However, the battle against long hair was not only targeted at locals. At Paya Lebar Airport, any man arriving in our country who sported long hair had a choice—to have his hair cut immediately by a barber provided by Customs & Immigration, or to get back on the plane! Of course, the world’s press reported this, and Singapore shot into the international limelight. Unfavourably. Pop stars who were scheduled to perform in Singapore cancelled their gigs, because they were told that they either had to have their hair cut or to perform wearing hair-nets, which they refused. In this same light of not condoning the hippie culture, officials tried to ban pop music and deemed it as “yellow culture” and unhealthy in Singapore. This provoked another murmur of rebellion.
On 30 August, an army truck rolled down our dusty village road. I imagined that other trucks must be doing the same in various other kampongs and housing estates around our island. It was a huge, heavy truck with gigantic wheels, not like the usual lorries we used for day-to-day goods transportation. This truck had a canvas roof and walls. When it stopped by our community centre near the ponds, a couple of soldiers dressed in green army camouflage fatigues jumped off lithely. The villagers had got together to provide a buffet of curry, mee goreng, bee hoon, chye tow kway, and a myriad of foods that they felt our young men would miss when they began their life in the army. I was one of the cheeky ones who had invited ourselves to the going-away party, availing myself of the delicious food, whose aroma made me salivate. I could never see the sense of going on a diet, or bear to see food wasted. Mr Yap, Suhaimi and Ananda from the PA had supplied some bottled F&N orange drinks. Muthu, our ice-ball man, who turned out beautifully round ice-balls coloured with swirls of syrup, provided some ice, which he chipped manually from a big block. It was always a treat to have a drink with ice in it, as this was still rare.
Together with Mr Yap, Suhaimi and Ananda, the soldiers mingled with the families, reassuring parents and grandparents, answering questions about what would happen to their sons or grandsons. This was new territory for everyone. After the feasting, the soldiers organised the new recruits by calling out names from their list, asking them to assemble on the concrete badminton court. My brothers were not affected as they were overage and of course Robert was a spastic1, so could not serve. The motley crew of young men in their pasar malam-purchased shirts and long trousers, carrying plastic bags of belongings, did not fit the image of military rigour or discipline. It would need a lot to knock them into shape.
“Don’t worry,” the soldier in command said to the families. “Your sons are leaving as boys but will come back as men!”
Weeping mothers bade their sons farewell and handed them packets of food, as if their sons were going to war. Fathers patted them on their backs. Siblings stared agog. It was not the Asian way to hug and kiss especially in public. Busybody neighbours like myself stood watching, as the boys climbed up the back of the truck. They sat in two rows, looking forlorn and slightly nonplussed, as if uncertain about what the next couple of years would bring. The two soldiers also climbed in, and the truck’s engine started, blowing out black smoke through its exhaust. We all started waving. The boys waved back as the truck rolled out of our village.
It was the beginning of NS in Singapore.
Nineteen sixty-seven was a truly dramatic year, with all sorts of developments. Philanthropist Mr Lee Kong Chian, well known for his contribution to our society, died. In Malaysia, silk magnate Jim Thompson walked out of his house in Cameron Highlands and was never seen again. But there were pleasant happenings too. In December, the first supersonic aeroplane, the Concorde, was unveiled in Toulouse, France. The Concorde was narrower than the other airliners, could travel at incredible speed and would take only four hours to get from London to New York. It was a stupendous moment in aviation history.
My father had bought our first TV set in 1965 to watch our weightlifter, Tan Howe Liang, in the SEAP Games. If he were still alive, Ah Tetia would certainly have glued himself to the TV to watch the news about Singapore’s 13-year-old swimmer, Patricia Chan Li-Yin, swimming her way to victory in the 1967 SEAP Games, which were held in Bangkok. She earned her moniker, Golden Girl, for her haul of gold medals since she started competing when she was just 11. This year, she shone again and made our new nation proud, with a record-breaking 10 gold medals!
