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.

Growing Up In Joo Chiatt

I lived at Joo Chiat Road with my grandmother, an uncle and his family since I was born until 1957. Behind the house was a small kampong where Chinese, Malay and Indian families lived side by side in harmony. As a kid the kampong was my playground and kids learned to speak each others' language easily. A Malay friend's mother not only spoke hokien dialect fluently but also learned to play mahjong and si sek pai ( 4 coloured cards sample below) with her neighbours.

Fronting my house was a vacant area. Actually it was part of the house with wooden pagar (fence) and flower pots on stands on both sides of the pagar. During the war the wooden fence was removed. Illegal hawkers set up stalls there every morning and cooked food hawkers got free water from us. Whenever there was a raid by the Hawkers Department they took refuge in my house. My grandmother was a friendly lady. Kampong folks took advantage and used our house as a short cut to Joo Chiat Road. At peak time in the morning it was like a public thoroughfare.

My uncle's friends were shopkeepers, traders and hawkers in Joo Chiat area. At evening time our house was like a club house. They came to chat and drink beer and hard liquor. But their actual motive was to gamble later. The played pah kow (3 cards), poker or mahjong when there was enough kaki (players). Occasionally two games were played at the same time in the house. It was like a gambling den. My uncle did not gamble as he was the horli (a person who shuffles and distributes cards to the players like a croupier in casino) and collected taxes from the betting pool. I learned the game and at times relieved him as horli.
I could still remember three players clearly. One was the proprietor of a furniture shop aka panjang (lean and tall). He lived nearby. The other was a business man aka ah sia (a rich heir in Teochew dialect). The last guy was the famous laksa hawker aka jangok (he had a few strands of long hairs growing from his chin). The first two guys were opium addicts. Coincidently, there was an opium den behind my house. They always had their puffs first before coming to our house from the back door to join the other players.

Si Sek Pai (Chinese four coloured cards)

In the 1950s Joo Chiat area had many secret societies from gang 24, 18, and other numbers. Their members then were mostly youngsters. They were quick tempered and often resulted in fights. The more serious gang fights were over collections of protection money. When there was a gang war innocent bystanders were common victims. Sometimes I was tipped off not to go near certain area due to impending gang fight. Below are a few newspapers cuttings about gang fights in Joo Chiat. There were much more incidents of gang war in 1950s. So, Joo Chiat area was not a good place to raise a school kid like me.

Newspapers Cuttings of Gang War in Joo Chiat 1950s

Telok Kurau English School (TKES)

Telok Kurau English School was the only English school in the eastern part of Singapore before 1950. It was situated at Lorong J Telok Kurau. I attended that school from 1945 to 1950. I still remember the two-storey timber building with many coconut trees in the vicinity. I understand the area was a coconut grove before the school was built in 1926. Further into Lorong J there was a cattle shed. Everyday the cowherd drove the cattle to graze outside the area and had to pass through the school. Needless to say, there were cowdung everywhere on the road. Walking to school had to be very careful. Anyway it was quite common to step onto the cowdung. The school had a large playground stretching from the school building to Lorong H Telok Kurau. The playground was used for morning physical exercise, footballs, games, athletic practices and annual school sports.

The school gardeners and caretakers lived in quarters within the school compound nearby the school hall. They were allowed to rear chickens but confined to the quarters area. There was a peon (office boy) whose name was Rosland. He was a good natured person, always smiling and obliging. School record stated that Mr Lim Lan San was the first teacher of the school in 1926. When I was there in 1945 he was the vice principal of the school. He lived at Joo Chiat Place and his son Lim Eng Hock was my school mate.


Typical Government primary school buildings in those days.


At background people watching the school sports from Lorong H Telok Kurau


Front sitting from left: Mrs Seow Peck Leng, Mrs Desker & Mr Lee Keng Yew. Mr Lim Lan San sitting fourth from right and the Principal Mr Retnam sitting next to Mr Lim. Back row standing were all trainee teachers posted to the school.

