pek San Cemetery Hill reinforced this view. And I think the present Pek San columbarium in Bishan is one of the poorest designed facilities in Singapore. It has non-existent ventilation, poor layout and exceptionally boring features. They should tear it down and build a better one.

'Ngau Chay Sui' or Chinatown
When I was young, Chinatown market was in the streets, not in some building with a carpark. In some old videos, you can see a woman selling live meats of snakes, turtles, frogs and rabbits. We bought our first and only rabbit pet from her. It was a brown female hare and we named it Bumble. Bumble lived with us in Geyland and elsewhere till it died of old age - some eight years later. That rabbit loved its coffee and white bread and also our power cords and Japanese slippers. Somehow, my mother, in her own unfathomable wisdom, managed to toilet-train it. Bumble was an affectionate rabbit and we all missed it when it passed away, especially my brother, who treated the rabbit as his own.

This meat-seller's stall in Chinatown held a fascination for me. It was always a blood and gore affair whenever she was in business. Even if you didn't buy anything you could just gawk at her many wire cages of animals both wild and tame.

My mom made friends with quite a few of the hawkers in Chinatown. Over the years, even after they had moved to the new building, she would make it a point to still shop there. Chinatown wasn't near at all to where we lived, but my mom claimed the vegetables were always fresher than what we could get up North.

In those days, my dad loved eating chicken rice in Chinatown. The hawkers then were street vendors and we would just sit by the side of the road for our meals. I remember that the bak cham gai (white chicken meat) was always eaten with yellow mustard, not just black sauce and chilli. This pratice stopped with Boon Tong Kee sometime in the mid-90s. These days, when I tell my younger colleagues about this, they would look at me quizzically as if I'm mixing Chinese cuisine with Western. That old-way of eating is the reason why I keep a bottle of Hot English Mustard at home. Besides chicken white meat, it is also good for all sorts of meats, especially sausages. Eating fried noodles one time, I discovered that English mustard gave it a fantastic lift, not unlike wasabe. But less a cranial attack. That yellow mustard somehow works well with soya sauce. Fusion food chefs will no doubt confirm this. You can even try it on Maggi noodles.

With the advent of shopping centres, the shops in Dai Por began to disappear. The distributors, however, remained longer. At the time, it was quite fun walking the five-foot ways to observe the different businesses. In Kallang, the gasworks were moved to Senoko; the giant tanks were removed in 1998. The river behind was cleaned up for recreation long after the timber yards were closed and moved to Kranji. That Chinese doctor's practice was taken over by his daughter and moved to King George's Avenue. As for Lavender Street, many of the buildings around the casket businesses are still there but Jellicoe Road has changed. A row of the workshops was demolished, replaced by a condominium.

I always think back to my childhood days whenever I visit Lavender Food Square (usually for that excellent Bugis Street Beef Noodles). This stall is rather unusual in that it still serves the condiments of salted black beans and jin chalok like they did back in the days when transvestites still plied that famous street. According to the stall owner, they kept it that way because the older folks were familiar with that way of eating. I'm glad they did because a new-gen guy like me learned to like it too.

My grandfather passed away in 1981. The bungalow he lived in was sold and replaced by a multi-apartment complex. All the trees in front were gone, including that rambutan one I nourished. I often wonder what tales my grandfather would tell if he was still alive. And my grandma? Last I heard, she spent part of my grandfather's riches travelling all over China. We did have relations (and land) still in Guangzhou.

Big China Biscuit Shop

2011-09-01T07:01:00.000-07:00

Recently, while walking past Japan Home (a store that sells household essentials like a mini Daiso), I was surprised to see Chinatown's Tai Chong Kok mooncakes being sold there. They were put in brown paper carrier bags like those commonly given out by provision shops when I was young. They were the equivalent of the plastic carrier bags taken out by consumers from NTUC supermarts today.

The only difference was the strings. The original ones had a two-tone twist of red and white. The last time I saw such bags were at the Museum of Shanghai Toys in Rowell Road a few years ago. I read somewhere that present-day TCK uses these retro paper carrier bags twice a year for their confectionery promotions.

When I was a kid growing up in Geylang, my mom would often go to Chinatown. If she went alone or with my other siblings, I would always eagerly wait for her return; for she would inevitably bring some snacks back from Tai Chong Kok. A common snack was pak feu peang or White Powder (Cake) Biscuit. The other that I liked was kei ji peang (literally Chess Piece Biscuit). They do indeed look like Chinese chess pieces in size. It was a semi-hard biscuit that tasted like brown mooncake skin, made out of bean. Even today, I would have to stop myself from stuffing myself silly with this biscuit.

Pak feu paeng had an ancient story about a lazy wife behind its origins. Because she was lazy and liked lying in bed, her husband worried she would starve when he went away out of town. So in order to prevent that, he baked a large pak feu paeng to wear around her neck. But despite his good intention, his wife still starved to death. Turns out, she was even too lazy to turn the biscuit around after eating what was in front. I believe this story was told by Lee Dai Sor over Rediffusion. Just one of the many moral tales he often told.

My mom would also buy back wan pin kou, kai zhai paeng and yi zhai paeng on her trips. Wan pin kou or Cloud Slice Cake was a small white slab wrapped in pink paper. It's about the size of a large smartphone and just as slim. This rectangular snack is sliced equally in oblong strips, which made it easy for me and my siblings to tear off to eat. You can still buy this from snack racks in the coffeeshops today, but they are all mass-market produced. Too sweet and lacking in flavour and crumbling too easily. Another wan pin kou came in thick rombus shapes with two visible spots of gelatin that's either green or white. We would dip this in coffee too. The white powder was actually glutinous rice flour and sugar. It made the coffee extra sweet.

Some places call this wan pin kou with the gelatin 'sui zeng kou' or Water Crystal Cake.

Kai zhai paeng or Chick Biscuit was a wafer thin biscuit that packed quite a punch. It was very savory with a liquoriced flavour because one ingredient was Five Spice powder. Why, perhaps, it was wafer thin. I suspect one ate this while savouring a cup of Chinese tea. Despite its name, no bit of chicken is in it at all. It does make one wonder why. However, some new recipes do include chicken stock to make it even more flavourful. Apparently in Malaysia, you can find both thick and thin kai zhai paeng biscuits.

Yi zhai paeng or Ear Biscuit on the other hand, did look like what it was called. It came in small pieces curled and depressed like shells or ears. Like kai zhai paeng, yi zhai paeng went well with black coffee. Still does.

Another biscuit that goes extremely well with coffee is hup tho sou or Walnut Crisp Biscuit. This one is a round and oily and crumbly biscuit made with walnut. I liked it in small doses because anything more would send me to the toilet. For some reason, overly oily biscuits made me do that as a kid.

Actually, all these biscuits went well with black coffee which made them such good leisure snacks when you were relaxing and having a cuppa. There is a coffeeshop in Kluang, Malaysia that does just that: Sell leisure snacks and drinks. Malaysia does have a more vibrant yum cha (tea time) culture than Singapore. No wonder the waistlines of men over there have been shooting up these past years.

Another confectionary my mom would bring back was kai tan gou or Egg Tart. Usually, we simply refer to this egg tart as tan tart. At times, my mom would get them from Tong Heng. Another place she bought them from was a popular stall in People's Park Complex hawker centre, the one that faced OG Departmental Stall. Another snack she would also buy back were those giant-sized soon kueh. A lady would sell them sitting on a wooden stool from a round, grey iron pot in that open area between PPC and Majestic Cinema.

Another signature cake my mom would bring back is TCK's egg cupcake or kai tan gou. They were brown in color, about two inches thick and shaped like a mayflower with slices of almond or kua chee (melon seeds) on top.

