In an epidemic, the ones that are likely to be most vulnerable are the young and the very old. Pak Osman, our most respected and beloved villager, once our wise village headman, succumbed to cholera. He was right; he would never see another flood in our village again. Perhaps he was prescient. On our journey to see our independent nation’s first National Day Parade, he had expressed the thought that it was going to be his last. His death was a great loss for us. His family and the Muslim community carried his body to Masjid Alkaff Serangoon for the interring ceremony. (The other Masjid Alkaff was in Kampong Melayu near Bedok.) Ours was opposite our village, crossing Upper Serangoon Road to Wan Tho Avenue, and then shortly turning left into Pheng Geck Avenue. We trailed behind in grief. He was the stalwart of the village and now he was gone, the sunshine that he had spread with his presence and wisdom had been snuffed out.
The small mosque had a beautiful minaret with a green crescent and star at the top. The roof was red-tiled with edges of green, its walls pure white. If one stood in the tower, one could see the whole of the Bidadari cemetery and the tops of our village. The mosque was built in 1930 by Syed Abdul Rahman Alkaff, whose ancestors had arrived in Singapore in 1852 from Indonesia. Shaik Alkaff was a successful businessman, who had created the famous Alkaff Gardens which ran alongside Bidadari. The Gardens with its lake were so beautiful that film crews had come to do their filming here. The area was our recreational centre, where we ran up and down the small hillocks, played hide-and-seek, swam and sailed on the lake. I considered it my good fortune to have to pass the scenic place on my way to Cedar School daily, first the Primary School, then the Secondary, whose location was adjacent to Bidadari Cemetery. When I was little, and Mak had taken me to afternoon school, we would often stop at Alkaff Gardens to eat our nasi lemak there.
Every Friday, when the muezzin called the faithful to prayer from the tower of the mosque, the sound would spread its joy to our kampong. The place also acted like a community centre for Muslims, a refuge where they gathered, prayed and communed with each other. During feast days, the mosque gave out food to the needy in the surrounding villages.
Our male neighbours could enter the mosque but as women, Fatima, other female neighbours, my mother, and I were not allowed into the portion of the mosque reserved for men. We stood at the wing side of the mosque, saying our silent goodbye to Pak Osman. He had symbolised kampong life, and his passing seemed to suggest its demise as well.
True enough, not long afterwards, we were horrified to see huge earth movers and bull dozers descend upon Alkaff Gardens. Pak Osman’s heart would have broken as ours did when we watched the trees being rudely uprooted by the steel cranes, then followed by lorry after lorry dumping sand and gravel into our beautiful lake, sealing it forever. The hills were flattened, and along with them, our memories. The excavated earth was red and raw as if it was bleeding from a deep wound.
From the ashes of our dreams, concrete was piled and rose up to be the two-storeyed Willow Secondary School.
Though many suffered greatly, the floods and the riots were not in vain. The PAP government learnt a lot from what had happened. In terms of the floods, the government made it a priority to improve the drainage system in the country. Despite grumpy Ah Gu’s insinuation about politicians making empty promises, there were those who did keep them. Prime Minister Lee immediately called for tenders to get a construction company to start creating a viable drainage network that would deal with our heavy tropical rains. Mak was pleased when I told her that Koh Construction had won the tender, as she was a Koh herself. The floods also showed the government that it was imperative that people in the villages should all be moved to safer housing, where we wouldn’t be so vulnerable to floods and potential fires. The riots taught the government that racial harmony must be a top priority in our country. Only when we all lived happily with each other and worked to build our country together could we be united.
This was in keeping with Prime Minister Lee’s sentiment which he voiced a while back, “We are going to have a multi-racial nation in Singapore. We will set the example. This is not a Malay nation; this is not a Chinese nation; this is not an Indian nation. Everybody will have his place: equal; language, culture, religion.”
