Goodbye My Kampong

by Josephine Chia

  For hundreds of years, seafarers and pirates, descendants of the Orang Laut or Sea People, had made their homes in houses on stilts by the coast upon re-settling, so that they could still feel part of the sea when the waves rushed underneath their houses. Many of them became fishing folks. Their history was being wiped out with the land reclamation. These villages, framed by swaying palm trees, had given character to our beaches and coasts, but they would all be a thing of the past soon. Their beaches were our picnic areas, their sea was where we kicked at the surf or swam. My mother often took us to visit a relative in a house on stilts at Pasir Panjang. How I loved to look through the gaps in the wooden floor boards at the waves ebbing and flowing underneath the house. I felt mesmerised, lulled into a state of half-sleep. One did feel that one was out at sea, which was what the Orang Laut must have needed to feel.

  “How we fish from 10-storey HDB blocks?” the coastal villagers asked, with tears in their voices.

  With the death of P. Ramlee, another era was coming to a close, the era of homegrown Malay film production and music. Puteh Ramlee, popularly known as P. Ramlee, was born in Penang, and he died in KL on 29 May, at the age of 44. He had a heart attack in the early hours of the morning and succumbed to it half an hour later in hospital. For a man who was the icon of the Malay film industry for years, famed for his acting, singing, composing and directorial achievements, he died a penniless, broken man. He had acted in 66 Malay films, directed 35, composed 250 Malay songs and sung about 30 of the latter. His most prolific period was when he was based in Singapore, from 1949 to 1964, working with Shaw Brothers. The films were produced at 8 Jalan Ampas studios in Balestier, and many of the outdoor scenes were set in Alkaff Gardens, where I first saw him with his pencil-thin moustache and fell in love with his smile and charm. The timbre of his voice had a way of catching your heart, whatever the lyrics. He could be serious or humorous. Whenever he released a new film, I would hanker to go and see it, at first in non-air-conditioned cinemas, then later in air-conditioned ones, like Alhambra, Cathay and Capitol.

  Going to the movies was the main positive thing I could remember about my father. He was a film buff, and he made me love them just as he did. He introduced me to horror films with Boris Karloff, Vincent Price and Christopher Lee. Ah Tetia never took my mother out much, but when a P. Ramlee film came out, he made it a point to give her a treat. When we watched an English TV programme, I had to translate it for her, but when we watched a Malay film together, there was no need to do so. Thus, we could laugh or weep at the same time, bonding us to each other in an extraordinary way. So, in some way, P. Ramlee also represented for me my moments of closeness with my parents, particularly rare with my father. My mother and I had the knack of picking up lyrics easily, and we would sing P. Ramlee’s famous songs together at home, or together with Karim, as he strummed the tunes. Although I enjoyed P. Ramlee’s comedic films, like the Bujang Lapok series, I found his dramatic ones like Ibu Mertua Ku more heart-rending. In remembering P. Ramlee, I was also reminded of my mother and the happy times we sang his songs together.

  P. Ramlee married his third wife Saloma in 1961, after two earlier divorces. Saloma was a very beautiful singer and actress, who also made appearances at Alkaff Gardens. It was wonderful to see them on celluloid after having seen them in person, as if there was a kind of familiarity and ownership. When TV came out and films became less popular, Shaw Brothers were not producing as many films as before, so they advised P. Ramlee to return to KL, where there were better opportunities for him to continue his film acting career. He did so in 1964.

  P. Ramlee was adamant about preserving Malay culture and entertainment. But he was fighting a losing battle, as more films from Hollywood started screening in Asia, and young people were turning to Western movies and pop music. P. Ramlee was fast becoming out of date. Sadly, the press, which had previously covered his numerous wins and awards, now vilified him. In his depression, he ate too much and put on a lot of weight, losing the svelte figure he had before. His face became rounder and fuller. I was so sad to hear that when he went on stage at the Dewan Negara, National Theatre, in KL, he was booed. How far he had fallen! It seemed poignant that the last song he wrote before he died, which was later recorded by his widow Saloma, was ‘Air Mata di Kuala Lumpur’, or ‘Tears in Kuala Lumpur’. The lyrics spoke touchingly of loss and the death of dreams, and a life that had dwindled into a lack of meaning. In the end, he had struggled just to feed his family and had to resort to low-level entertainment like singing at birthday parties or being a compere for stage shows. It was in these tragic circumstances that he died.

  And yet, after his death, hundreds of people turned up at his funeral. Perhaps realising that they had been unfair to him, the press wrote columns and columns of accolades about his extensive repertoire of work. There was a revival of his music and films. Very much later, he was even awarded the Malay equivalent of a knighthood, Tan Sri, but it was all too late. He had died a shattered man, believing that his fans and his country had deserted him.

  After my teeth were straightened by Dr S, I was a new person. I could not thank him enough. Instead of constantly pursing my lips tightly to hide the ugly overbite, I was now confident enough to smile, exposing my teeth. Dr S was involved in a national campaign to educate the public on dental health, and he asked if I minded the picture of my lips and teeth being taken and used for the national poster. Of course I could not refuse. It was strange to see a photo of a part of me, only lips and teeth, on a poster everywhere, on the buses and in various clinics and schools, though I was not identifiable from it. I wished I had kept one as a souvenir.