And who can forget also ham cheem paeng, that dough fritter pancake that was either salty or sweet. When sweet, it is often lightly laced inside with red bean. For some reason ham cheem paeng was associated with a woman's privates; goreng pisang with the male organ. We kids would giggle and tease about it.

Talking about snacks reminds me of tho chee paeng or Belly Button Biscuit. These fat little oval biscuits no bigger than your fore thumb were very popular and came in a bluish rectangular tin that was pretty sharp at the edges. I think the brand was Jacob's. For a long time, we used this tin as our sewing box. Another variation of the biscuit had a tuff of hardened, colored sugar icing on it. Interestingly, it has graduated to being use as spirit food during Hungry Ghost Festival - something you could buy even from the joss offerings shops. Another popular biscuit then were the round tins of Danish Butter Cookies. For us kids, this was the 'top end' of our biscuit world! We would scramble to choose the "assorted biscuits" typically found in each tin.

Because of their small size, me and my siblings often used tho chee paeng as toy food in our play tea parties.

There's also one other snack that we siblings can all agree on, and that is sart kei mah, a yellow sticky cake that's actually made up of compacted strips. It's egg based and covered in yummy sugar-maltose syrup. I understand this snack was imported from Machurian ancestor worship culture, with sart ke meaning 'cut' and ma meaning 're-arrange'. In Cantonese, sart is 'kill', ke is 'to ride', and mah is 'horse'. In HK, this snack is associated with horse racing.

When you are young and with many siblings, you don't think much about the snacks you often eat. But mothers do pamper their children even though they scold and cane. Why it is good to give your parents surprise treats when they get older. In this regard, I wonder what my mom miss eating today. Maybe her favourite tan tart?

MacPherson Gang

2011-09-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

I grew up in Geylang but went to Mattar Primary School next to MacPherson HDB Estate some 5km away. As a result, many of my classmates came from there. The estate was quite quaint. Most of the flats (about 40 blocks) were located in a circle, ringed by the aptly named Circuit Road. But unusually, a third of this circuitous road was formed by Pipit Road, which itself had a few blocks of flats to call its own. Another set of blocks were also located along an off-road called Balam Road further along the canal.

So, many of my classmates had addresses in Circuit Road, Pipit Road and Balam Road. Only one classmate stayed near me in Geylang.

Going over to MacPherson Estate to play meant I was never short of friends and classmates to hang out with. Sometimes, three or four of them would live in the same block. And once we set our minds on going out, we would use the telephone to get hold of everyone. If someone did not have a phone, we simply ran up to the flat or call them from the common corridor. Most of the flats were three-room affairs, so the corridors ran straight from one end-staircase to the next. Seldom did we take the lift. The phones we used then were the rotary pulsed ones.

A typical visit to MacPherson would see me visit Blk 57 first. I'd drop by Chuan Yeow's place and together go look for Hup Boon who lived on the 2nd storey. HB had a phone, so we would normally call up first. His mom was a very nice lady who would always offer us drinks and cakes. After HB, we'd look up Mui Chow or Lucy Teo - they both stayed in the beside block. There was also Koon Hai, a skinny chap with a mousy Brylcreamed look. Like him, Hup Boon was also well-groomed his brownish hair parted and always creamed in place. He carried a comb in his back pocket all the time. HB's school uniform was one of the neatest. He and I wore the same kind of kaki shorts to school, not very different from what the policemen used to wear but shorter. Our school uniform was grey below and yellow on top - quite striking. Come to think of it, we also wore the same kind of starched shirts. So, in a way, we were kindred - brothers in suffering.

No kid should be made to wear starched shirts to school in our kind of weather. But because of that, I learned how control my discomfort, often psycho-ing myself to remain cool despite all that heat. I could easily have become a yogi in India for performing such a mind trick all those years in school.

If we did not look up the girls, we would head to Blk 76 to look for Lee Huat - the fella with the Chopper bike (see blog A Chopper Legacy). Living around Lee Huat were Woon Leng and Bee Har. BH was fair and pretty but she stood out for being very petite. She was also small; so small that you could have stringed her to your mobile phone! (Just kidding.)

Size notwithstanding, she had a big heart. Her hazel eyes often betrayed her shyness. However, step on her toes or disturb her best friend and she could be sharp and reprimanding. WL, on the other hand, was tall for her age. She was the smartest girl in class and always spoke in an easy, sweet voice. Her distinctive feature were her panda eyes - they made her look as if she hadn't slept in a while. BH and WL were good friends; they kind of complemented one another. BH could be fierce whilst WL tended to cry more easily. Another good friend of theirs was Adelene Wee who lived a few blocks behind. She had a lot of hair, mostly wiry, and she's one person who seemed always cheerful. I think it was her religious ways that set her so. She spoke good English with a distinct nasal accent and was the only one who wore her pinafore over the knees longer than the rest.

What did we do when we came together? We would play Skip Rope, Five Stones, Hide and Seek, Police and Thief. At times, we played table tennis on those purpose-built concrete tables. We also moved from one playground to the next.

Often, the kids with bikes would bring them along. For those who didn't (like me who did not live there), we simply 'tompang' each another. I would often ride pillion on LH's Chopper bike.

MacPherson Estate had quite a few playgrounds then. As we moved from one playground to the next, we would always knock on the doors of classmates who stayed nearby. These playgrounds were the old ones made of concrete material. There were ring tubes, round climbing frames, spinning carousals and monkey bars.

A big playground could be found near the wet market at Blk 66A, where we often hanged out at. Then we would call Pow Choo, Poh Lin and Puay Hoon to come out to play with us. PC reminded me of Nancy the cartoon character because of her hair and small beady eyes that needed thick glasses. PH was a girl who fell sick easily and didn't or couldn't join us all the time. She was often pale and sniffing into a hanky. Poh Lin had a loud voice that matched an outgoing personality. She was Cantonese just like me and we got along fine. She was a brave girl not afraid to speak her mind. She would later argue much (always in a good-natured manner though) with Mr Pang, our P6 form teacher. You could say she liked to tease him. He in turn treated her like a Teacher's Pet. The same with a girl called Lin Hiong, who was like a mother hen to the rest of us.

Across from this big playground was Balam Road, where Ee Meng and Yong Meng (not related) lived. We often teased YM for being a horse because of his gait. He had a butt that stuck out like a horse. EM was not a very good student but instead liked being active. If you didn't know him, you would think he was a gangster from his rough voice and gruff Hokkien.

For food, there's always that food centre next to the bridge that crossed the canal to my school. We seldom ate there unless it was to look up classmate Subari whose family had a stall there selling mee rebus.

The canal that ran beside it was long and wide; it connected Paya Lebar to Geylang East. We would sometimes stand on the bridge to watch the canal waters flow under. Back then, it was filthy - the color of chee ma wu; and we would look out for disgusting stuff like dead dogs and rats. Most of the time however, what we saw were daily-use items like plastic bags, beer bottles, broken furniture, rattan shopping baskets, and the like.

This canal ran behind my school, bordering an area overgrown with shrubs and lallang (see blog Big Field Wild Fence). We were very sure there were pythons and spiders inside. Because of the thick brush, there was no way we could get in to retrieve our lost balls and marbles. This wild area also added to our imagination about headhunters looking children's heads to build a bridge. Later I would learn that the story was concocted to discourage kids from wandering about on their own!

Beside that long food centre was the bus terminus. This bus terminus was not a built-up area; it was simply the side of the road. Buses arrived and departed from it to various destinations around Singapore. For me, the regular services to take home were 61, 62, 63, 135, 158.