Year the Metal Dog
(1970)
THE Dog occupies the 11th position in the Chinese zodiac, which follows the cycle of the moon. The Lunar Year begins in the season of spring. Traditionally, the Lunar New Year begins with the birth of the new Spring Moon and the celebration ends 15 nights later, on Chap Goh Meh, the Teochew and Hokkien term for the 15th Night. At this point, the moon would have waxed to its fullest and brightest, a true lover’s moon if seen in the Northern hemisphere. The extended feasting is wrapped up with a big family dinner. Prior to this, on the eve of Chinese New Year, the most important meal of the year is held. It is called the Reunion Dinner, where all families get together in the home on the male side of the household. In China, this need to congregate for this special annual meal causes a huge exodus from cities to outlying villages.
Here in Singapore too, there was a surge of movement of people, mostly workers going back to Malaysia. Coach-buses, trains and flights were heavily booked during this period. A stampede of cars, motorcyclists and cyclists could be seen crossing the Causeway at such a time. Now that passports were required for going into Malaysia, massive traffic jams at the immigration posts were created whereas it would have been free-flowing before, when Singapore was part of British Malaya, and later when we were Malaysians. As we have a high majority of Chinese in our country, it meant that many shops and businesses were shut, at least for the first three days of the Chinese New Year.
Legend has it that the Emperor of Heaven called for all the animals to come and pay obeisance to him. Then the lunar calendar was constructed and named in the order that each animal had turned up. The 12 zodiac animals in their order are: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat (Sheep), Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. Therefore, each cycle of the Chinese zodiac animal comes round every 12 years. This means that a person will be sixty years old when his astrological sign reaches the fifth cycle from his birth. This is the person’s Golden Year. Each zodiac animal has its own characteristics and is accompanied by one of the five ruling elements, Wu Xing, in Mandarin. The five elements are—Jin (metal), Mu (wood), Shui (water), Huo (fire), and Tu (earth), and they are said to influence certain prevailing conditions in the person as well as the environment.
Chinese immigrants brought this tradition to Southeast Asia. Though we do not have four seasons in the tropics, we still celebrate the Chinese New Year as a Spring Festival. The spring allusion works well, as the New Year is all about new beginnings.
In 1970, Chinese New Year would begin on 6 February of the Gregorian calendar and would be the Year of the Dog. Its ruling element would be Metal. Each year, the element varies as does the date the Chinese New Year falls on in relation to the Gregorian calendar. The Zodiac Dog is like the proverbial house pet, often faithful, loyal and sincere. Each Chinese astrological sign has two Allies and one Secret Friend, and one astrological sign that will be in conflict with yours. The Allies and Secret Friend help to add another element to your astrological sign. I am a Zodiac Rabbit and according to my Chinese age, I was born on the 2nd of the 11th Lunar month in the Year 4649(!), or March 1951 in the Gregorian calendar. My Allies are the Zodiac Goat (Sheep) and Pig, and my Secret Friend is the Zodiac Dog. Therefore, I should be protected in 1970, so long as I did not have to confront the Rooster, who is my conflict Chinese Zodiac sign.
Chinese New Year in Singapore had been celebrated with great gusto and aplomb for many years. The colour red is a symbol that is believed to ward off all evil. Hence it is the ruling colour for Chinese New Year. Houses would be dressed in red banners; clothes, curtains and cushions would be made in red. All the department stores started stocking red clothes and accessories way before the New Year was due. However, those in mourning could not wear red.
/> “It’s nearly three years since your father passed on,” Mak said to my siblings and myself, “we can stop mourning now and celebrate this Taon Baru.”
Taon Baru is the Peranakan way of saying the New Year. Though I didn’t say it out loud, I did think, it was about time! It had been so boring wearing black for the whole of the first year. Immediately after my father’s death, Mak had boiled a huge drum of water outside the house over a log fire. I found out why it had it had to be done outdoors when she added in the black dye and dunked our clothes in it. The dye quickly snatched away the colours of our clothes and transformed them into a joyless, funereal hue. The rising steam and fumes smelled foul. And even after the newly dyed clothes were washed, dried and ironed, they still stank. Fortunately, in the second year, we were permitted to wear shades of blue, and in the third, pastel colours. I wondered how such a practice of austerity would have helped my deceased father or his spirit.
“Okay, Mak,” we said placidly, though we were ready to burst out in whoops.
