But instead, everybody shouted, “Apa itu, apa itu? What’s that? What’s that?”
As our houses did not have ceilings, we could hear shouting from all our neighbours. Mak was getting agitated. Robert started to whimper, so Mak folded him in her arms. Instead of the fat raindrops we had expected, we heard a clattering on our roof, as though small stones were being hurled across the layers of attap. The worst noise came over our kitchen roof, which was made of corrugated zinc, thudding and clattering. Everyone rushed out of their houses to look. To our shock, we were being pelted with small and cold, irregular shaped ice-cubes. The ice-cubes, some as large as golf balls, were raining down from the sky! We didn’t know what was happening.
“Oh my goodness!” Uncle Krishnan said. “These are hailstones!”
“How are they formed?” I asked
“Hail is just solid precipitation,” Uncle Krishnan said wisely. “When we get cumulus clouds and thunderstorms like this, water droplets turn solid.”
The village kids were scooping up the hailstones with glee. Some of them even sucked at them to taste them. It was the first hailstone storm we had experienced. Pity they didn’t last long, melting as quickly as they fell.
Those Were the Days
(1975)
WHEN we are about to lose something or someone we love, we focus on it more and become intense about it. It was the same with life in our kampong, knowing that our days in the village were numbered. The landlord told the families in our row of houses that we had to move out before the end of the year, as he was relocating soon and wanted his compensation from the government. Our beloved village was becoming more and more like a ghost town. As more HDB flats became available in Ang Mo Kio, Bedok and Toa Payoh, many people took up the government’s offer to move to better housing and amenities. Government officials in their safari-style suits came to our village with their clipboards, marking items and trees which would warrant some compensation. The officers walked around the village to ascertain which trees were deserving of payment and how much.
“Two dollars for this one,” Officer One pointed to a rambutan tree. “One dollar for the papaya.”
Officer Two busily wrote down as instructed, painting the trunk red with their code. They moved from tree to tree, whilst our villagers watched them.
“How much you pay for my goats?” Sivalingam scolded angrily. “You can house them in HDB or you must slaughter them and send to Tekka for sale?”
Uncle Krishnan placed a placating hand on Sivalingam’s shoulder.
The faces of the officers remain placid. They must have encountered such mutinous reactions from all the other kampongs they had visited, and had learnt to mask their feelings. We knew they were not to blame; they were only carrying out orders. But our grief had made us impatient and illogical.
“How much you pay for this…” Nenek Bongkok said waving her arm, flesh jiggling, to take in the features and atmosphere of our village. “How much you pay for loss of our entire way of life?”
“Sorry Makchik.” Officer One said, sheepishly.
“How much for my house?” Karim asked.
“How long have you owned it?” Officer Two asked.
“Not owned lah,” said Karim. “I’m only a night-soil carrier turned musician. Of course I can only afford to rent it lah.”
“Sorry,” Officer One said. “But we give money only to those who own their houses.”
“What???” Everybody said, unbelieving.
“Mampus lah! Die lah,” Nenek Bongkok said. “I might as well go and drown myself in the river right now.”
Mak went forward to hug her. We all felt the blow of the news.
“So how?” Karim asked. “So how to get money to buy an HDB?”
“So you have to rent from HDB lah,” Uncle Krishnan explained.
My family definitely could not cough up the down payment of $3,000 for a flat. At this stage, our rent for our attap house was $15 a month. We probably couldn’t afford the HDB rent. Were we going to be homeless? Mak was worried, and had long discussions with Elder Brothers. They were already living with their families with their in-laws, so we could not move in with them. We were in deep trouble.
Still, Mak tried to remain hopeful that something would turn up.
When the PA announced that they would take batches of people to see examples of the new HDB flats, Mak said she would go too. Second Sister volunteered to look after Robert. We went in the same batch as Uncle Krishnan’s family, Ah Gu, Karim and Sivalingam. Of our group, only Uncle Krishnan and Ah Gu owned their houses.