If I took 135 or 158, I would alight outside Methodist Girls School at the junction of Sims Avenue and Aljunied Road and walk home from there. The other buses would bring me nearer to Lorong 19 on Geylang Road.

MacPherson Estate at the time was also known for its gangsters. Many were said to reside around the Balam Road area. It was in this area that two-storey shophouses could be found. I often wondered what kind of protection money the business owners had to pay, an idea no doubt fueled by violent Hong Kong TV serials at the time.

As kids we loved to go to the bookshop and cakeshop there.

The concrete table tennis tables mentioned earlier could be found all over MacPherson Estate. When we were not playing table tennis, we would lie down and just look at the sky.

Another wet market (a two-storey one) was located at Pipit Road to serve the residents there. Because it was separated by a road, we seldom ventured there.

I think Ms Leng, my P4 form teacher, is the only teacher I know staying in MacPherson Estate. As kids, we were very curious what our teachers were up to (like married or not; got bf or not) and would trail them home to find out where they lived.

In my childhood time, MacPherson Estate was a very lively place with the coming and going of buses, cars and people. Today, it looks deserted and feels very much like a ghost town. Only old people seemed to be left. I wonder if I should drop by and see if any of my classmates' families are still there.

Unforgettable Teachers

2011-09-01T06:59:00.000-07:00

Teacher's Day is today. I can't help but remember the teachers who have ever crossed my path. I remember best the good and bad ones. They are like covers of a textbook that sandwich my school life. Who would recall the pages/teachers in between?

The bad ones come to mind most easily because they have terrified and punished us in some way. For example, teachers who liked to slap. We never forget teachers who slap, do we?

I had a couple of teachers in my primary school who were just like that. In those days, it was normal for teachers to inflict corporal punishment and not just with hand but with all kinds of instruments. The cane, the ruler, feather duster...even the chalk duster. Yes, we used chalkboards then and our teachers enjoyed throwing dusters at us. It did not matter if the dusters were oval of felt or oblong of wood, it came flying out if we weren't paying attention. Too bad if it knocked into your head. "Cry some more! I'll send you out of class" was the joined reminder that came with the flying projectile. If it was just felt, the most you got was a big puff of chalk across your face or the black of your hair (if that metal eye hook didn't catch you first). Wood was something else.

Yup, in those days, you hoped for none and wished the least... painful of punishments. There was also public caning on stage during school assembly.

My first instance of slapping came early in P2.

The teacher in question was a certain Mrs Lee, an elderly lady with greying hair. She was probably on the verge of retirement. She often wore a loose-fitting cheongsam typical of women her age and time. They were often of expensive material so I think she must have been well-off. She also wore a pair of sharp cornered spectacles popular with the ladies at the time.

As a teacher, Mrs Lee was rather impatient and liked to scold a lot in that sharp voice of hers. I think she was mostly confused by the lot of us active kids. One peculiar thing though: she was very concerned with our appearance, admonishing us often if our hair or clothes were out of place. She kept a feather duster on her desk always and would whack the desk to get our attention. However, once we got out of control, she would pull offenders aside and give a quick slap. "Didn't I tell you..." she would begin. We poor kids were often too shocked to listen or respond.

One day, I got slapped for showing my toy to a friend while she was teaching. We were all seated on the floor then. At first, I was utterly embarassed at being punished like that, but when it become the norm in class, we all took it in our stride. We nicknamed her Happy Slappy, liked she was a dwarf in that classic Disney fairy tale.

An incident soon happened after that first slapping: I peed in my pants in class. It happened because I was terrified of interrupting her class, even if it was to go to the toilet.

As soon as that warm feeling came, I quickly crawled under the side wall (which usually had a gap of about 18 inches) and stood outside in the corridor. Pee gushed down the sides of my leg. Mrs Lee came out to investigate, hands on hips. She took one menacing look and shook her finger at me, lost for words. I half expected her to slap me for creating such a mess and braced myself for it. But for some reason, she didn't. Instead, she instructed a younger teacher next door to clean up after me and to bring me to the school office to borrow a new pair of shorts.

Quite a few of my classmates peed in class that year. The principal should have taken notice of the number of shorts taken out of her office. Her kids were being terrified downstairs, right under her nose!

The other teacher who liked to slap was an exact opposite of Mrs Lee - she was young and pretty. She was Ms Leng but we all nicknamed her Barbie Doll.

'Barbie Doll' was no doubt pretty with her cherry lips, black mascara eyes and slim face framed by luscious shoulder-length hair. She was also Barbie tall and slim, and liked to wear flared black pants matched with fancy print blouses. Together with her A-Go-Go clogs, she looked the happening 60s/70s chick. The thing I cannot forget is that her face was always covered with heavy foundation. We used to joke about it cracking, why she didn't seem to laugh that much. You could call her a cold beauty with eyes that drilled right into you.

Besides slapping she also liked to punish us kids in unusual ways. Her favourite thing to do was to make us knock our knuckles with a ruler in front of class. Another punishment was to hold a dead lizard in our palm. This freaked most of my girl classmates out.

Altogether, Ms Leng's prettiness and unusual punishments were both hard to reconcile. Kind of sado-masochistic if you ask me.

Oh, our teachers pinched too. I noticed that female teachers liked to pinch a lot in those days. Guy teachers did it too but would only do it to the boys. This often happened during a walkabout quiz where a question was written on the blackboard and the teacher walked around to tap on an unfortunate student's shoulders for an answer. Get it wrong and a pinch was what you got. Sometimes it was playful, sometimes not. As you can see, the quiz tested both our knowledge and nerves.

We took it all in good sport then. Only one or two kids threatened (often during the privacy of recess) to complain to their parents. They were often the spoilt ones.

If I had complained to my parents, I would have gotten a double dose of what my teacher dished out. Teachers got unstinted support from our parents then. Many teachers today would love to get that kind of support.

I don't believe in corporal punishment. Kids, no matter how young, understand the 'social contract'. It is better for them to equate a punishment to a crime. In this way, they would know better that a wrongful act has its consequences. They would more likely accept a punishment with reason than not. But this also means that the kids today will find new ways to circumvent their crime and punishment. In our day, we didn't know what to expect and would simply avoid being naughty at all. Or go full hog the other way. Running away from home was a common reaction to severe punishment, even if it was wistfully and wilfully thought about then.

Often times, when a teacher was unsure who to punish, she or he would punish the whole class by making them stand on their chairs. The other classes who saw this would make fun later, sniping: "Ah, you got punished! Neh-neh-neh-neh-neh!"

Standing on the chair as punishment was also common for not knowing the answer to a question. The more difficult the question the more you would find students 'up in the air' much closer to the ceiling fan. Many a times, the students would be asked to cross their arms and hold their ears as well.

Teachers in those days were a bit of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Even Ms Leng, harsh as she was in her punishments, did have some redeeming moments. Once, when my school bus came late because of inclement weather she sat by me until it arrived. I was thankful because that storm was particularly violent. The casaurina trees along our school driveway were all swaying violently in the driving rain. Loud thunder and lightning cracked all over the grey ominous sky. Ms Leng sat beside me and chatted. I was grateful too because she smelt nice of perfume.

Another tender moment with this teacher was when she sent me an encouraging letter (see pics under 'Paraphernalia from Mattar Primary School Days') after I had sent her a card. By then, I was already in secondary school.

I don't know why our teachers were like that back then. Maybe they were just like our parents - monkey see monkey do - in matters of discipline. It was a painful way of showing that they cared. I guess many weren't so enlightened about corporal punishment then. Ms Leng, at the time, was my P4 form teacher.