  One of my postings was to the Maternal and Child Health Clinic in Mandai. Every maternal and child health clinic housed midwives, who helped women deliver their babies so that they did not have to make the long trip to KK. Rural folks during this period were still suspicious of hospitals. Such clinics always had a dental clinic section though it did not operate 24/7 like the midwifery section. This was really an ulu place, miles away from town and any shop. We had to bring our own lunch in, unless one of the midwives who was visiting a patient would come back with packets of food. There was not a lot to engage one’s time during our lunch breaks, and I always brought a book to read. At the Stamford Road library, I found a book that was to change my life.

  Norman Vincent Peale, an American pastor, had written a book called The Power of Positive Thinking, and it was published by Simon and Schuster in 1952. When I read it, I realised the power of words, both positive and negative. I realised how I had allowed my father’s negative words to shape my view of myself. It was time to reverse all that. I thought it was that easy. Peale recommended looking for positive traits in myself to counter anything negative said about me. I examined myself in a mirror. I was dark, like my father said I was. Did that make me ugly? Now that my teeth were normal, I could smile. It was then that I noticed that my dimples appeared when I smiled. I told myself, I would have to smile more often. And I did.

  That was when I met Boy Friend. Apparently he was attracted by my dimples.

  I was attracted by his broad shoulders. We went to the same church. He smiled at me and I smiled back. For the first time in my life, I felt myself desirable. For once, my father’s words were proven wrong. The following week, we went to the same service and he looked out for me, as I was secretly looking out for him. He was very tall for a Chinese and deeply tanned, so we were well matched. Then he plucked up the courage to talk to me. We exchanged names and potted histories. I learnt that he was in the first batch of NS men, which explained his superb physique. He had just finished his annual reservist training, which accounted for his tan. I fell in love with this image of him, as he fell in love with the image he had of me, as a nice little nurse who would not talk back. But we both didn’t know it then and thought that what we had was real.

  But that is another story.

  Boy Friend owned a Ford Cortina. This was very impressive for a kampong gi
rl like me. As I said, I fell in love for all the wrong reasons. He was the first graduate I had as a friend. He told me about his experiences at university, which opened new vistas for me. He took me to see his former campus at Bukit Timah, and most memorably, to its extensive library. From the moment I stepped into its hallowed grounds, I knew that I must get into university. The white colonial buildings with their arches, lower and upper quadrangles surrounding the lawn area, were magnificent. The walls seemed to whisper of ancient legends, steeped in esoteric knowledge. For the first time since I left school, I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be a great idea if I could go to university to study literature, since I loved books and stories so much? I expressed the idea to Boy Friend.

  “Yes, I think you should further develop yourself,” he said. “Your English is so good what. But you should study law. You’ll make more money.”

  Spoken like the engineer he was. Pragmatic. It should have rung warning bells. The only books he read were his engineering books, whereas I couldn’t live without reading stories. I didn’t think it would matter. At that point, I was so lost in the idea of being loved, as I had never thought I could be loved. I couldn’t believe someone as successful as he was would even look at me. Engineers were much favoured by the country at the time, as Singapore needed lots of them in manufacturing and building. I was awed. I wished I could tell Fatima.

  “Do you like horror movies?” Boy Friend asked.

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “My father introduced them to me. I get frightened but like them all the same.”

  Of course, I didn’t know then that all boys took girls on their first date to horror movies so that the girls would cling to them when terrified. Duh! How would I know? He was my first boyfriend and my first love. We were not yet at the stage where we could publicly hold hands before getting engaged. But I do know that love can be transformative. Because I was loved, I felt myself to be beautiful. At last my father’s words were beginning to weaken their hold on me. Or so I thought.

  “There’s a good movie coming up, called The Exorcist…”

  “Oh, I read about that,” I said, trying to sound intelligent. “It’s based on a 1971 novel by William Peter Blatty. It’s about a 12-year-old girl who is possessed and how her mother engages the priest to exorcise the devil. Very scary.”

  “You want to go?” Boy Friend asked. “We can go in my car. It’s showing at the Jurong Drive-In. Have you been there before?”

  If he was out to impress me, he had succeeded. I had always wanted to go to Jurong Drive-In since it opened in July 1971. I had only read about it in the papers. Located at Yuan Ching Road in Jurong, next to the Japanese Gardens, the place was 5.6 hectares in size and was considered the largest drive-in in Asia, as it could hold 900 cars and had a sheltered area for 300 walk-ins. It was owned and managed by Cathay Organisation, which borrowed the idea from O’Halloran Hill Cinema in Adelaide, Australia. The opening was officiated by the Minister of Culture Jek Yeun Thong, and the first film that was screened was Doctor in Trouble, featuring British comic entertainers Leslie Philips and Harry Secombe. The proceeds from the opening night were donated to the Jurong Town Creche.

