Goodbye My Kampong

by Josephine Chia

  Life in the kampong invariably changed. Pandora’s Box had been opened.

  The old languid way of doing things, wandering about the village with time on people’s hands, was becoming a thing of the past. Except for homemakers and caretakers, the other villagers were now cycling and walking faster, their strides long with the determination to get to work. This was inevitable; the tide of change could not be stopped. Swarms of people left the village by day and returned by night. Except during the weekends, in the day, our village lost its vibrancy and was quieter, as if the Pied Piper had been there to pipe his tune, drawing people out of their homes into factories and offices.

  In April, I wept at the news of the death of one of my heroes, Civil Rights movement leader Martin Luther King. He was assassinated in a motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was trying to do so much for coloured Americans2, and yet there were people who thwarted his mission. During this time, I was reading lots of spiritual-type books and was inspired by the Zen teachings of Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh. He and his fellow monks had engaged in non-violent protests against the Vietnam War. When he went to give a lecture at Cornell University in the US, the Vietnamese government refused to let him return to his home country. From that moment he was exiled, and later, when he met Martin Luther King, he told him about the plight of the Vietnamese people. Dr King spoke strongly against the Vietnam War, and nominated Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize.

  The humble monk had told Dr King that the Vietnamese people considered Dr King a Bodhisattva, an enlightened being. When he heard about the assassination, Thich Nhat Hanh said, “America gave us Martin Luther King, but they could not preserve him.”

  A different kind of buzz happened in May. The Singapore Pools was formed. It operated under the Ministry of Finance and introduced a Bulgarian Numbers Lottery Game called TOTO, which was a combination of the words “Totalisator” and “Lotto”. The reasoning was that there was widespread illegal gambling in the country and the government needed to manage it. In this way, the government was satisfying the gambling lust yet controlling it at the same time. It was true that gambling was an innate habit with some, particularly with the Chinese. They were the ones who created the Chap Ji Ki, a home-devised lottery, prevalent in kampongs. Such people gambled at the slightest provocation—even ants crawling to their nest became an opportunity to gamble!

  In the new game of TOTO, one could pick 6 numbers out of 49 to win the monetary prize of $500,000. Half a million dollars! The amount was staggering. No one in our kampong would have ever seen that kind of money! So far, villagers had only been playing with Chap Ji Kee and Tontin, winning paltry sums of money. Our people started running around almost in a frenzy to learn about how the system worked, and to procure a ticket. For fifty cents, the price of almost two bowls of noodles, one was given a sunshine of opportunities. Hundreds of queues snaked around the Singapore Pools premises, as people surged forward to buy the ticket for the first draw, which would take place on 9 June.

  Naturally, I bought one ticket for my mother.

  The inaugural draw took place at Victoria Theatre and was telecast on TV, and our house was crammed with neighbours, each one of us holding our precious ticket in our hand, our dreams poured into the small square of paper. Some of the people started to build castles in the air, telling us what they would do with the win. Then silence fell as the draw began. We watched the screen with bated breath, as pretty young girls in short shift dresses stood on stage with a placard each of the 42 numbers. As each set of numbers was called out, the girl would come forward to the front of the stage, holding her placard high: 42, 11, 43, 28, 36, 39 and the additional number was 9. No one won the top prize.

  We sighed. Castles came crashing down. None of us won anything. The moral of the story was that opportunities should be created from insightful decisions and work, not through gambling.

  More sad news followed on TV. When we didn’t have TV, we could not put faces to famous names, but now the medium had given us intimate views of them. Senator Robert Kennedy, brother to the late John F. Kennedy was shot. Our villagers expressed sorrow over the tragedy, and ruminated over the theory of the Kennedy curse.

  But when a tragedy hits closer to home, the impact was greater. During the Family Planning campaigns, one of the Maternal and Child Health clinics set up in rural areas to educate the kampong dwellers on birth control was in Sembawang. Sadly, a couple of the midwives who were on night duty there were raped.