When I reached P6, I had Mr Pang. He was my first and only male teacher during my time at Mattar PS. He was also the most craggy and pockmark-faced gentleman I've ever met. More pockmarked than Mark Lee or even Charles Bronson. Even his jaw was squared like some cowboy. And he had a deep booming voice to boot. He was the only one the big boys (students who repeated P6 once or twice) were afraid of and obeyed. Naturally, he became the Prefect Master.

Mr Pang was a fun guy to have in P6. I think I learned to be sarcastic from him because he was that way with us. It was his way of making us laugh and think at the same time. He would often playfully threaten to slap us, raising his hand in mock intent, to eventually tousle our heads. Maybe he was no saint, but he was less a terror to me at least. It was nice for a change to have a teacher with a good sense of humour, or at least a teacher who bothered to talk to us, ask how we felt. Male teachers ARE different from female teachers. And it is a shame that we do not have more male teachers in our schools today. Mr Pang lived in Marine Parade (Blk 32) and would cycle to school every morning. He claimed it was for exercise. I was quite impressed as he did indeed look fit.

Mr Pang was the one who picked me to conduct the daily morning exercise for the whole school. At first, I was to follow his whistle timing. But later, he thought I should do that as well. Oh my! my skinny, premature lungs could hardly keep pace! Eventually, Mr Pang decided to take back the whistle so I could concentrate on leading the exercise routine. I think my fellow students out in the field were relieved too.

In P6, I often wore black socks and hockey boots to school - you know, the black canvas ones with white trim and studs below. It doubled as a pair of football boots in the school field. The sole was leather and became very slippery on wet surfaces. We would often skate our way home to MaPherson Estate via the back cement floors of the 1-room block of flats whenever it got wet from rain.

One thing Mr Pang did I could not forget. There was going to be a big boxing fight on TV one morning. It was the Ali vs Frazier fight in Manila. The year was 1975. Everybody in school was excited about it, having two boxing greats in Asia, even if it was in the Philippines. The folks in the Common Room (what the Teachers Room was called in those days) were excited too. So Mr Pang called a couple of us prefects to help him hook up a TV there. We took the TV from the ETV Room (where we often watched public education programs then) and carried it downstairs to the Common Room.

With the TV set up, the match was soon on its way. Me and my buddy were about to leave when Mr Pang said in his cowboy voice, "Why don't you stay and watch the game." I could hardly contain my joy! It had been something I was secretly wishing the whole time!

So, on that fateful day, me and a buddy watched Ali pulverise Frazier together with Mr Pang. It did not matter that we stood behind him the whole time. I was beaming not so much about watching the match but of mingling with the teachers. The Common Room was usually out of bounds for us students and it was extra special to be in there watching a boxing match (of all things).

At P6, we boys were also getting rowdy and boxing (and kung-fu via Bruce Lee) appealed to us.

Amongst all these harsh and somewhat quixotic teachers, a new and young relief teacher must have been like a breath of fresh air. It was.

Her name was Ms Lim Siang Ngoh, and she blew into Mattar PS as our P3 form teacher. Because she was young, we immediately took a liking to her, especially since graduating from a class run by an old, slappy hag like Mrs Lee in P2. Ms Lim was like the Ideal Teacher: Soft-spoken, kindly. And although she got angry at times, she never took it out on us. All of us liked her without a doubt. She helped me do very well that year, even beating that girl who often came first during the exams.

The best experience with Ms Lim was going to MPH to pick out our book prizes. For me that year, it was the Wishing Chair series from Enid Blyton.

Come end of year, we were especially sad saying good-bye to Ms Lim. She had been a revelation as a new-school (new-era) teacher. That December holiday, she invited me and three other classmates to her home in Old Airport Road. She had promised to cook us a special meal for doing well in the exams. The usual four of us went.

At the party, she played us tunes from a standing piano, joined us in a game of Blindman's Bluff and taught us how to cook fried rice with pepper seeds. It was my first time in an Old Airport Road flat and a first time eating fried rice with pepper. I loved it and would afterwards forever put pepper (powder) in my fried rice. Such is the power of a kind and wonderful teacher.

Besides Ms Lim, I had also visited Mr Pang and Ms Leng. Some of these teachers might have been harsh, but if they were not mean and showed a good side as well, we kids normally forgave pretty quickly. After all, more than once, we needed their help and advice with growing up. To help resolve our playground fights, get help when we did not have money to pay for school fees or even eat during recess time. There's a lot a teacher can do and they did. There's also a lot we could have learnt from them, but in those days, we kids were meant to be seen and not heard. The ones who talked with the teachers most were usually the noisy and naughty ones. I wonder what our teachers will say of us now if we ask them today.

A Chopper Legacy

2011-08-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

Everybody needs a hobby. Mine is tinkering with bikes. But more so out of a need to get mechanical with my hands.

In the 70s, the most ubiquitous bicycle was this Raleigh Chopper bike. You can see a picture of it here. I don't think I've ever owned one when I was young but I did have a few of them when I was much older. It became a hobby of mine restoring them.

At Mattar Primary School, a good classmate of mine did own one. The manner in which he got his left me quite flabbergasted. You see, this friend of mine, LH, was not very good at his studies. He often came in 30+ in our class of 40. One time, however, he did a couple of places better in the finals, so his dad got him a bike. It was the bike everyone was whispering about and eyeing: the Raleigh Chopper.

I still remember the conversation we had that day, when he invited us over to his house in Circuit Road to see the 'surprise' he had installed for us his closest buddies.

"Wah, your dad got you a bike!" I said.
"Yup!" LH was beaming from ear to ear.
"How come?" I asked, not being very discrete.
"I did better in my exams," he said. Still beaming.
"But didn't you get like 30+?" I asked, in my head of course.
He then let out the bombshell:
"What did your dad get you? You did come in 2nd."

I felt ashamed and looked down.
"Er, I got caned." Silence.

"What???" He was incredulous and almost laughing.
"What kind of dad do you have? If I'd scored 2nd, my dad would have bought me...." He couldn't think of anything. I guess he all he wanted was a Raleigh bike. LH was not a greedy fella, maybe why his dad doted on him.

I did not answer, quietly fingering my thigh where the cane marks were still fresh.

Well, that's my dad. His message to me was: if I had scored 1st in mid-term, I should have gotten 1st again in the finals. If not, anything else was considered a step back, a failure. What he did not know was that the girl who scored first had always beaten us boys to the post. Her midterm 2nd spot was but a blip that I somehow managed to create. I was so happy about it at the time. Being 2nd was normal and quite an achievement over the other competitive boy, CY. Together, the three of us would always score 1st, 2nd, 3rd. Another girl, AW, would make up the fourth.

I don't take credit for my good results. An elder sister should because she was the one who always pushed me to study and do more. I would rather go fly a kite. But I do learn things pretty quickly.

Mini, not Chopper
The bike that I actually owned was a Mini bike. It was like the Schwinn Stingray Mini minus the springs in front. The Schwinn Mini bike was the icon in the U.S. at the time. The Raleigh Chopper was the icon on the other side of the Atlantic, popular in the UK as well as Asia and elsewhere in the Comonwealth. Because of its popularity, bike-makers in Taiwan and Malaysia soon made copy versions of it to sell. These bikes looked exactly like the original right down to the Raleigh Co brand plate in front. But instead of the 'RC' monogram lettering, it would be 'ER' (if from Taiwan) or 'Kris' (if from Malaysia). 'ER' stood for Eagle Rider. The other parts of the bike would spot words like 'Joker', 'Champion' or an abashed 'Chopper'. I've seen one that read 'Chooper'.

In Canada in 1958, the Raleigh Chopper was sold for C$59.99. I've never wondered why the Chopper was the Chopper but here it is: In the late 50s, folks started modifying the bicycle with motorcycle parts. They raised the handlebars, put in a banana seat, made the front wheel smaller, the back wheel thicker. All these features were similar to those found on chopper motorbikes.

