Pen Pals

In 1950s Singapore and Malaysia were still ruled by the British and together was known as Malaya. During my secondary school days, there was a students' magazine named Young Malayans. It was first published in 1946 in Kuala Lumpur. The monthly publication was distributed throughout Malaya, British North Borneo (Sabah) and Sarawak. I subscribed to the magazine as there were not only many interesting articles including those contributed by students, especially from Leslie Fong who wrote Chinese stories about filial piety but also a pen pals column. I wrote to many whose names appeared there. Writing to pen pals was my favourite past time and I spent a lot of time and money buying stamps, envelopes, writing pads and taking photos. In school I studied Malayan geography and travelling to the mainland gave me the opportunity to see the various plantations and tin mining methods. As the saying goes "a picture is worth a thousand words". I also got to meet my pen pals. Actually it was like killing 2 birds with one stone.

I travelled by bus and train to Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur, Klang, Malacca and Segamat. It was difficult to fix an appointment with my pen pals because of communications. We had no phone at home, the mail was slow and unpredictable. It was also a problem finding their homes especially those living in small towns like Kuala Lipis, Betong and others. Nevertheless, I manage to meet up with pen pals in KL, Klang, Seremban and Malacca. My most memorial visit to them was the one at Klang town. She invited me to lunch with the family in her house. Later she gave me a guided tour to Port Swettengham, now known as Port Klang. My male pen pals were all in Malacca. They came from rich families. One is now a private medical practitioner in Orchard Road, Singapore.

A pen pal wrote love letters to me. She usually signed off her letter with drawings of two hearts overlapping with the abbreviation of our names P & E. I met her in her hometown Seremban, but her parents allowed us to meet for a very short time. See the reverse side of her photo below.




Rex Theatre at Seremban (1952)


Theatre at Pudu Road, KL near the prison (1952)


Pen pal Winnie Joo on the right



Lily Goh of Seremban





Irene Ong from Ipoh

Pen pal Lillian on the left from Seremban

Steven Chong (left) and Charlie Koh (centre)

A letter from a Malayan pen pal studying in England

Letter from Maureen Lim of Klang

Maureen Lim C Bee

In Port Swettengham (Port Klang)

Port Klang Pier

All the beautiful girls above are by now grand mothers with many grand children. How time flies!

Chinese New Year Tradition

During my childhood, many relatives and friends came to the house for new year visits. They knelt down before my grandma with two oranges in hands and wish her longitivity or good health. It was usually uttered in Hokkien as "chia lau lau or lau cong kian". Kneeling before an elder during the Chinese New Year was also a Peranakan tradition. They spoke in Peranakan Malay "mak/nenek (mother/grandma) panjang umor (long life)". For the single adult and children, grandma gave each an ang pow and said some good words. It was full house as visitors arrived from morning to evening. Lunch and dinner were served for those who came at the appropriate time. There were gambling sessions of mahjong, poker, pah kow and even 'si go luck'.


Before the new year festival started, children were playing with small fire crackers. Each small packet had little red and green colours fire crackers. The noise of fire crackers got louder as the new year got nearer. The bigger fire crackers played by adult had only red colour. Fire crackers came in single, double and treble barrels. The double barrel fire crackers shot upwards to explode another time. Similarly, the treble barrel fire crackers exploded two more times in mid air. Sometimes, we used an empty can to cover the lighted double/treble fire crackers to see how high the empty tin would go. Today, without the fire crackers, the Chinese New Year festival is rather quiet.


On the 8th day grandma offered prayer of fruits and dried vegy on an altar placed at the front door entrance. Long sugar canes with green leaves were place on each side of the door. A strip of red paper was wrapped around each sugar cane liked tying a ribbon. Praying began at 8.00 pm with lighted joss sticks on a vase-shaped vessel and ended at 12 midnight.

On the 15th day, grandma's house was a gambling den again. Every year my uncle bought one to two crates of fire crackers. The cost was shared by all the gamblers. It was an annual affair, almost liked a tradition. Gambling stopped just before midnight and all the guys gathered at the five foot way of the house ready to fire the fire crackers. At the stroke of 12 everyone in the neighbourhood lighted the fire crackers and threw them onto the road. It caused such a din that one could hardly hear the other talked. The road was so smokey and motor vehicles had to move very slowly to pass through. It was also full of small pieces of red paper from the fire crackers like being carpeted. The Chinese New Year festival ended when the neighbourhood was quiet once again.

