Tai Thean Kew Circus

Adele Wong is doing research to write a book about Tai Thean Kew Circus. It was a family circus owned by her grandfather. She is asking those who have memories of the circus to share their experiences and make contributions.

She wrote to me: "Please do circulate my blog about the Tai Thean Kew Circus to all your friends who might have any memories of it. The book is based mainly on my grandparent's memory, sometimes I don't understand certain things they are explaining to me, espoecially about the circus acts and about the insects they used to catch when they were children. It is a very special project to me though and I am very surprised to find so many people out there with blogs about yesterday in Singapore." Her blogsite is: http://taitheankew.blogspot.com/

Vietnam 1962

In April 1962 I and my wife was on honeymoon in a French boat MV Vietnam. It was a cargo cum cruise ship. There was segregation between the first class and economy class passengers. Western food was served with a free bottle of French red wine at every meal. The ports of call was Saigon, HongKong, Kobe and Yokohama. It was a round trip cruise and we got to see HongKong and Saigon again on our return journey. During that period North Vietnam was ruled by the communists after the French was defeated in 1954 at the battle of Dien Bien Phu. South Vietnam's ruler was President Ngo Dinh Diem. He was anti communist and pro American.

When the ship landed at Saigon harbour, the passengers went on a land tour of the city. Saigon appeared peaceful and business carried out as usual. We did not know then that fighting between the communist Vietcong and South Vietnamese Army was just outside the city. We were taken to the botanicl garden cum zoo, the central market and Cholon district in Chinatown. The streets were lined with hawker stalls and the central market crowded with people. Many stallholders and shopkeepers were Chinese women who spoke Teochew. They traded in textiles, clothes, gold and jewelleries, dried goods and food. At Cholon Chinatown market, the traders were mostly Chinese Cantonese. It was seista time at noon and the market stallholders closed shops to take a nap. Along the way, we saw the slum of Cholon where people lived on both sides of the river. Their botanical garden was just a park and the mini zoo had very few animals.





MV Vietnam


Saigon Harbour



Temple at Cholon, Chinatown

Cholon slum area

A street scene in Saigon

A building at Botanical Garden

Another view of the building

Botanical Garden cum zoo

Another building at the Botanical Garden

A mini zoo at Botanical Garden

Central Market

Textile stall at Central Market

Central Market

Food stalls at Central Market

Phan Thiet

The Sunday Times 15 Aug. 2010 Life section

The above article reminded me of my holidays at Phan Thiet beach resort more than 10 years ago. At that time my son was working in Ho Chi Minh City and I visited him every year. There was one occasion my friend and I went to a beach resort at Phan Thiet. On the way there, we came across rows and rows of dragon fruit plants. We stopped to examine the plants and found that they were not plants but were actually vines that needed support to grow up like plants. Wooden poles were planted on the ground so that dragon fruit vines would creep upwards. We found them on sale at the markets and stalls by the roadside. They were very good to look at especially the big ones but never tasted sweet. In Singapore too I could hardly get a sweet dragon fruit.


Dragon Fruits


Slightly inland from the coast of Phan Thiet was a place that appeared like a desert. Above picture shows that we are in a desert. There were many sand dunes too. Actually there were bushes and trees nearby and also a small village. The houses were near the coast with many fishing boats and nets hung on poles to dry. I think the villagers were mostly fishermen.

Beach cleaners on the background

Chalet near the sea

I forgot the beach resort name. It was off season and we had the beach all to ourselves. There were many chalets like we had above. Guests could also choose to stay at the hotel within the resort. The beach was very clean. The resort owner employed workers to pick up litters at the beach every morning as you can see in the picture below.

The three are workers cleaning the beach.

Good Better Best

The above article was published in The Straits Times on Saturday 3 June 2010. The caption 'Good, better, best, never let it rest' evoked my memories of the old days when I was in secondary school in the early 50s. During those days, signing of autograph book was a fad among students. I have a few autograph books for different groups of friends but only the one below survives to this day. It is now in pieces but I still treasure it even with some torn pages. Each page had a photo of my friend. Over the years, the glue gave way and the photos were detached and dropped from the pages.