  “Alamak! Our opportunity for work now gone,” Mahmood lamented. “Gar’ment now say cannot drive pirate taxis. So very susah.”

  “Ya lah,” Ah Beng agreed, flicking his Good Morning towel in a desultory manner. “Cannot earn living. Cannot feed family.”

  Both of them were our local pirate taxi drivers. They fetched people here and there, but did not have any proper licence to ferry passengers, hence the name “pirate”. There were thousands like them across the country, who did not undergo the stringent tests that a proper taxi driver had to undergo because of lack of money and education. When they transported schoolkids to school, they put an extra board in the back seat to create two-tier seating, so that they could cram more children into the back. Sometimes a pirate taxi could cart up to 10 children or 6 adults in one taxi. Of course, this was a high-risk factor if there was an accident. Especially since the pirate taxis were not insured to carry passengers. When the need had been great, due to a poor public transport system and the inability of the majority to afford travelling by taxi, the government had turned a blind eye, but now it was ensuring that taxi drivers were properly trained. This new government was a new broom that wanted to sweep things clean.

  “You don’t have to be jobless,” civil servant Uncle Krishnan advised. “There are more jobs out there than ever before! The manufacturing plants are crying out for workers. No need to do illegal stuff like driving pirate taxis anymore.”

  “He is chenghu nang, gar’ment person,” Ah Beng said to Mahmood. “Maybe we both can go and look for jobs at Kallang Basin…”

  “Okay friend-friend, we go find jobs,” Mahmood agreed.

  Fatima found a job at a garment factory in Kallang Basin, a walking distance from our kampong. She blossomed at her work and enjoyed getting out of the house and meeting people. Though the job was repetitive, sewing the hems of clothes, her hands needed to be quick and she felt proud of her own skill. Like many of the village girls, she was exposed to a new way of life, and she was earning good money.

  I got a job too. My interview with the PSC was a success. I hadn’t been sure which branch of nursing I wanted to be in. I was still a frog under a coconut shell and didn’t have much knowledge. The interviewers at PSC informed me about a national campaign coming up to educate the population on dental health and hygiene, so there were new openings for dental nurses and Assistant Nurses (Dental), AND, for short. The first would work on young children with milk teeth to take the pressure off dentists and dental surgeons, of whom we didn’t yet have enough to cope with the growing need. The second would assist dental surgeons in their work to extract, conserve or operate on teeth with various oral conditions. I felt that if I chose the first, I would be limited to just treating children’s teeth, whereas in the second option, I would be working at the Dental Clinic in ORGH with the possibility of experiencing a variety of oral and dental conditions which would be more varied, so I chose the latter. It was going to be a two-year training period of lectures, practicals and in-service experience, all of which would be paid! I would be supplied with two free sets of white nursing uniforms, one nursing cap and two pairs of canvas shoes. Like my school shoes, the nursing shoes had to be blancoed. But at least now I would have two pairs, so even if it rained and I could not dry one pair in the sun, there would be a spare one ready. All the nurses in the hospital would be dressed the same, except that the epaulets on our shoulders would identify our sectors—blue for general nursing, green for midwives, and yellow for dental. We would begin with one stripe
for the first year, two for the second, and a solid coloured epaulet when we graduated.

  “Mak! I’m going to be a nurse!” I told her when I got home, beaming.

  “So, finally!” she said with equal joy. “It was worth putting you through school.”

  I thought back to the early years when I couldn’t even read the words on a Milo tin. I had felt stupid and had persuaded Mak to send me to school. As Ah Tetia wouldn’t let her use any of the housekeeping money for my education, Mak was the one who worked for the money for my schooling. She made nasi lemak, and I carted it around the village in a rattan basket to sell it. She also had to take in the neighbours’ washing and I had to help to bring up the water from the well.

  So, this was a tremendous moment for both of us.