My family and I performed the ritual of the final rites by going to my father’s grave at the Christian section of the Bidadari Cemetery. This was mostly where the British had buried their dead. As a child, we had watched many a British funeral procession, as well as some military ones. There was a Muslim section across Mount Vernon Road. Bidadari is a Malay word which was supposed to refer to a fairy. Ah Tetia was buried in a plot on the crest of the hill, not far from where his mother was buried. We went through the imposing Victorian wrought-iron gates, then trod up the narrow, paved path, keeping to the shadows of the rain trees’ canopies to protect ourselves from the blazing sun. There in front of the photo on his tombstone, we said our prayers, then symbolically asked his permission to end the mourning period. Following this, we took off the square patch of fabric that we had pinned to our sleeve since his death, which signified our mourning status. We ceremoniously discarded these in his so-called presence. Now we could resume wearing red and all the colours of the rainbow again! Yippee! As soon as we had spring-cleaned the house, we would be able to put up the chai kee, the red fabric above our doorway to attract good fortune. Mak was very deft with her fingers and she had the art of twisting the ends of the red fabric into peony flowers.
The Chinese love for the colour red meant that even the firecrackers were packaged in red. To welcome the New Year, firecrackers and fireworks would be let off. At nights children would play with bunga meriam, an innocuous firework stick which sparkled with light. Upon lighting it, the child would weave it round and round in the air in the night’s darkness, to trace patterns of light. Sometimes their afterlight seemed to linger in the air as if it had a life of its own, before eventually vanishing. The children loved it, especially the very young children who could not play with the more dangerous firecrackers and fireworks.
Firecrackers could be let off individually or strung in a series and hung from the roof or rafters to cascade downward. Sometimes people planted one in the ground, lit it, and then ran for dear life. The richer the household or business, the longer the trail of firecrackers would be. I had seen a rope of large tubular firecrackers descending from buildings several storeys high! It was believed that the loud bangs would frighten away any loitering evil spirits, clearing bad chi energy and bringing in good chi for the household and business to prosper. When the firecrackers were lit from the bottom of a long strand, there would be an explosion of sound and fury which would snake up rapidly in flying sparks, all the way up to the top firecracker. It was an amazing sight to behold. The red paper splintered along its fiery journey, showering bystanders with red confetti and brightening the thresholds with good luck. These would not be swept away. Often, the sound was so thunderous that we had to cup our ears. Dogs and cats outdoors would dash for shelter under vehicles and furniture. The firing of firecrackers was repeated all along the rows of houses, businesses and streets in Singapore, the sounds erupting in different sequences and echoing across the island. It was a distinctive, cheerful sound. For some inexplicable reason, I thought they sounded like the hooves of wild horses galloping and stomping the ground. Not that I had heard or seen any wild horses before! But it was the unique sound that would wake me up on the First Day of every Chinese New Year
But all this was about to change.
Besides the firecrackers, lion dances were invented to create more sound and jollity. Able-bodied young men would prance under a Chinese lion’s head with its fabric scaled body, their hands working the lion’s lower lip and exposing its teeth and tongue. Meanwhile, their colleagues, dressed in the colourful costumes determined by their dialect clans, would make as much noise as they could, with their drums and cymbals. We referred to this as tong tong chir, an onomatopoeic name for the three main notes sounded by the cymbals. Kids would shout, “Tong tong chir is here!” when the Lion dance troupe appeared. This had developed into a Feng Shui practice where every Chinese business or rich household would engage a lion dance troupe on their premises during Chinese New Year, to clear the chi for prosperity and good health. So the firing of firecrackers went hand-in-hand with the boisterous lion dancing.
In our part of the kampong, despite our poverty, it was customary for a neighbour who was celebrating his New Year to send out festive goodies to fellow villagers. I absolutely loved the custom. Ever since I was a little girl, I looked forward to other races’ celebration of their New Years, as it meant delicious food and delicacies being sent to our home. The amount varied according to the means of the sender. My eyes would follow the designated carrier of the food and my nose would follow the mouth-watering smells. Each race’s cultural food was placed in separate small plates which would be conveyed to the household on a large enamel platter called a dulang. During Hari Raya, we would receive coconut leaf-wrapped ketupat and roti jala with rendang and sambal goreng from the Muslims; at Deepavali, we would receive mutton and fish curry with naan bread or pilaf rice from the Hindus; during Baisakhi or Vaisakhi Festival, we would receive pureed spinach, spicy potatoes and chapatti from the Sikhs. At Christmas, we would receive sugee cakes from the Eurasians, or devil curry.