There were two teachers in the school who impressed me. There were:

Miss Boey: I forgot her name as all the school boys addressed her by her surname as Miss Boey. She was a spinster and a very dedicated teacher. She lived in a lane off Changi Road behind a block of building at Telok Kurau Road and Changi Road junction. I was in her class in Standard One. On one occasion a few of us went to her house to play. That was how I came to know where she lived. The narrow lane was not there anymore. It was a private road and the whole area is now replaced by new buildings. Once I saw her teaching a student lessons in the class. After some time she appeared frustrated and trying to control her emotion. Finally she broke down and cried. Later I came to know that no matter how she taught him, he still failed to understand her teaching. A year later, I was told she passed away from an illness. As the saying goes "the good die young".


L to R: Miss Boey & Miss Chia

Mr Lee Keng Yew: I remember him very well because our paths crossed a few times. The first was during the Japanese occupation. He was a school teacher at Koon Seng Road Choon Guan School teaching Japanese and I was in his class. He was tall and thin and had the habit of going straight to the wash-room to wash his hands after each lesson. I believed he wanted to wash away the chalk dusk on his hands. After the war, he was posted to teach at the Telok Kurau English School. During my time the primary school education was seven years, from Pr. I to II and Standard I to V. In 1948 he was teaching Standard III and I was promoted to his class. I remembered his good habit and observed that he was still the same. I also learned that he washed his hands after handling money. Teacher in class collected supplemetary fees from students but not in Japanese school. In fact, his good habit was also known to all his colleagues. During the school holidays he took the class on an excursion to the Botanical Garden. His family also came along. He drove a British made Austin car and parked at the void area near the staircase.


At Singapore Botanical Garden
Mr Lee Keng Yew sitting on the extreme right. His wife on the left and his son at the front turning to look at the camera.

Our paths crossed the third time when he was the Principal of Haig Boys School. I was courting my girl friend (now wife) who was his school clerk in 1957. He had good memory too. When he first saw me in his office, he remembered that I was his student at TKES. He was suprised when I told him that he also taught me Japanese too at Choon Guan School. My memory on the above lingers on and old photographs help to refresh my minds of the past.

Next post: My Joo Chiat Environment

Nullar Road - 2

Concrete staircase from Nallur Road to the beach

I passed Nallur Road every week on my way to Upper East Coast Road. It was quite boring seeing the same scene over and over again. Recently I browsed throught an album that had pictures of my in-laws' house at Nallur Road. It brought me memories that was about half a century ago. My children were very young then and my in-laws helped to look after them during the day. The beach was within walking distance and very often our children played there building sand castles and digging sea shells. When not playing the sand we walked and run on the beach. Unlike Changi beach, there were very few outsiders. Those frequented the beach were residents of Nallur Road and a nearby Chinese kampong.


You know who

A windy day at the beach

Nallur Road was then a no-through road. The houses there were mostly bungalows with large compounds. My children were very lucky that their grand-parents lived there. They enjoyed the open space riding bicycles and running around. Furthermore, I had a dog and 2 rabbits for them to play with. They also played with other kids on the road. Children made friends easily and the adults got to know their neighbours through them.



My nephew like to climb tree

Notice the large open space of old bungalow house

When my eldest daughter was 2 year old we celebrated her birthday and invited friends and their children to her birthday party. It was my first time holding a birthday party for kid and was at a lost. I had to think of the games children played and made the props myself. It was stressful but worth it as I made all the kids happy that day.

My daughter's birthday party.
The children above now are fathers and mothers of their own

The sea at the end of Nallur Road has gone due land reclamation. The bungalows on both sides of the road made way to a number of condominiums. At the twinkling of an eye about 46 years have passed by. The landscape have changed and I am getting more grey hairs. Now when I pass Nallur Road happy scenes flash through my mind.