This Chinese New Year we had about 80 visitors in the house. They arrived family by family from morning to evening. Majority came on the first day. Children were given an ang pow each. Visitors also gave ang pows to the children who came visiting. My wife cooked mee siam, longtong, kueh pie tee, fried chicken wings, curry, kueh ko swee and nonya agar agar. Everybody got to eat her cooked food. Chinese New Year festival is coming to a close soon on chap ngoh mei. My family will have another gathering of merry making and interacting. There will be no explosion of fire crackers to mark the end of the occasion.

My grand-daughter dressed for the occasion


My grandson and his friends at the computer game


Arrival of my daughter's family


Arrival of other visitors

My brother-in-law and his family


My cousin and her 3 generations family


My niece's family

Visitors interacting

Foreign visitors with her 2 kids


Distributing ang pows


Visitors having dinner

Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner 2

*Fast backward, I remembered my 2 grandmothers and my mother were busy at the kitchen preparing for the important meal. There was no gas/electric cookers then. Cooking was done on a specially constructed cooking range of cement and mortar. Firewood or charcaol was used as fuel. Eating was at an elongated oval wooden table that could sit about a dozen people at the dinning room. There were Peranakan food as well as typical Hokkien cuisine. We had ayam curry. Eating chicken meat was a treat then as it was served only on a festival or a celebration. Adults had tea or brandy and the children drank Fromroz aerated water. We had no refrigerator. We bought a block of ice and then knocked it into pieces with a hammer. Pieces of ice was added to the drink to make it cold. Dinner was rather quiet as no one was supposed to talk while eating. After dinner it was different. There were so much noises with adult getting kaki to play mahjong or cards, and children got excited talking about ang pows.

Last night we had Chinese New Year's eve re-union dinner. There was a foreign lady with 2 kids. The two boys are my daughter's God sons. Nevertheless, they had to observed our tradition of wishing the Patriach happy new year. See their postures. We started with 'loh hei', tossing of fish salad and followed by yummy steam boat. Enjoy viewing the video below.


A very close friend who seldom missed our family gathering


My two daughters 'pai nien'. She observed the tradition of kneeling.


Lo Hei!


Cheers!!!


We had steam boat for a change


Kids and maids at another table

Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner - 1

Chinese Reunion Dinner is held once a year on the eve of the lunar new year. Family members from far and wide where ever possible return to the patriarch's home for a reunion dinner. It gives them the opportunity to meet up with relatives and also to introduce the new arrivals. According to tradition, dinner has to wait until the arrival of all family members before starting.

In 1970s, one to two weeks before the Chinese New Year, Jurong indurstrial estate was a dead place. Almost all Malaysian workers had left for home to be with their families. Food establishments, such as restaurants, eating houses and food centres once crowded with lunch time workers, stopped operating.

Today, many Chinese Singaporeans do away with reunion dinner by going on holidays. Few want to cook and they book reunion dinners at restaurants. With two sittings, each has about two and a half hours. More time is spent eating than interacting with family members. Afer dinner, each leaves in different direction. Such runion dinner becomes meaningless.

My family still follow the tradition of having the reunion dinner at home. My wife is a good cook, especially with peranakan dishes. On Saturday, 17 Jan 2009 we had a pre reunion dinner with with my niece and her family of four, plus two very close friends who are single. We started it a few years ago and has become an annual affair. My niece's husband is a Malaysian and she has to be with her in-laws for the new year. A close friend is also a Malaysian and she too has to go home. The food my wife cooked were: buah kurak, kiam chye ahk, babi arti, ngoh hiang, hi pioh soup, noodle and pineapple salad, chap chye, sambal udang, itek sioh and satay babi (view video clip).

The reunion dinner on the eve of the Chinese New Year shall be confined to my immediate families.

Chinese New Year Cards

A Happy & Blessed Chinese New Year To All Viewers

This card was specially created for a Vietnamese couple

Yesterday I went to Chinatown and saw a lot of interesting and fanciful Chinese New Year cards on sale. They were in all shapes and sizes, and very colourful too. Still, I prefer the personalised new year cards that I made myself as shown above.