This was kampong spirit at its best.
Our family did not give out goodies during Christmas but only at Chinese New Year. But we had to be sensitive and conscious of the religious restrictions of our neighbours, as much of Chinese Peranakan food could possibly be unsuitable to them, since Muslims were not permitted to eat pork, Hindus could not eat beef and many Sikhs were vegetarians.
Mak was wise, as was expected. She would hand out Peranakan kueh which did not contravene any religious taboo. During this time, although Muslims ate halal, they were not opposed to receiving food from a non-halal household. At least that was the practice in our village in that era, though these days, the Islamic laws are stricter. Malay women in our kampong never had to cover their heads whilst going about their daily routines. They were bare headed. However, when they were going out, they would wear a light, pretty veil, called a selendang, hung loosely around their head and shoulders, their hair visible, usually tied up in a chignon, perhaps with flowers inserted. Most men would wear a songkok when they were going to the mosque or on an outing. Like us, the women would pinch their cheeks and bite their lips till they were red, to add colour to their faces before going out. Village women did not wear any make-up. At best, we would use Hazeline Snow to moisturise the face and bedak sejok to smoothen it. Make-up was deemed for the likes of cabaret girls and prostitutes.
“Ah Phine ah,” Mak asked, “can you take leave from work for two weeks before Chinese New Year, so you can help me make the kueh-kueh?”
There was so much preparation as everything had to be done by hand, and we only had one charcoal stove and one kerosene stove. Our oven was created from a dapur arang, a clay stove using charcoals. A large aluminium pot was put over the burning charcoals and lighted charcoals would be put on the lid which forced the heat to go down into the pot. That was how we created an oven. Mak sat on a wooden
stool and baked all her mouth-watering, melt-in-your mouth kueh in this way. It was laborious work but the dapur arang oven turned out amazingly delicious cakes, kueh bangkit and kueh bengka. For the kueh baolu and kueh belanda (also called kueh kepit), she had to use an archuan or mould over the charcoal stove.
I had a dream to ease my mother’s burden. I was secretly saving some money each month, so that I could buy my mother an electric table-top oven, now that we had electricity. The normal size oven would be beyond my financial capacity. I had seen a small Baby Belling oven that you could place on a table top. It cost about $50, what my mother gave me out of my wage package each month.
But even before we started making the kueh, we had a long preparation process. We had to buy the appropriate type of rice, normal or glutinous, wash and dry it in the sun on straw trays, turning the grains over till they dried properly. Then I would help Mak carry the bags of rice on our backs to the millers in the parade of shops across the road from Kampong Potong Pasir, between Masjid Alkaff Serangoon and Macpherson Market. There, the millers would pour the rice grains into massive milling machines that ground them into flour. There was a whole row of millers there and the fragrance and smells were varied and intoxicating, the aroma and fine sediments from the open-mouthed funnels rising into the hot and humid air, making you cough. They clung to your nostrils, hair and clothes: coffee beans, pepper seeds, cardamom, star anise and other spices, plus of course, flour from rice, wheat, lentils and others. Generally, the millers milling coffee beans and rice or wheat into flour were Chinese, whilst the millers milling spices for curry powder were Malays or Indians, but this was not decreed. It evolved naturally.
After he had milled our rice grains, the Chinese miller scooped our rice flour into small gunny sacks, tugging the string to close them up. Made from jute and hessian, these sacks had a rough texture and an innate scent. The shape and weight of each sack was such that when he handed each sack to me, I would receive it into my arms. I could feel its warmth, generated by the machines, penetrating into my chest. It was an extraordinary feeling that I would always remember and cherish.
Goodbye My Kampong Page 9