Vespa cousin
The Chopper design story is quite similar to the other icon of the 70s... the Vespa. That scooter was created out of the vestiges of WWII and was inspired by airplane designs, i.e. the small wheels, single front fork and body casing. These histories remind me of the little boys in my neighbourhood today (more so the Malay boys, I notice). They would take a normal bike and add motorcycle parts like farings and seats to make it look like one. The bike they often use is the China lady bike with a curvy double crossbar. A popular brand is Junqi. The kids would often add an air horn that is powered by an inflated 2-litre softdrinks PET bottle.

First suspension bike
In 1976 when I had moved to another place, I wanted a Chopper but my dad bought me another bike instead. This bike was one of the first to have front and rear suspensions and had a flatter but curved banana seat (which looked more like a stretched piece of naan). So maybe it should have been known as the bike with the naan seat. It cost $160 back then. I liked it's modern copper-orange color but that bike was very heavy to carry. Besides new suspensions, it had thicker than normal tires as well. It was indeed a mountain bike kind of mountain bike before people even knew about mountain bikes. In any case, I loved it as much as I loved my Mini bike. It was indeed able to handle riding in the mud very well.

As I got my mountain bike, my brother got his Raleigh Racer, which my dad had bought from an old bike shop in Joo Chiat Road. For a long time, this shop still had a Chopper bike promotional sign hanging in its lobby from its heydays in the 70s. It could still be there - if the shop had not sold out and become a sleazy karaoke joint.

Restoring Choppers
Sometime in the early 2000s, I was itching to hands-on again and so decided to start a hobby restoring Raleigh Choppers. Perhaps as compensation for missing out on owning one. And to start, I needed an old bike to restore.

At the time, I knew reconditioned Chopper bikes were being sold at a shop along Bukit Merah near that famous seafood restaurant. I say 'reconditioned' because not all the bikes there came with the proper parts. Some had new types of brakes, some had new tires without the famous Chopper signature color band at its side. They sold for between $700-$1200. I left that shop feeling disappointed and even more determined to do a better job than they did restoring the classic Chopper. What a travesty their efforts were to this icon!

Little did I know that finding spares would be a problem. A huge problem, actually. But first, I had to find an old bike to begin the process of restoration. I found one abandoned in a dilapidated house near Keong Siak Road one day after a business meeting. Talk about fate!

A girlfriend had a van, so it was quite convenient for me to cart it away. The bike was in moderate condition. There was rust where the parts were chrome before, but still, all the nuts were original. They bore the letter R - a sure sign that this was indeed an original Raleigh bike.

The body of the bike must have been red or orange-red before it become sundried into a rust color. All the Chopper parts were there: the gear-change lever, the rear book rack, the red reflector spot behind the seat, the tires with the red trim, and the grab bar behind the seat. All were there except for the the white band across the back of the banana seat. I would later replace that from one scrounged from a scrap bike. To my surprise, the gear-change lever worked. But the rear Sturmey-Archer gearhub was stucked. That would need some work, I recall telling myself. I've always loved the Sturmey-Archer gear hub and found it superior to the external derailleur used in most bikes now. A Sturmey-Archer is self-contained and needs little maintenance. It will last and last. Many bikes from Holland and Japan use them. I still keep an expanded mechanical drawing of the gear hub. It is an astonishing mechanical feat. Presently, someone has gone a step further and invented an auto transmission gear hub for bicycles. It would be sweet to get my hands on one.

Hunting for spares
Restoring the bike was the easy bit. But as mentioned earlier, it was finding the spares that was difficult. But the search was fun and enlightening. I found some great old bike shops and talked to some wonderful shop owners. I also discovered some interesting bikes along the way. At an old shop in Waterloo Street, the owner thought he still had some old tires in his store. He said I could have it for free. He also showed me a real beauty of a bike, an actual Stingray Mini that was modified with the banana seat being supported by two cylinder-suspension units. It was golden yellow in color and had a white seat - all quite similar to that local Mini bike that I had. What a beauty!

At Race Course Road, a bike shop did not have the tires but instead, it had some rather retro-looking brake lines.

The owner of a shop in nearby Owen Road was impressed by my effort. I, in turn, was impressed by his range of bikes that were mostly targeted at foreigners with cash to dole out. Amongst these was a pink Lady Schwinn Stingray Beach Cruiser with matching saddle bags. He, like some of the bike shop owners I've met or was going to meet, continued to have a love affair with bikes from the 70s, even though that era ended decades ago.

A quaint old shop I came across was located in Lower Delta. Its signboard was handpainted and still bore a picture of the Chopper. Sadly the old couple there did not have any spares. But they did have an abandoned Chopper on the lawn outside. It was quite a sad and distressing sight. The bike was too far gone to rescue.

A great find/Mini Chopper
I next visited an old shop in Crawford Street that I had come across many times whilst visiting the nearby Beach Road Food Center. They have been there since a long long time ago. If not them, I was wondering, who else would have some spares left still? Or at least know of someone who did.

At first, I was a bit disappointed because they said they did not deal with the original Raleigh Chopper but with its many imitations instead, i.e. those from Taiwan or Malaysia. But despair soon turned to joy when the lady confided in me that they had found two mint-condition Kiddy Choppers in a dark corner of one of their warehouses. She asked me if I wanted them. I did not even have to see them to say yes, but I said "You have them here?" A rustle at the back and out came the two mini Choppers.

Frankly, for those of you who have not seen the kiddy version of the Raleigh Chopper, I could have sold you on these two little wonders. They were made from Taiwan but were the exact replica of the original Raleigh Chopper sans the gear-change lever. (Because of their smaller size they did not have the rear gear hub, hence no gear-change lever.)

Plainly put, they each were a mini version of the Raleigh Chopper. Bikes that were sized just right for a 7 or 8 year old as opposed to the 10 or 11 preadolescent for the actual Chopper.

The problem was that the actual Raleigh Kiddy Chopper did not look anything like its big brother. It was pretty ugly, to be honest. So, these two Taiwanese-made clones were pretty special. They were then and even more so now. These two cute bikes even had those colorful handle tassels that the original Chopper came with. How disbelievingly accurate was that? And how cool that they are now mine?

So I quickly said yes and brought the bikes home. They had no problem fitting inside my big Hyundai van.

In the end, I kept one bike and sold the other to a fellow avid collector. Needless to say, he was over the moon with it. But he was quite the grateful fellow and gave me a few stick-on Raleigh badges that were of the present-day design but yet reminiscent of the original ones - just in case the old badges were too damaged to be restored.

Modified bikes
How did I know what the actual Kiddy Chopper bike looked like? I researched on the Web and also found one at an old bike shop in Syed Alwi Road. This bike shop reminded me of the old shops in Geylang. In fact the building itself reminded me of those in my old neigbourhood. Further down the road were more bike shops. Talking to the customers, I soon found out that these shops made a thriving business out of modifying normal bikes to run on gas. This was before e-bikes became popular or had more models for consideration. Their modified bikes could go at speeds of more than 70 kph! Quite dangerous given that these bikes were not meant to run that fast nor had the disc brakes to do the braking job effectively. And as I witnessed later along Lavender Street, the bike chain would snap when the bike ran at top speed. Some poor shod could be walking around with his toes missing or foot mangled!

A chrome beauty
Probably the most interesting bike shop I came across was in Balestier. It was in the same row of shophouses as the famous tau sar piahs. The owner was a middle-aged man who also serviced motorbikes. He wore a singlet and his arms were greasy and oil-stained. When we got to talking about Choppers his tired eyes became animated. He took me inside his shop and stopped amid a row of new bikes. One bike was covered by fuzzy plastic. He threw that back. Underneath was a shiny and sparkling Raleigh Chopper all plated in chrome! CHROME!??