  Though I protested that I could do it myself, Mak spent an entire afternoon ironing my uniform to get it all nice and crisp. First she filled the serika, a heavy metal iron, with burning coals, then closed it. On a folded towel, she spread out my uniform, sprinkling water on it. Then, taking a piece of banana leaf, she scorched it with the hot iron before gliding the iron repeatedly on my uniform, bringing up the delicious smell of the banana leaf, almost as lovely as when she put hot nasi lemak onto it. Meanwhile, my blancoed shoes were baking in the strong sunlight. On the morning of my first day at work, I woke up before sunrise to have my shower in the communal bathroom, just in case it was occupied later, and made me late. I put on my uniform, saving the cap till I got to the hospital in case it got squashed in the bus. When I was all dressed, my mother looked at me and said with her usual enigmatic wisdom, “Remember. Work to serve others. Not yourself.”

  I felt 10 feet tall as I walked through the village in my crisp white uniform. I would need to take the same STC Bus number 18, which I had taken from ORGH to Serangoon Gardens, to buy my father his last treat of fish and chips. The journey would take an hour and would cost me 30 cents. I wondered what Ah Tetia might have said if he could see me now.

  “Wah! Ah Phine!” Zul said. “You are a Missi now! A real jururawat. A nurse.”

  “Missi” was the colloquial manner of addressing a nurse.

  “Not yet lah,” I said, “just about to start training.”

  “Missi! Missi!” The other kids teased me, but this time their tone was respectful.

  ORGH sat on a hill opposite Neil Road, where the bus had its terminus. The Dental Clinic was an elegant colonial building with cream columns and facade. The clinic was also a teaching university, training undergraduate dental surgeons. There was a department for prosthetics, extracting teeth, one for conserving, orthodontia, plus a section for dealing with local surgery on gum boils and lacerations. There was also an operating theatre for people who had to have anesthesia for their procedures and for life-threatening conditions like mouth cancer. It was so fascinating.

  In the Nurses’ Room, I looked into the mirror, to pin my nursing cap onto my head. Okay, I was still dark and ugly but I felt like a different person. I could be someone of use to society and was no longer the useless person who wasted rice, as my father had said over the years. I was no longer a poor, uneducated kampong urchin. I was going to earn money! The month zipped by so quickly, my brain tackling new knowledge and learning basic things like taking the temperature of a patient and such like. At the end of the month, we were given our wages in cash in a square brown envelope—$152.50! It was the largest amount I had ever seen and held. I could not believe it was all mine! My heart thudded in my chest. How would I dare to carry so much money home on a public bus? What if someone stole it from me? I was so kiasu, I bought some safety pins, put the envelope in the large pocket of the uniform and pinned it all round with the safety pins from underneath so that no one could undo the pins! I wanted to be sure that the packet wouldn’t fall out or be pickpocketed on the bus. I was a nervous wreck the whole journey, worrying as much as if I was carrying the Crown Jewels.

  When I got home, I took out all the safety pins from my pocket. It gave me tremendous pleasure to proudly hand Mak the whole wage-packet. She took out the cash and counted it, then looked up at me with her liquid eyes.

  “We don’t have to be hungry anymore,” she said, with a lovely smile.

  I nodded, too overwhelmed by emotion to speak. Indeed, we didn’t have to be hungry anymore. It had been a long emotional track to this very moment. What would my father have said about me now? I was not as worthless as he had often thought. Now I stood waiting patiently whilst Mak did her sums to see what was needed in the household. Then she handed me $50. Approximately one-third of my month’s wages.

  “For your bus fare and lunch for the month,” she said. “If there’s not enough for lunch, I can always cook it for you to take with you each day.”