1 The term “spastic” was an internationally and widely used term in those days. People with disabilities today will prefer to be described first as a person or an individual followed by his or her disability if it is relevant. >
Sunshine Opportunities
(1968)
WHEN I was a child, I was nearly always hungry. In our household, we had to share one mackerel with eight people! Some days, there was only boiled rice with soya sauce and one fried egg. The fear of not getting any food for the day manifested itself in my nightmares, and haunted me till my adulthood. There was no logic in it, but it was a hunger that could not be assuaged, even after I had money in my wallet.
Our family never took food for granted and hated any wastage. It was the same for the majority of our kampong neighbours. When the gnawing in our bellies became unbearable, the other village children and myself used to raid the dustbins of the English at Atas Bukit where we might find an apple or pear, some unspoiled biscuits and cakes, and especially stuff that the English bought at Cold Storage on Orchard Road, where we could not afford to shop. If that failed, we would resort to the countryside. Our wild fields of lallang, ponds and river were a sunshine of opportunities to find food: eggs from chickens and ducks who strayed from their coops, fish from the river, eels from the river banks or monsoon drains, edible frogs in the marshlands, tapioca or ubi kayu and sweet potato or keledek with their leaves from the grasslands. When we did manage to uproot some sugar cane, we dragged the long leafy plants home in a community spirit of gotong royong, singing as we went along, probably one of P. Ramlee’s songs. Our mothers would skin the sugar cane, then cut the long cane into chunks, and then into short strips. Boys who liked to think they were macho would keep their cane about a foot long, so that there was a dramatic effect when they bit into the stem. Often, you would see small groups of kids, mostly barefooted, looking like street urchins, chewing and chewing the juice out of the cane until it became fibrous and pulpy.
The village road also provided unexpected sustenance through its road kill, or using a Malay expression, mati katak, or the death of a frog (that had been run over by vehicles!). When a bullock cart, motorcar or lorry ran over a chicken or duck, we village children would scramble to the road after the vehicle had moved on, to see if the dead animal was salvageable. As long as the domestic animal was not diseased, it was potential food—never mind if it was a bit squashed!
“Saya punya! Saya punya!” the first child who reached it would claim ownership and was entitled to take home its remains for mother to cook!
When you were poor, you couldn’t afford to be proud or choosy.
But I was now a teenager, so I left the mati katak scramble to my younger neighbours. I was now waiting for my Senior Cambridge School Certificate results so that I could start working to contribute to the family’s finances. I had already started by giving English tuition to the village children. Most of the time, payment was in kind—some rambutans, chikku or cooked food. Ah Tetia’s retirement and subsequent death had put a strain on Mak. Now that she had Robert to manage on a daily basis, she could no longer wash clothes for others, nor did she have time to make any more nasi lemak to sell. It was up to Third Elder Brother and myself. Elder and Second Brother did continue to contribute but they had to put their own families first. Third Elder Brother did not have any ambition for material success so he plodded on at odd jobs. But he was a good son; he gave everything he earned to Mak. My mother, in turn, would give him back what was enough for his bus fare to work and back. This was an accepted custom in our time. Every day, Mak would cook him his lunch and put it in a two-tiered tingkat for him to save money. The majority of kampo
ng folks did the same, taking lunch to work in a tiffin carrier so that they saved money eating out. It took some knack for the villagers to transport the tiffin carrier on their bicycles. Tupperware containers had not been invented yet. One of the problems was that the food would be cold by lunchtime.
There was a visible improvement in our lives since our country’s independence. Our village road was lighted. We had electricity! In our house, we had two fluorescent tubes, one for the kitchen and the other for the rest of the house. The tubes fizzled occasionally and were unnaturally bright but they were better than candlelight. For some reason, they attracted the flying ants, which would fly into our houses in great clouds, getting into our eyes, mouths and noses. Parents would smoke them out with kemenyen, a rock incense, or by burning sabut, the husk of an old coconut. The coconut tree provided a myriad of uses besides its fruit for eating or its water for drinking. We could make oil from its dried kernels called copra, its shell was used as a scoop, the husk used for burning, the leaf woven for making ketupat or mats, the stem of the leaf to make brooms called sapu lidi, and so forth. For days afterwards, we would find the silvery wings of the burnt ants in our shoes, clothes and crockery!