A Raleigh Chopper fully chromed? Yes, that was how much an owner loved his bike. He even bought it a rather swanky gear-change lever from Holland. Now, how sweet is that?

New Generation Chopper
In 2004, twenty-five years after the original Raleigh Chopper ended production, a new Chopper was introduced. It was one of the most anticipated bicycle launches ever. But I found it a disappointment. It had a simulated banana seat (a normal bike seat with an added extension to give it a banana profile) and the gear-change lever was located on the handlebars instead of the old place. The reasons they gave were for modernity and safety, but i think they missed a chance to create an Apple moment, you know, when the masses would go gaga over a one-of-a-kind product. If you want to create an original again, don't fiddle with the parts that people loved most about it. Enhance them instead. This, they did not do.

Whenever I see a chopper bike, I am reminded of my friend LH and the circumstance in which he got his bike. I am also reminded of the different dads we both had. I've often wondered what if our places were switched, how his father would reward me with my good school results. But then again, if you were not made to aim high, you could hardly leave the ground. So, in a way, I am glad to have a demanding father. But for sure, I wished he had, that semester, patted me on the back and said "Well, son, you've tried your best. Now go enjoy your new Raleigh Chopper!" Ta-da! Unveiling my reward with a flourish. Haha, that was good for a grin and fake cherish of a moment. With my dad, it would never happen. I would just have to study harder. And that, I suppose, would be his not-so-great legacy for me.

Dog Bite Porridge

2011-08-22T21:58:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned earlier in another blogpost the kinds of memorable food from my childhood. But there is one dish that I did not say much about that is close to my heart: Shredded Chicken Porridge.

I am Cantonese, and like the Teochew, we like our porridge. But there is a difference. Unlike the watery Teochew moi, Cantonese porridge is more robust (thicker) and full of ingredients. The porride is often cooked with different types of pork meats and innards. Century egg and salted egg would be added too. At times, the porridge is served with a platter of sang yue or raw fish - altogether a very heartwarming and appetizing affair.

I know of only one good Cantonese porridge place in a hawker centre in the whole of Singapore and that is Hai Kee Famous Porridge at Amoy Street Food Centre (#01-45). I can guarantee you that it will be different from any porridge you have tasted. They also serve the raw fish platter as mentioned before. Quite cheap given today's inflationary prices. It is normal practice to crack an egg into the porridge before serving. Tell them if you want it like that. This will give the porridge added robustness and a yolky flavour.

When I was growing up in Geylang, my mom often liked to cook us kids Duck Neck porridge. It is what the name implies. Duck necks were the often discarded parts of a roast duck. It still is, actually. Roast duck rice sellers would either give them away or sell them dirt cheap. Some people do not like the neck part for fear of antibiotic and such other growth inducing injections to the duck, but necks are often just as flavourful as the rest of the duck. Maybe more so. There's precious little meat but there is a whole lot of skin. And if the duck is herbal roasted or stewed, man, that neck is super succulent! Herein lies the secret: Roast duck necks are actually very good as snacks to go along with a beer or a glass of sake. If you like, glaze it with honey and sprinkle it over with sesame seeds; then roast it a little in the oven . This will give it added sweetness and aroma and cement its status further as a special finger food.

Into Duck Neck porridge go peanuts, century egg, duck meat, parsley, fish cake slices, etc. It is highly delectable and I often wonder why no one seem to sell it at the hawker centres. Duck necks are, after all, still cheap and freely available from the rice stall sellers. They might charge you 50 cents for one or a few dollars for a whole bag. It is seriously value-for-money! The Hainanese has also embraced this Duck Neck porridge and they can cook up a pretty good one as well.

Porridges are not just for sick people. I find eating porridge useful for revitalising one's taste buds, especially after a bout of outside-of-home eating. It somehow feels detoxicating. I used to have a Dutch colleague who said that only old people in his country ate porridge. Well, if they had expanded upon their culinary skills, they could have had more types of yummy porridge to enjoy! In other places of the world, porridge is often oatmeal, not soggy rice.

The porridge that gets to my heart always and which reminds me of a childhood incident is gai see juk or Shredded Chicken Porridge. A man who lived at the first house of a row of kampong houses in Lor 17 used to sell it from his mobile cart. We would often have it for supper and my mom would send me down with a metal pot to 'tapow' (pack) it back, often with an egg for added flavour and nutrition. His gai see juk is not like the pale imitations of today, which taste more like porridge with pieces shredded chicken thrown in. His had subtle chicken flavour and a whole lot of ginger. The ginger acted like lemon on fish and brought out the sweet aroma of the chicken porridge. It was also uplifting and refreshing, this smell of ginger.

I didn't have such kind of porridge again until years later when I took up scuba diving in the later part of the 90s. We trained at the pool in Raffles Institution in Bishan and afterwards, would accompany the instructor and fellow trainees to a bit of supper. A popular place was Swee Kee Chicken Rice opposite Novena. They served chicken porridge too.

The first time were were there, we were hungry and cool. Cool because we had spent like some two hours plus in the pool. We all looked forward to something warm and filling. It didn't matter what that was.

A warm bowl of porridge sounded like a good option and so I ordered one. At Swee Kee, they have a jar of condiment that they leave on each table. It is minced garlic-ginger in sesame scallion oil. When the porridge came, I took two big wallops of it and mixed it in my porridge. My, oh, my. That aroma of ginger and chicken wafed in the air and transported me back to Geylang all those years ago. Back to Lor 17, standing there watching the uncle throw ginger and chicken shreds into my family pot and then scooping porridge into it. I kicked myself for not knowing the popular Swee Kee eatery earlier.

Since then, whenever I want to eat succulent gai see juk, I'd always tapow from Swee Kee's. I would make sure those packets of porridge each had a big wallop of that garlic-ginger condiment. It makes a whole world of difference!

Now, rediscovering my favourite gai see juk is one thing. I've also rekindled memories of a time when I suffered an ignominious injury because of that. I was as usual, walking in the backlanes of my area when I came upon a huge Alsatian dog. Unlike most Alsatians, this one liked to bark and growl. The owner (that porridge seller) kept him on a leash. But sadly that leash was just an inch too long that day. As I tried to squeeze past that dog in the narrow backlane, it lunged. It bit my ass leaving two neat and small puncture holes. I held back my tears and tried not cry, and slowly ambled my way home, which was just a short backlane away.

After reaching home, I dared not tell my parents for fear of being scolded, so I rubbed Zam Buk on the wounds and tried my best not to show that I had a sore bum. But a few TV shows later, I was convinced I would catch rabies and so confessed. I told my sister first and then we told our mum. She, of course, was pretty livid. But mostly she was concerned. She brought me to Phang Clinic (our family doctor near Lor 27) and there I received an injection for tetanus. I am not sure if I was ever given a shot for rabies. In any case, I think that has no cure after a certain stage (like foaming at the mouth). I felt much better and was able to sit at the dinner table with half an ass without having to explain really hard why.

Crazy Aunties

2011-08-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

The house that I moved into at Geylang Sims Avenue was previously occupied by my grandma, uncles and aunties. They were in their teens then, the youngest being eight or more years older than I was. Their family background is a bit complicated. I call them my uncles and aunties but they were actually my mom's adopted family. My mother's parents perished soon after the war and she was left in the care of a good friend of her mom's. In those uncertain times back then, it was normal to have sworn sisters and brothers so you could guarantee some future for your own children should something untoward happened to you.