The officer, a young lady called Miss Yap, was waiting for us at the bottom of the block of flats at Bedok South. She was the type with a cheerful personality, and she beamed at us with warmth to make us feel better. Her colleague Mr Wong tried to smile as brightly.
“Only five people each time in the lift for comfort,” she said cheerfully. “Who wants to go first? Mr Wong will go up with you to show you how to work it. So easy.”
The lift did not look at all friendly or comfortable. Uncle Krishnan and his family went first. We saw the lift doors shut, and a rumble sounded before the lift whirred its way up. It looked terrifying.
“Aiyyoh, I no go in that box!” Sivalingam said. “Looks like coffin!”
“It’s a long walk up to the 10th floor,” Ah Gu said.
“My legs, I can trust. That thing, no!” Sivalingam retorted.
“What if it got stuck halfway?” Karim asked.
“This lift use electricity one,” Miss Yap said reassuringly. “Very efficient.”
The image of the trapped pregnant woman in the Robinsons fire came to my mind, but I did not mention it. We were nervous enough without added drama.
Miss Yap took the remainder of us next, except Sivalingam, who went up by the staircase. Mak looked as if she was going to follow Sivalingam, but I told her that her knees would not make the ascent. She reluctantly came with us, closing in on herself in quiet fear. Her face turned white when the lift doors closed, and we were shut in that box. It felt as if the air had been left outside. It was our first time in a lift. My own heart beat wildly as I gasped for breath. But I tried not to show my panic so that I could pacify my mother, grabbing hold of her arm tightly. I could feel her shiver. Nobody said a word, as if we were trying to conserve the oxygen in the moving lift.
“Wah! Heng uh,” Mak said when the lift doors opened, as if it was a matter of luck.
We gulped at the fresh air. When we stepped outside, we almost swooned at the height. We had never been so far off the ground before. Nenek Bongkok would not have survived the lift ride. She was right. If God wanted us to live so far off the ground, he would have given us wings. We could see that the block opposite was surrounded by the blue sky and clouds. We felt as if the block of flats was swaying. After a while we adjusted to being so high up, but we walked along the corridor closer to the doorsteps rather than the corridor wall. We did not dare to look down at the traffic below. What would happen to the likes of Nenek Bongkok? Where would she go to live? How was she going to sell her nasi lemak and mee siam? I decided to ask Miss Yap.
“No worries. Government building hawker centres and indoor markets near the residential blocks,” she said. “Your lady can sell her nasi lemak there. There are also flats right on the ground floor for people who don’t want to live up high. But as you haven’t been, I want you to see the high-rise flat. It’s much cooler up here than on the ground floor.”
“If we can afford it, we will take one on the ground floor,” Mak said. “Then I can still have my garden.”
My mother was dreaming, of course. Even with my salary and contributions from Eldest and Second Elder Brothers, we would not be able to afford the rent, let alone buy one. But what was the point of dashing her hopes?
“Wah, really stylo mylo,” Uncle Krishnan hailed us enthusiastically when we arrived at the show-flat.” Everything so clean! You should see the bathroom and toilet. So private! Very big for one family.
No need to share with any neighbour. Plus, not one cockroach anywhere! And got water to flush our big job away!”
He was right. We were duly impressed when we stepped into the cheerful flat lighted up by electric bulbs, a ceiling fan whirring away to make the curtains flutter merrily. The walls were concrete and the tiled floor looked grand. The flat was huge by our standards, with beautifully appointed rooms, kitchen and bathroom. It was like stepping into a millionaire’s home! We were so swa ku, like mountain tortoises who had never experienced such modern facilities. Indeed, there was much to entice us.
“Wah!” everybody exclaimed, including my mother.
“Gar’ment is kind no?” Uncle Krishnan, ever the faithful civil servant, said. “They are offering us a better life. No more fear of short of water in hot season. No need to worry about our attap houses catching fire. Everything here so clean and hygienic. No more smelly jambans or problems with rats.”