Our civil servant neighbour, Uncle Krishnan, was well ahead of us—he had installed a telephone in his house and bought himself a Ford Prefect, which would have been unheard of five years ago. He was the talk of our entire village! His well-polished Ford Prefect stood outside his house, an emblem of his success.
“Wah! Uncle Krishnan!” Karim, our resident musician said, clapping him on the back. “Very nice motor! You are doing really well. You are the first in our village to own a private car, have a telephone and an ice box!”
Uncle Krishnan beamed.
“Any emergency, you can come and use my telephone,” he said generously. “No need to queue at the public telephone booth.”
We only had one telephone box in the village, so it was good that Uncle Krishnan had the instrument in his house also. I wondered if he expected us to put coins into it like at the public telephone. The telephone booth was the type that Clark Kent would dash into, where he’d rip off his clothes and emerge from it as Superman. Like other village kids, I was on a diet of Beano and Marvel comics, enjoying the rescue missions of superheroes and the antics of Desperate Dan, Dennis the Menace and Richie Rich.
I dreamt of having the sheer luxury of an ice box in our house, in which we could keep our food, and not have to rely on the meat-safe. The feet of the wooden meat-safe sat in saucers of water so that ants would not be able to climb up to devour our food. Its doors were made of lattice-worked rattan so that the food could breathe and not be stifled into putrefaction. But with our tropical heat, even the meat-safe could not preserve the food for too long. What a thrill it would be to have a refrigerator where food could be kept for days! There wouldn’t be any wastage. Plus, you could have ice cubes in your F&N Orange or Sarsi every day! The local kopi tiam also bought an ice box, and they started selling ayer batu Malaysia. Why it was called Malaysian ice cubes, we were not very sure. But it was an ingenious way to make money. All it took was to pour coloured syrup water into ice-cube trays, freeze them and sell them in cubes of three, for five cents! It was a huge thrill for us to be able to buy them and suck, till our cheeks ached with the cold.
The Industrial Revolution in the early nineteenth century was a turning point in human development and history.
The use of steam and water power, plus machinery took over from hand production and old fashioned physical labour. Great Britain paved the way for the rest of the world, innovating with the factory system as opposed to unsophisticated cottage industries. Improvements were made in gas lighting, which allowed factories and stores to remain open after dark. Methods of coal mining became more efficient so fuel was available to create machine tools and machinery for agricultural production, textile making, paper, glass, cement and other products. Canals, roads and railways could be built with ease to transport goods across larger regions. This helped to improve the country’s economy and gave jobs to millions. So, more work became available and women were called away from their hearths to work outside of their homes.
Likewise, a kind of industrial revolution was taking place in Singapore, obviously not on the scale of its namesake, but it was a revolution that would change Singapore’s status forever. It also provided jobs for thousands, and gave women the opportunity to work outside of their own homes.
This was the foresight of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, his solution for alleviating the mass poverty and job shortage in our country. To kick-start foreign investments in Singapore, Mr Lee gave tax-holidays to organisations and conglomerates who would set up their manufacturing factories in Singapore. With planning and foresight, thousands of jobs were suddenly created. As the factories needed to be built, masses of people were employed. The samsui women in their Hailam Blue outfit, carrying wicker baskets of bricks and masonry, became a familiar sight. Singapore transformed into a giant construction site as many multi-storeyed buildings began to take shape. This took place in conjunction with the creation of high-rise residential flats built under the auspices of first the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT), then HDB, which was established in 1960 to provide quality public housing, replacing attap houses.
Indeed, we could feel the wind of change upon us. Already the landscape around us was changing. Walking distance from Kampong Potong Pasir, in Kallang Basin, the residents of the kampongs around Kolam Ayer and opposite Beng Wan estate were the first in our area to be rehoused. They were given flats in the Jalan Besar and Rochor areas.