My uncles and aunties real parents also passed away early in that Geylang house, why subsequently, the tenants after us would complain that it was terribly haunted. They would often see a man and woman in their 40s appear in the hallways. Perhaps that one time when I saw a pair of ghosts was actually them.

My aunties' mom passed away because of cancer. So her sister-in-law took over as mother to her children. They all treated her like a mother but called her say ku or fourth aunt.

Into this mix was an aunty from my father's side. She stayed with us for a while. Her stay didn't last long because she was mentally insane. My mom often told us how at certain times of the month, this aunt would remove her sanitary pad and showed it around, asking (in Cantonese): "Eh, why like that?" Even when you were busy cooking over a wok.

This brood of uncles and aunties from my mother's side consisted of three sons and two sisters. There was another son but he committed suicide with his girlfriend soon after his parents disapproved of them dating. Back then parents were very strict about dating while still in school. It was a pity because that boy was a brilliant student. The other boys were also a studious lot and loved to read and play chess. The eldest seemed to have the greatest potential and my mom was asked to sacrificed her own studies so she could work and help send him and the others to school. She shouldn't have because he was quite the ingrate, never quite repaying my mom for her sacrifice. My mom was intelligent so she could have made something more of herself if she had the chance to finish school.

In those days, studious people tended to have a rather narrow outlook in life. Often with poor people skills and most times think the world should all behave in a certain way. I think he took it as a right that people helped him through school.

Unlike my uncles, my eldest aunt was a talkative person who was witty and had an opinion on almost any subject. She was the one who dated this guy from the nearby tailorshop and who drove a Mini. We often accompanied her as little chaperons.

One day, at our home, she ushered us children into a room. It must have be a Chinese New Year holiday or something because we had other children visiting also. We thought she was going to teach us a new game or tell us a story. Instead she whipped out her cigarettes and proceeded to light one up. "Take a puff," she said, handing the cigarette to me. Whoah, I said, aloud in my own head, and then, "Is this really happening?"

My dad smoked but he was very adamant that we didn't. So I had always been curious about what smoking was like. Many a times, when my dad sent me out to buy cigarettes, I was tempted to light one up but didn't. The closest was to put one to my lips and pretended. Finally given the opportunity, I took the cigarette from my aunt and took a puff. I think I choked and coughed almost immediately. Tears also streamed from my eyes. It was terrible!

The other kids took turns to puff. Our decision was unanimous: Smoking tasted awful! How could anyone smoke such a foul thing!

My aunt laughed and took back what left of the cigarette. "See," she said. "This is why you all shouldn't smoke." I think she made her point that day. I am grateful because that unpleasant moment of smoking stuck with me forever. And why I never was ever tempted to even start. Not in school, not in the army during NS.
The only thing I tried a few times was a cigar, and that was because it was a bit of a craze in the late 90s, together with wine appreciation. That was when even girls tried smoking it.

So I was only five when I started smoking and stopped.

Another aunty that was rather atypical was this lady who was a good friend of my mom. She lived in Bedok along Lor Haji. Her husband was a pharmaceutical rep so they were pretty well-off. They stayed in a single-storeyed bungalow not far from a big kampong there. Going to their place was like trekking in the jungle. And because the house was surrounded by vegetation, mosquitoes abound after sundown. We often had to take a cab there.

This aunty had a daughter. I always remember her as someone very pale and skinny. According to my mom, she was always having terrible periods, why she often looked pale and weak. The last time I saw her was at a Pre-U seminar in the old Nanyang University campus. I wonder how she is doing now. If she still looked as pale as a vampire and if she still suffered from menorrhagia. Kind of ironic and tragic for a vampire to suffer from that, actually.

I think a reason for her being so weak could be that her mom had not wanted her in the first place. When she was pregnant with this 'cousin' of mine, she actually wanted to abort the child. Apparently she and her hubby didn't get on very well. He travelled often because of his work and she didn't quite like that. This aunty was rather pretty in a vivacious way. She had one of those beehive hairdos popular with many Hong Kong actresses then, coiffure as worn by Siu Fong Fong and Chan Poh Chu. She also liked to dress in designer pant suits, altogether a rather happening chick in those days.

The way she went about her abortion was classic. Instead of going to a doctor about it, she decided to climb and jump off a coconut tree. Staying near a big kampong like the one in Jalan Haji in Bedok meant she was not short of coconut trees to choose from. And she did. She also ate pineapple as was common folklore then. In the end, I don't know what happened, but my 'cousin' was born. She was a sickly baby and grew up so. The only consolation was that her dad dealt in drugs and could offer medication for her condition.

My aunties also kind of adopted us as godchildren. The eldest aunty doted on my brother and the younger aunty wanted to do likewise with me. But I had have enough of crazy aunties and resisted. Besides, she was too nice and pretty. And too young. Not aunty material at all. Nope.

Static Baby

2011-08-20T11:35:00.000-07:00

People sometimes liked to categorise themselves as 'morning persons' or 'night persons'. For a long time, I believed I belonged to the latter. My mom would agree. She said as a child, I was hard to put to sleep. One time, she got so exasperated that she simply sat me in front of the TV and went to bed. This happened not just once; I do remember watching much static well into the dead of night on several occasions.

Was this healthy? Did it impair my visual cortex?

I don't know and don't YET know. What I do know is that whenever I needed to do my homework from school, I had to have the TV on. It could be Math, Science or English... I could still get it done and yet follow the storyline on screen. Later in adult working life, I discovered that I could multi-task pretty well. The world outside could be falling apart yet I could design a tuner, test two TVs for color difference and talk to HQ overseas on the phone. Maybe that's the reason why I became a TV engineer early on in my career. Perhaps all TV engineers are like me.

I worked for Thomson TV and one time I was sent to Indianapolis in the U.S. to help troubleshoot a problem. Guess what? All the engineers there each had a 9-inch TV on their desk. They could be watching a Super Bowl game or a Michael Jackson music video; - nobody cared. As long as you do your assigned work, YOU COULD WATCH TV THE WHOLE DAMN DAY. I felt I had finally found my commune; to finally be among the other static babies from the rest of the world.

Of course, the joy did not last. I had to come home to Singapore. But that experience assured me that it was alright to be a static baby. Like an equaliser, we could tune ourselves to be receptive to many inputs. It didn't have to be sight or sound alone.

As a baby sitting in front of static, that was what I did. I could see the static but I was hearing my dad snore. I heard the static but saw my siblings all sound asleep. I watched and heard the static but saw shadows from the street below pan across our bedroom wall. Yes, it was static, but it did not matter. It was night and night with its peculiar noises and slideshow.

It is weird to be remembering all these when I cannot even remember my old girlfriends' telephone numbers... numbers that I'd dialled often and meant so much. So why is it so difficult to recall them? Are they sealed up in a mind-vault once the relationship is over? I wonder if women have the same trouble.

With the advent of TV many women also use the medium as a babysitting tool. My mom would feed us whilst we watched cartoons on TV when we were very young. We were easier to feed like that, according to her.

We watched cartoons after school, we watched cartoons on Saturday mornings. I think these are universal activities amongst kids from all over the world. Ask any TV programmer and they will probably admit to the same thing.

What cartoons did we watch? Mostly the Hanna-Barbera ones like Scooby Doo, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Tom & Jerry, Quick Draw McGraw, Penelope Pitstop, Mr Magoo, and Yogi Bear. We also had The Pink Panther by Fritz Freleng, an absolute gem. I liked watching Top Cat also because its initials were similar to mine (when I was in NS later, people nicknamed me Top Cat). Then there's the Warner Bros gang of Road Runner and the Coyote. Or Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. ('Rabbit Season' was a top classic featuring the both of them in a "Shoot me now or shoot me later" pronoun tussle.)