“No more pontianak too?” Sivalingam asked.
He was referring to the female vampire that he was supposed to have seen. The pontianak, spirits and ghosts were all part of kampong folklore. But when he mentioned the sightings people mumbled that he exuded the alcoholic fumes of arak, the moonshine he drank after a day of hard work.
“The paint smells so fresh,” Mak said. “Better than the kapor we use.”
I was glad that my mother was sounding perkier. She was referring to the white limestone wash with which we painted our wooden walls each year for Chinese New Year. The brush that we used was thick and bushy and we had to be careful not to spill the limestone on our skin, as it was sharp and alkaline.
Indeed, there was much to be impressed about. Mak was entirely fascinated by the flush toilet. She kept pulling the chain to see the water rush out, as I had done when I first encountered a flush toilet in my primary school. It was a squat toilet, but so clean that we could not believe it was a toilet. The toilet paper was a neat roll of soft, white paper. We wouldn’t have to use scratchy newspaper-paper on our bottoms anymore. No bad smells, no cockroaches and centipedes. It would be a huge leap forward for all of us.
“I won’t have to empty the tambui anymore,” Mak said.
She was referring to the chamber pot that was used in the night so that we need not visit the outhouse in the darkness. In that show-flat, we behaved like kids. We turned on the taps to marvel at the water flowing out into the stainless-steel sink. We flipped electric light switches to see the light bulbs go on and off, the fan stop and move. For those few short moments, we were joyous. Maybe this new way of life was not as bad as we had thought, after all.
“See this,” Miss Yap said, stopping at an ironing board that had a shirt draped over it, the long sleeves hanging down languidly towards the floor.
“Electric iron! No need to use charcoals anymore!”
If she had not told us, we wouldn’t have known it was an iron, with its trailing cord that led to a plug on the wall. Our iron was heavy and wedged shaped, hollow with a lid so that we could fill it with hot coals.
“Wah!” everybody went, especially my mother.
She had spent years labouring to do the laundry for her entire family of 10. She had to haul water out from the well to wash bedsheets, pillow cases and clothes, string them out to dry, then heat up the charcoals to put into the caged iron. She had to scorch a piece of banana leaf to smoothen the glide. And now, if she lived in an HDB, her labour-intensive days would be over. For the first time since she got here, I saw her smile.
Inspired by our positive reaction, Miss Yap demonstrated the washing machine and how to hang clothes out on the bamboo poles outside the kitchen window. But when she put on the gas stove and the flames flared up, Mak uttered a yelp, as if she had been burnt.
“No! No! Switch off! Switch off!”
She was beside herself. Miss Yap quickly turned off the stove but Mak was still perturbed. Miss Yap and I tried to reassure her, but my mother had gone ghastly pale and was trembling. She looked as if she was about to faint. Luckily Miss Yap had a bottle of orange F&N and gave her some to drink, which seemed to calm her down a bit. But she wouldn’t take part in the tour anymore.
Just before my 24th birthday in March, I learnt that I had passed my HSC and would qualify for university! Mak couldn’t believe it.
“To think, you almost didn’t get educated!” she said. “How different your life would have been.”
“Mak,” I said, “I will never, ever forget that it was you who slaved hard to pay for my schooling. Everything I achieve will be dedicated in your honour.”
She nodded, too full for words.
At last I had a key to a better future. I was reeling from the sudden opportunities that were opened to me. I myself could not believe my new prospects. Indeed, what would my life have been if Mak hadn’t managed to sell her nasi lemak to put me through school? I couldn’t bear to think about it. I quickly applied for a place at Singapore University to read literature and philosophy. Meanwhile, I had to see how I was going to pay the fees as well as continue to contribute to the household. I applied for a bursary. To my great luck, I learnt that Lembaga was looking for part-time teachers to teach English and literature to students who had failed their School Certificate. I went to enquire about this. It was this positive prospect that helped me ease the trauma of relinquishing our way of life in the kampong.