During my school days in early 1950, a photo studio along Upper East Coast Road was offering black and white Chinese New Year cards with your photo on them. There was no colour photo then. The greeting cards had different sceneries of spring time and new year greetings. Minimum order was at least half a dozen cards. I forgot the price.

The Happy Times

yg's blog on 'those were the days' reminded me of my group of ex-colleauges. The group met regularly once a month at the Changi International Airport T2 canteen. It was was formed in 1995. Starting with a handful and ended up with 23 members in all. Our ages then ranged between 60 and 75 years. It was a joyful time getting ex-colleagues together like old times. Besides discussing anything under the sun, we also planned our holidays with those whom we could get along with. My travelling group consisted of 4 members. We called ourselves 'the four musketeers'. We travelled to Bali, Sydney and Haddyai. We also went on budget holidays by bus to Malaysia, such as Genting, Pulau Tioman, Kuantan and Trengganu. Our regular weekly day trip to Johore was for food and shopping.

Changi International Airport T2 canteen. Some are not in the pictures

Itinerant vendor selling souvenir in Bali

Sydney Kings Cross

Genting Highland

Hyatt Kuantan

Pulau Tioman

Lake Kenyir Trengganu

Durian at Kuala Trengganu market

Melaka

four 'ah peh' going home

As the years went by our number became smaller. Some were called home and others had health problems. One widower age 75 was young at heart and decided to get married. He settled down with his new wife in Johore and left us. In 2001 we changed our meeting venue to an IT Hub in town where I am a volunteer tuitor. We not only met more often, that is once a week, but also learn to use a computer. Anti-aging guru said, browsing the internet helped to stimulate and improve our brain function. Here too our number was not spared by the heavenly Father. Two of our members died and one could not walk. Our joke of the day 'who will be next?'

Geylang Serai

Geylang Serai area as I know in the 50s was along Geylang Road from Paya Lebar Road to Jalan Ubi. There was a Malay kampong by the side of Geylang Road. Due to lower ground level and poor drainage, it was often flooded on rainy days. The houses were therefore built on stilts to prevent flood water from getting into the houses.





Attap houses in Geylang Serai Malay kampong
Source: National Archives of Singapore


There was also a Malay Settlement called Kampong Ubi somewhere in Jalan Ubi. It was further inland and was not quite visible from the main road.

The land between Changi Road and the Geylang Serai market was a trolley bus terminus. It operated between Tanjong Pagar and Geylang Serai. The trolley bus was operated by electric power from two overhead wires as shown in the photo below




Singapore trolley bus
Source: National Archives of Singapore


The trolley bus terminus was later used by the Changi Bus Company as an interchange for bus services between Capitol Theatre and Changi Village and vice versa. HDB flats, Geylang Serai market and Taj cinema was buit in 1960s. I remembered during the Puasa month, there was a young Indian muslim hawker who styled himself 'Raja Lelong'. Everything he sold from clothing, household wares, accessories etc were at cut-throat prices.

At the present Malay Village site was a row of single storey timber shophouses facing the HDB flats. Behind the shophouses were many locked-up stalls. They were built very close to each other with a narrow passage in between. It was a fire hazard then. Fortunately, there was no fire.



Geylang Serai shops facing HDB flats



Geylang Serai looking from Joo Chiat Road before Malay Village was built.
Source: National Archives of Singapore



Geylang Serai looking from Joo Chiat Road now with Malay Village behind the sign post.




Geylang Serai locked-up stalls



Unique road junction where four roads meet
Geylang Serai/Geylang Road/Joo Chiat Road/Changi Road
Source: National Archives of Singapore


At Geylang Road opposite Onan Road was a row of shophouses. It consisted of a Chinese medicine shop, a wholesale banana shop, and two eating houses and another shop. One of the eating houses was Lai Tai Mohamadan Restaurant selling the popular Halal 'mee hongkong' for muslims. It was always crowded. When that block of building was demolished, the restaurant moved to Lor 101 Changi. Business was not the same anymore. The other eating house had the most delicious and finger licking soup kambing in town. I liked to eat the kaki and the tulang, yummy



Lian Tai Mohamadan Restaurant
Source: National Archives of Singapore


Residents from Joo Chiat crossed over to Geylang Serai for food and shopping. The goods there were cheaper than elsewhere. The spicy Malay food was good too besides the Indian soup kambing. The landscape has been transformed and the past is now a memory.