And boy, did we love Ultraman. Every now and then, Ultraman would fight a different monster. But the same thing always happened: The fight is prolonged, Ultraman's energy is sapped, he fights as if life hangs by a thread, escapes into the sun to refuel, returns to fight the monster again, and defeats the creature.

We kids identified with Ultraman because of all that. No matter how difficult the situation, we would become superhuman and overcome whatever obstacles that stood in our way. Crossing our arms like Ultraman might not provide us with an energy beam but reaching for the sun gave us renewed hope and energy. In any case, that's how I saw it in my later years. But as a kid, you get suckered into watching Ultraman suffer and comeback stronger each time. The monsters were also stupid. You know they will die in the end no matter what special powers they possessed, or how ridiculous their claws/tentacles became.

Do you know that Ultraman weighs 35,000 tons? Can run at 450 kph? Or that his energy is only 3-5 minutes long? Thanks to the World Wide Web, I now know these facts. But back then, these facts weren't quite explained. And come on, Ultraman's energy was way longer than the five mins before his chest light blinkered on and off as a warning that his battery was low. (At last count, Ultraman has over 30 special powers).

But the biggest attraction of Ultraman back then was you could be someone else by just squeezing on some sort high-tech stick. In the story, it was some kind of baton with a button much like a light saber without the light. Later, this evolved to become gun shaped.

I also learned later that once in a while this 'baton' would be passed on, and a new type of Ultraman would be introduced. To date, there have been 29 of them. The 30th - Ultraman Saga - will be introduced next year in 2012. I also didn't know that over the years there have been fake Ultramans. Creatures that looked like some sort of Ultraman but were evil. He is often enhanced by some dark color in his costume or some evilly shaped eyes, no more the salted egg (ham tan) look. In Hong Kong, Ultraman is known as ham tam chew yan or salted egg superhero. This is in reference to his bulging white/yellow eyes.

The good news is that Ultraman is still popular amongst kids after all these 45+ years. You can still buy and collect various VCDs and DVDs of his exploits. Watching them now as an adult, I also begin to wonder why I liked McGyver so much. It looks very predictable and dated now. But not for Ultraman. The cast changes, the Ultraman transforming baton is passed on to the next generation, cities look a little more modern (but still burned and flattened by the monsters in the end), and Ultraman's brothers come and help defeat the invading monster and chuck it back into space. The stories still stand tall in our minds just as Ultraman did in the 70s in all his 40 metres before flying into the sun.

The stories are also no different from any formulaic Indian movie, why I think Ultraman the TV show beats McGyver any time. And kids being kids, they will never outgrow such primitive story premises. Good vs Bad; Weak Becomes Strong; Struggle Becomes Success. Good-Triumphs-In-The-End.

You might say McGyver is a hero but he is also OCD (obsessive-compulsive) when it came to solving problems with gadgets. As a character, he is ripe for a parody. I wonder why nobody has done it yet.

I have watched TV till static come on and then some. What I've learnt is that if you are selective about what you watch, you can learn a hell lot more than reading a book. Call it programmed video education but we all do it, don't we? Watch TV to keep up with popular culture, for instance. When I was in Public Relations, I did just that. How else could you relate better to a client in a light moment? Talk about families? Nah.

And the information could come in handy when savvying up a speech for a top CEO.

So, I am glad that I am a Static Baby. I've watched a lot of TV for the right reasons but mostly, it is because I am a night person. The VCR and now DVD recorder has helped. But for the moment it is Blogspot that leads me into the dead of night. PC monitor static, anyone?

Head Tunes

2011-08-19T03:04:00.000-07:00

You know how ditties are. Once they get inside your head, it gets a grip on you and refuses to let go. I have a ditty which I have been singing since I was five or seven. It's in Cantonese and is about a man who one day, while having satay along Beach Road, thought he saw an old flame and decided to approach her. He got beaten up, lost his job. He also recounted how he and this girl, Molly, first met and fell in love. The war then came and they lost touch with one another.

Surprisingly, this ditty did not come from Hong Kong, which for a time was very caught up with playful tunes like these. Cheng Kwan Yin (Min) was the king of this period, comparable to the fame of Weird Al Jankovic in the 80s (well, at least in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia). Cheng's songs were not just about funny lyrics set to popular tunes but were also about witty conversations between two people, why Cheng often sang with a partner, usually female. These conversations could be anything under the sun such as getting a treat of roast duck from a friend, or why both should go to a teahouse for a cuppa and a dance. Someone even sang a song about having a salted-egg (ham tan) meal!

These tunes first appeared in the late 50s and early 60s and quite a few had Cha-Cha and Ah-Go-Go rhythms with them. For a kid, tunes with funny lyrics like Body Full of Ants or Please Walk Faster were hilarious and offered countless hours of priceless repeat singing and play-acting.

I supposed I shouldn't have been surprised to learn that this particular Cantonese ditty in my head all these years was not actually from Hong Kong but Singapore. When I set eyes again on that album cover (with the National Theatre icon) after so many decades, I was immediately taken back to those lazy Sundays or Saturdays when my mom or dad would put on a record or two. We had a record player that was set in a cabinet that also had a built-in radio. It had a lid on top and knobs and buttons in front. A large speaker was to the side. Below, across its width, a pull-down door hid a cupboard for keeping records. The cabinet was longish and low and had those short slim round legs that pointed out; capped with brass no less. It was all very 60s in design that was part classic, part sexy, and a whole lot of attitude. I love them still.

That unforgettable tune had a title. It was called Tam Sha Lei, the nickname of the character in the song. The other indelible song in my head was Hawaii Five-O. "Tat tat tat tat da daa...tat tat tat tat tat daa...." As a kid, Jack Lord's suaveness was what I aspired to. Growing up, I never forgot this tune nor Lord's curry-puff hairdo. (Aren't you glad that there is now a brand new Hawaii Five-O series? You can watch it with your grandkids and when they become old, they can think back about the time they spent with you humming that irresistible theme music like you did when you were young!)

Some other records we played frequently were Russ Hamilton's We Will Make Love, Skeeter Davis's End of the World, Elvis Priestly's Blue Hawaii. A Mandarin record that held a special place in our hearts was Xiao Bai Chuan or Little White Boat. It had that classic song Ma Ma Hao or Mother is Best. Like the rest, Xiao Bai Chuan was a 45 rpm record. Only Presley was 33 rpm because he simply had too many songs.

Quite a few Chinese singers also crossed over to sing in English, at times simply replacing the words in Mandarin with English. One particular creation went like this:

To you I have a thing called Love.
It is always in my heart.
I recall I fell in love when we met I knew...
But why did you keep ignoring me,
Makes me feel that I'm so alone.

My love for you is true that I know,
Please don't make me feel blue.

Another one was:

All pretty flowers bloom in the month of Spring
And by the riverside we see lovers stroll
Under the tree they sat and kissed,
You and I are in the Wonderland of Love.

Think of the love we gave
when we're all in love
My love is true that I know
But you changed your mind
You found a new sweetheart
Oh, oh, no I'm not what I was before
Oh, oh, no I'm not what I was before

I think the above two songs worked very well as transplanted creations. Not an easy thing to do. People have tried it with Cantonese opera with disastrous results!

There were also a few international English hits that got inside our heads. Two in particular: Butterfly and Will The Circle Be Unbroken. Apparently Butterfly was a song made famous by Danyel Gerard in the 70s but got rewritten and sung by Jim Ed Brown. Here's the one from my childhood:

You are bright as a night full of moon

Butterfly you have left much to soon

You have found you have wings and now you wish to fly

Please don't go, oh please don't say good bye.