Not long after the visit to the show-flat, Uncle Krishnan announced with joy that he had bought a five-room flat at Bedok South. In HDB terminology, this meant three bedrooms, a living room and a dining room, not counting the kitchen. Soon his house in our village would stand empty, like most of the others. His familiar Ford Prefect outside his house would no longer be seen. There was something dismal about this prospect.
“I will sponsor our last village get together,” he said generously. “We can have our last sing-song session and makan outdoors one evening before my family and I depart.”
He did not spare any expense. He paid for Nenek Bongkok to supply us with her best nasi lemak and mee siam and for my mother to supply her famed bubor kachang; the Punjabi ladies baked chapatis and made pureed spinach, and the other Malay ladies made lontong. To crown it all, Uncle Krishnan ordered packets of nasi briyani from Zam Zam. He bought crates of F&N drinks: Orange, Sarsi, Cherry and even bottles of Sinalco. Excited children kept on slurping and wetting their lips. They seemed unaware that their lives were about to change forever after we moved away. For the whole day, the fragrance of spices and rich coconut milk scents floated into the air. Fruit crates and tables were set up in our sandy yard and decorated with orchids, hibiscus, jasmine and bougainvillea flowers from our gardens. For the first time in our evening celebration outdoors, we could string electric light bulbs from coconut tree to coconut tree, which gave everything a festive air. We avoided stringing anything on the banana tree which was reputed to have a spirit living in it that abhorred any rope around its waist. We did not want to hear the spirit scream.
The entire scene was one of rustic merriment, albeit our very last. Karim brought out his guitar and started strumming, its sound reminding us of our halcyon days. The children turned pails and kerosene tins upside down to use for percussion.
Underneath it all, our hearts were breaking. But we did not allow it to show, smiling too-bright smiles and chattering louder than usual. After this, we would all be separated from each other, having lived together for years in such close proximity. We had to try to bottle this memory of our togetherness and kampong spirit, as life would never ever be the same again for us in Singapore. Not just for our village but for all the villages in this country. Soon all this would be filed into the past, our way of life would slip into the annals of history and become a lost heritage.
So we ate and laughed, sang and recited pantuns. We clapped as Krishnan’s teenage daughters, with bells on their feet and colourful skirts, swirled and danced their cultural dances. Sivalingam joined them, heady with arak. Karim’s fingers moved like lightning on his gu
itar. Some of the adults got up to do a ronggeng, a delightful Malay folk dance, which Peranakans also adopted as our own, and everybody joined in.
“I have a special English song which I think is appropriate for our last song,” Karim said. “I’ll explain the meaning. The chorus is easy to sing. It was sung by a British singer, Mary Hopkin, and recorded in 1968. Apparently, Gene Raskin wrote it, basing it on an old Russian romantic song, and Paul McCartney produced it. This is how the chorus goes:
“Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.
La la la la,
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days...”
The tune was lively, and Karim took us through the singing of the chorus again and again. When the children got it right, he told us he would let us know when to come in, as he began to sing, “Once upon a time, there was a tavern…”
I knew the lyrics. It was one of my favourite songs too, though I never knew that one day it would become so pertinent to our plight. The words and sentiment of the song tugged at my heart strings, I could feel the tears close to my eyes. But I was determined not to cry.
After Uncle Krishnan and his family left, our kampong also lost its spirit. This village was no longer the village we knew and now there was almost an urgent need to leave it. It was painful to see Sivalingam slowly dispose of his goats, who had almost been like family to him. He had always used them for their milk, so it was devastating for him to sell them for their meat. He had always slept outdoors, on a string cot called a charpoy, right by the herd, and now he looked alone and lost without their bleating and their smell. He was supposed to break down the wooden enclosure before he left, but his heart was not in it. Overnight, he transformed into a very old man. We had asked him where he was moving to, and he mentioned a vague relative somewhere in a kampong in Johor. Then one morning, we saw that the charpoy was vacant, and he was nowhere to be found.
Goodbye My Kampong Page 16
