FOREWORD This short childhood autobiography was written in December 2002 at the age of 47 whereby memories of the good old days seemed just only yesterday and is still lingering in my mind. The intention of creating this autobiography with the aid of modern technology is to educate the next generation on lives of the sixties and the fading architecture, which may not be a common sight in Singapore anymore. The illustrations are mainly hand drawn with the aid of paintbrush program incorporating into power point as a presentation package. Due to availability of blog space, it has been revised to direct posting for the convenience of interested readers. The context will lead you through the living environment, which depicted the early kampong day’s life. The pictorial illustrations were mainly memories and I've tried to present the situation to the closest possible means. Deviations are kept to the minimum level. Traditional games were also introduced during my childhood and most of w
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INTRODUCTION Family Background: I lived with my parents, 2 elder sisters and 4 brothers in the atap house belonged to my grandfather. I’m the fourth son in the family and after me is my youngest brother who is one year my junior. My father worked as a carpenter in a wooden case workshop at Lavender Street and my mother is a washerwoman who also collects clothes home for washing. My father worked very late every day and my mother collects pile of clothes for washing just to keep the family going. Childhood Life During those days, we rarely had a chance to taste chicken or duck meat. The only time that we can have these delicacies is during Chinese New Year or Ancestor commemoration day. Our meals are simple mostly consist of porridge, bean sprout, vegetables and fish. Nowadays children can enjoy chicken meat almost everyday not mentioning the convenience of fast food outlets, which even cater delivery service. Like all my brothers, I studied in Balestier Primary School, which is situate
Our Home This is the atap house owned by my grandfather with wooden case workshop by the side and front portion of the compound. I lived at lavender street, which is currently being occupied by factories. From the background you can view kallang gas work, which was once a glamorous sight, which had already been demolished. Surrounding the vicinity is seawater which leads to kallang river. On the left hand side in front of the atap house is a garden once belonged to my aunt. Alongside are sheds meant for rearing poultry and beside the poultry shed is actually a toilet By the right side and near front are the wooden case workshops whereby crates are being produced. During those days, crates have to be manually built with hammer and nails unlike the modern way using pneumatic gun with nails loaded. The workers are mainly relatives and kin's. Imagine the strenuous work with the thumping of nails using hammer and hands. Those days’ worker building wooden crates have rough hands. Wo
The Backyard The back portion of the atap house simulated in this picture consist of kitchens on the left side and on the right side and on the far end are bedrooms for us to live in. The main structure of the atap house consists of 7 bedrooms and my grandfather’s office. There were 2 toilets available for all household usage. The wooden table in the picture is mainly use for dining purposes. In the background to the right are neighbours with house built with zinc roof and on the far left are 2-storey building which is a common sight in those days. In fact some of the 2-storey building are still preserved till today. Imagine the simplicity of life in those days without the influence of modern technology whereby only nature surrounds us. I can still remember having breakfast in the morning overlooking the Kallang Gas Work and when the sea breeze blown across my face, there’s a feeling of relieve and comfort which today have been long lost. I can still recalled one day i happened
GAMES I PLAYED Here are some of the traditional games that I've played during my childhood. The Catapult Catapult which is illustrated below is just one of the games I used to play during my childhood. It is made from tree branch, which have an angular joint allowing a perfect inclination for the bullet (buah cherry) to be fired. The elastic strip is made from old inner liner of bicycle tyre and the pad for the bullet is from either rubber or leather. The buah cherry (bullets) are easily obtainable, as within our compound we’ve planted a buah cherry tree. The fruit from this type of trees are edible when it turns reddish. Sometimes we plucked and enjoyed the ripe fruit instantly from the trees
Marble Game The game illustrated below mainly consists of glass marbles. To play this game, two or more players are required. Each player will take out certain amount of marbles and laid them in a straight row. An arrow depicting the start and end is usually drawn to enable players to claim their win accordingly. Players are then asked to serve their marbles to determine their place in throwing the target. An additional line is then drawn away from the target. The players who throw the marble closest to the line will have the priority to roll his marble first to hit the target. When a player hit the first marble from the arrow head, he will then collect all the marbles and if he hit the one at the arrow ends, then he will only win one marble and subsequent win in the order of merit according to the arrow head Wooden Gun Like the catapult, the wooden gun serves as a firing purpose and the ingredient used for the bullet is similar to the catapult. By making use of the buah cherry round
The Wheel Barrel This game is called wheel barrel whereby creativity can be seen by using a used thread wheel with the combinations of rubber band and matchstick. The rubber band is inserted through the thread wheel core with 2-match stick (one end is shorter while the other is a full length of the match stick). The rubber band is then hand wind with the longer end to provide a spring effect by holding the shorter end When this gadget is released on floor level, the spring effect will release thus pushing the wheel to turn forward or backwards depending on the direction of the rubber band being twisted. Pinball Game A traditional pin ball game made out of wood, nails and rubber band with the base inclined at an angle to allow the marble to roll towards its target. The layout is simple and the targets are also numbered accordingly. The player with the highest score wins the game, which also depend on the allocated number of marbles given each try. Unlike the modern pin ball game whe
Wooden Sword Hand made wooden sword is simple and straightforward. The material used are mainly wood and nails. Nowadays, toy sword comes in a wide range of models with special sound effects and light. The wooden sword reflects the simplicity of life in the sixties. Five Stones The five-stone game, which is rarely played by, kids nowadays. The stones are hand made with cloth and sewn into a triangular shape (similar to the shape of dumpling). One edge is left open to fill in either beans or sand and is sewn tight once the filling is sufficient. Most of the children today do not know how to play this game and some of which don’t even know this game exists. This game is played with minimum 2 players. Each player will have to serve to determine who starts first. To serve, the five stones are place together to form a pyramid shape and place on the palm of the player. The player will need to toss the whole pyramid and turning the palm to determine the number of stones that can land on th
THE CHANGE My kampong days ended in the mid 60’s whereby land reclamation forced us to relocate to HDB flat allocated by the government. It was very difficult to adapt to the change as HDB flat comes in multiple storey and as high as 12 storey during those days. Nowadays modern HDB flats soar as high as 30 to 40 storey. We lived in a 3-room flat on 5th storey at Kempas Road. Imagine how cramp it can be with my parents, sister and 4 other brothers. Life became very much different for us not only to cope with environmental change but also the burden of monthly utility and rental bills that my parents have to sustain. It seems that all the games that I’d played in the past had became history as probably I was already 11 years of age during the relocation.