The verses in the newspapers are not complete. I remembered a friend wrote in my autograph book as follows:

Good, better, best
Never let it rest
When your good is better
Do your better best

I did not know the original author who wrote them. But many students used them to write in autograph books. Other popular verses are:

Drink hot coffee
Drink hot tea
Burn your lips and remember me

True friendship strengthens
and nver will die
But grows more constant
as the years pass by

Below are pictures of my only surviving autograph book since the early 50s. The autograph book is so old and worn out that when I turned over the pages to scan, some pages got torn. Those who signed my autograph book are more than 70 years old now and I think majority are grand parents like me.

Updated on 03.10.2013
Additional autographs written by friends with their photos attached. Circles of Friends and a Brick Wall of Friends were at the end of the book where they wrote their addresses. Do you notice that all my friends here are girls. As I mentioned above I had a few autograph books. This one is specially for all my girl friends in Singapore and Malaysia.

Pen Pal From Malacca

In 1953 my friend Steven Chong visited me and I took him sight seeing to various parts of the island. I took many photos with him but only 3 was found. The above photo shows a British airbase in Singapore. The background had a few houses. They could be quarters for the airbase personnels. I think the Royal Air For (Malaya) signboard was at the junction of 2 roads. I have forgotten the name of the roads. Does anyone knows its exact location?

The photos below are easy to guess.

So Near & Yet So Far

During the Japanese occupation of Singapore my 3 grand mothers lived in grandpa's rubber estate at Chai Chee, Changi. My third grandma had 3 sons and a daughter. Two of the boys were about my age. As kids we played together and got on well. After the war all of us moved back to live in Joo Chiat area. After my grandpa died in 1947, my third grandma and her children moved out of Joo Chiat. I lost contact with the family after my parents passed away. In 2007 I saw one my uncle's obituary in The Straits Times. I attended his wake to pay respect and also to reconnect with the 2 remaining uncles. In all they have 9 children who are my cousins. Except for one, the rest are younger than my children. We got connected and met for the first time. We had two reunion lunches to catch up about family matters. At the first reunion lunch 3 cousins could not made it. At the second reunion lunch a cousin from our grand uncle (grandpa's brother) side came to join us.


My new found cousins - 1st reunion lunch


Meeting of the cousins - 2nd reunion lunch

Close relatives could be strangers on the road if we do not know each other. It happened to my family in March 2010. A cousin and his National Library staff attended a briefing at the Singapore Zoo. He was sitting at the front table listening attentively to the talk. Right in front of him was my daughter (his niece) and her colleague who gave the briefing. For more than an hour they faced each other without knowing they were related. A few days later he got wise to it and wrote to me. I confirmed that they were related. He wrote to my daughter and cc to me. He ended his email "It's a small world". I would rather say "It's so near and yet so far". I am glad that I got reconnected with my uncles and their children (my cousins). Early this month I found more relatives. They are in Australia, London, and USA. Gosh! The family tree is expanding and many have spread branches outside Singapore.

Benifits Of Blogging

Blogging is for young people. That was what I thought initially. In fact most senior citizens are computer illiterate and senior bloggers formed a minor percentage in Singapore. Ivan my cousin encouraged me to blog and tell my own story. So, I started to blog on my golden years. They could be places down memory lane, lost relatives or people I once played with in my kampong and in schools. Such fond memories are nostalgic and I treasure them. Though I longed to see some of them again after so many years, but never in my wildest dream that my blogs could bring some of them to me. I consider them blogging dividends.



First Dividend In 2007 an uncle who I did not know existed then chanced to see the Story of Chew Joo Chiat, my great grand-father, also his grand father. He wrote to me about Chew Joo Chiat's grave which I was told had been exhumed. As he was based in Shanghai then, he referred me to his eldest brother in Singapore for more info. We met and at last year's Qing Ming, he and his son brought me and a cousin to Joo Chiat's grave at Bukit Brown. From the tombstone I learned that my great grand father had 5 children in all. That information together the new found relatives enable me to update Chew Joo Chiat's family tree.

My uncle and his son whom I met for the first time last year.

Second Dividend In March 2010 a young man saw my blog post 'Back to School'. He noticed that I and his dad were in the same academic year at Raffles Institution. He wrote to me to see if I knew his dad, HK Wong. I replied with a photo of class 1952 attached. We were classmates then. Later HK Wong contacted me to arrange for a meeting with another 2 classmates. Last month four of us had a reunion lunch at Tanglin Club.

Right to left: Henry, Johnny, Yew Wing & Philip

I am very much encouraged by this and is now looking forward to a third blogging dividend.