  So, 1968 was a year for me to remember for various reasons. It was the year of my initiation into the working world. It was also the year when the first outdoor concert arena was opened in MacRitchie Reservoir. Second Elder Brother was taking his new bride to see the first open air concert at the new arena and he took my sisters and me along. Mak made and packed a few packets of nasi lemak for our picnic. Second Elder Brother brought along some F&N Sarsaparilla, which we called Sarsi, for short. It was deliciously fizzy, a bit like Coca Cola.

  Named after its Municipal Engineer James MacRitchie in 1922, the reservoir was also a recreational place, besides contributing to the nation’s water reserves. In 1857, Peranakan businessman Tan Kim Seng had given money to improve Singapore’s waterworks. It was supposed to be used to build a reservoir, in addition to the one at Thomson. But the colonial government bungled and Tan Kim Seng’s donation was misspent, and he died before it was done. Subsequently, to save themselves further embarrassment, the colonial government built a fountain in his honour at Fullerton Square, which was later moved to Queen Elizabeth Walk at the Esplanade. It was at this Wedgewood blue fountain that my father had taken my mother and me out to celebrate our joint birthdays, Mak’s forty-first and my fifth, in March 1956. It was probably after that romantic outing that Robert was conceived. For some reason, the outing stayed etched in my memory, though some people said it was impossible for someone that age to remember so clearly. It could well be a false memory syndrome, but I seemed to remember being enthralled by the sculptures surrounding the fountain. I was sure that Ah Tetia had explained to me about the fountain and that it had been built in honour of the philanthropist Mr Tan Kim Seng, and why.

  “They should have named this reservoir after Tan Kim Seng,” I said to my brother.

  “Why?” he asked.

  And I told him the story our father had told me.

  “Trust them to name it after an ang mo instead,” Second Elder Brother remarked.

  But we were not going to allow that sentiment to corrupt our mood. It was a glorious day, the sun was shining, but the breeze stirred the surface of the water and brought cool air to our faces. It was so wonderful to be in the surroundings of the beautiful reservoir with its magnificent trees and body of water. We stood at the water’s edge and admired the pavilion of the concert arena that was built at the end of the boardwalk. It was of a similar shape as the Band Stand at the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

  “Here they come,” Second Elder Brother said to his wife and us. “The schoolgirls who won the RTS Talentime last year. The Tidbits.”

  People applauded uproariously as the three young girls in their matching outfits and beanie hats arrived at the pavilion. Sisters Serene and Melina Wee, 13 and 12 respectively, with cousin Bernadette de Souza, 12, formed The Tidbits. Their song, ‘I Believe’, helped them to win the talentime and secured for them a contract with RCA, who produced their first record. Their voices were fresh and sweet and they sang in good harmony. Everyone clapped again when they sang the opening bars: “I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows…”

  The year ended on a high note.

  We also celebrated the recognition received by our athletes. The first Singapore Sports Awards were held o
n 27 December. The Sportswoman of The Year award went to 14-year-old golden girl Pat Chan which was not a surprise to the majority of us, since she had been consistent in bringing home gold medals. The Sportsman of The Year went to 26-year-old school teacher, Canagasabai Kunalan, the sprinter who represented Singapore in the Mexico Olympics. Before Kunalan, there had been British athletes who represented Singapore in the Olympics, but since our independence, we had our own Singaporeans to do so. It was something to be truly proud of.

  2 The term “coloured” was internationally recognised and widely used in those days. The term would have been considered offensive to individuals today. >

  Water, Water Everywhere

  (1969)

  IN the Chinese Lunar calendar, 1969 was the Year of The Earth Rooster. It should not have been a bad year, as the astrological sign was a Yin Metal and was usually not one that foretold major disasters. In Chinese Feng Shui, when there is the presence of the Star of Conflict or if the lunar year is in direct confrontation with the deity Tai Sui, some kind of disaster will happen in that year. I am unfamiliar with Feng Shui principles and did not know if there was any confrontation in 1969, but it was not a good year for us. Our country went through another round of conflict between the Malays and Chinese, in the worst Sino-Malay riots since 1964.