The demolition of those villages foreshadowed our own fate. Our hearts were in our mouths. Much as we looked forward to the idea of a home where there was electricity, running water and a flush toilet, we were not sure how we would cope with not having our village, the sense of space, the ease of camaraderie with our neighbours and our way of life. How could we have a similar way of life in a block of concrete flats?
“It won’t be long before they reach our kampong,” Pak Osman said. “Our attap houses are doomed. They are terrible fire hazards. Remember the great fire at Bukit Ho Swee? Plus, only one family can live in one attap house. But if they build it out of concrete and stack them up, the same space can house 10 to 20 families!”
“I love our kampong, but that does make sense actually. Especially with our growing population,” Uncle Krishnan said, always the loyal civil servant. “If we want better living conditions, then it’s inevitable that we have to eventually move lah!”
“I certainly would find it more comfortable in my old age to have a flush toilet,” Pak Osman agreed. “But I don’t know if I can adjust to living in a flat.”
“But I don’t want to live so far off the ground!” Nenek Bongkok cried. “If God wanted us to live so high up, he would have given us wings!”
Nenek was the Malay word for grandmother and was also an honorific for very old ladies. As her spine was curved very badly, she earned the moniker of bongkok. Nenek lived in a one-room attap hut where she sold her delicious dry white bee hoon, mee siam and nasi lemak from her front room-cum-kitchen; its floor was mud-packed. She cooked all the food on a dapur arang or coal stove and its smoke would drift into her windowless bedroom.
Mr Yap, Suhaimi and Ananda from the PA visited us again, this time not to tell us about recruitment of our young men for NS, but to tell us about the numerous jobs waiting for us at the factories at Kallang Basin nearby. Many of the factories making shoes, clothes or parts for cameras and various goods had assembly lines, and they needed unskilled workers, whom the businesses were prepared to train.
“No need to be educated!” Mr Yap said in Hokkien, as Suhaimi and Ananda translated into Malay and Tamil respectively. “A little bit of English helps, but as long as you can work, they want you! They need you! Very good pay! 30 cents an hour! If you work 8 hours, you will take home $2.40 cents a day. Every month, you will get at least $84! More if you work overtime. The fac
tories need men and women, machine operators, assembly line workers, supervisors, janitors and jagas. They are going to work round the clock. If you work the graveyard shift, the companies will take you home in their buses, so no worries about walking home in the dark by yourself.”
“Wah!” one young lady said. “Got transport as well as money!”
“But Mr Yap,” one clever villager remarked. “I thought there is a law that prevents women from working after midnight?”
“Yes, yes, that was last year,” Mr Yap said. “But that law has been changed. Our country is rapidly developing so we need everyone who can work to be working.”
The news created a happy buzz in our village. People who had no hope to earn money before were suddenly showered with a sunshine of opportunities.
“Phine! I can go and work!” Fatima said excitedly to me. “I can earn my own money! But I need to persuade my parents to let me. What about you? Do you want to work in the factory?”
“I was about to tell you that I have passed my exams and have got my Senior Cambridge Cert. I’m going to apply to be some kind of nurse,” I said. “I’ve got an interview with the Public Service Commission (PSC) next month.”
At this period, most girls took up shorthand so that they could become secretaries. But the course cost money which I didn’t have. In any case, I did not want to become a secretary.
I wanted a job where I was not stuck in an office. I wanted to be of service to the sick and needy. I had to earn money for the family.
All over the country, teenage girls and boys, women and men, crawled out of their homes in droves to start work in the various manufacturing factories around the island. Our villagers also found work in the staff canteens, selling noodles, nasi lemak and other foods during the meal breaks. Suddenly, any able-bodied person from the village was no longer unemployed. There were jobs for everyone. Prime Minister Lee’s plan was working. We had jobs, so we had food in our belly. Since they say that a hungry man is an angry man, we had no need to be angry anymore. The companies sent out the more skilled workers and better educated individuals to their home bases in Germany, France, UK and US to train as supervisors, production engineers, quality control managers, et cetera. These people would then train others when they returned. The revolution had begun. The process of our country’s progress had started.
Goodbye My Kampong Page 6