  My mother nearly keeled over when I announced that a boy wanted to take me out.

  Third Elder Brother said, “What kind of boy is he?”

  Brothers took on the role of the father to vet their sisters’ boyfriends in our time. Third Elder Brother had recently got engaged to Sister-in-Law-To-Be from posh Bukit Timah, who worked as an Administrative Officer in PUB. When I gave my mother and him Boy Friend’s credentials, they were impressed.

  “Ask him to come in first and let me meet him before I decide,” Mak said.

  Boy Friend passed the test. But he had to bring me back home before 11pm.

  I have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend! I sang quietly in my head as Boy Friend drove his Ford Cortina the long journey to Jurong. The car was very comfortable and seemed very luxurious to me. I hadn’t been to Jurong before. It seemed like an ulu place far, far away from Kampong Potong Pasir, on the northwest side of our island. Houses and towns gave way to trees and more trees. Then we reached the industrialised part of Jurong, and I thought it looked ugly, with its large areas of concrete blocks. For a moment, I was horrified. Were these the kind of blocks that were going to replace our beloved village of attap houses in Kampong Potong Pasir?

  I thought the drive-in would charge by the car rather than by the number of persons in the car. But Boy Friend shelled out $4, as each ticket per person cost $2. What a treat! Each single ticket was the price of a meal. The place looked like a giant open-space car park, with more and more cars streaming in. The usher gave us instructions and directions. Vendors were plying the people in parked cars with offers of snacks and ice-cream. Boy Friend drove the car carefully till he found a good spot in the middle of the arena.

  “The screen is 47 feet by 100 feet, and is tilted downwards at an angle of 6½ degrees, so we will be able to see clearly from here,” explained Boy Friend in his engineer voice. “Those are speaker stands. But we also have individual car speakers which we can fix here on our window so we can hear better.”

  “What happens if it rains?”

  “Uhh, we use our windscreen wipers lah” he said, as if he hadn’t thought of it.

  Would we have to peer through the rain through each swipe of the windscreen wipers? If people had passengers at the back, how would they be able to see the screen clearly? I was curious to know. But it was too new in the relationship to press for a further explanation. Besides, I didn’t want to show my ignorance. I was just going to enjoy myself. It was quite a novelty to watch a movie from the privacy of one’s car. The car gave us a sense of us being on our own, though we were surrounded by 899 cars!

  The film was really spine-tingling, raising goosebumps all over my arms. It wasn’t like the kind of horror movies that Ah Tetia had usually taken me to see, of vampires, which one could dismiss as being unreal. This was a supernatural horror film that dealt with ordinary people and everyday life, that brought the horror much nearer to home and was more impactful. It was the story of a young girl called Regan MacNeil who was playing with an Ouija board, and somehow brought the demon into her life. The actress Linda Blair played the role of Regan. She was brilliant. Max Von Sydow played the role of Father Lankester Merrin, an elderly priest and archaeologist who was roped in to help exorcise the devil. His features were such that it set the tone for the movie. It was a truly gripping film. It was easy to become unnerved from the start, and I naturally shifted in my seat to move close towards Boy Friend. If that had been his purpose and intention for bringing me to this movie in his private car, then he had succeeded. I was really terrified! By the time the scene in Regan’s bedroom appeared on screen, I could have leapt into Boy Friend’s arms willingly. I could never forget that scene, which gave me nightmares from that evening on, when Regan turned her ghoulish eyes towards the camera. Then she smiled menacingly. To my utter horror, she slowly creaked her neck and swiveled her head a full 360 degrees.

  I nearly peed in my pants!

  And Then There Was Colour

  (1974)

  AND then, there was colour in my life. Romance brightens everything. The ordinariness of daily living takes on an unexpected paint-wash of rosy hues. I was astounded at how the simple fact of being desired and loved could produce such an alchemy of change within me. I no longer lay under the Damocles’ sword of my father’s negative words about me. I was miraculously filled with the consciousness that I could do anything, be anything. I was transmuted! Love was an inspiration.

  I suddenly knew how Eliza Doolittle felt when she discovered she loved her language tutor, Professor Henry Higgins. The characters from the musical, My Fair Lady, with music written by Frederick Loewe and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, were played on stage by Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison in 1956. The story was adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s play, Pygmalion. In 1964, when the musical was made into a film, Audrey Hepburn wa
s given the part of Eliza. It was a hit when it came out in Singapore and Second Elder Brother took me to see it, since he knew I loved songs as much as he did. I was 13 then but still remembered all the songs.

  In her new-found happiness, Eliza sang the now-very-famous song, ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’, which went like this:

  “I could have danced all night

  I could have danced all night

  And still have begged for more

  I could have spread my wings

  And done a thousand things

  I've never done before...”

  Now that I was in the throes of love, I waltzed around our attap hut with a long bolster as my dancing partner, singing the song repeatedly and happily, making Mak smile. Third Elder Brother and my sisters made circles with their fingers near their temples to indicate my insanity. Robert was delighted. He thumped the mattress with joy. Somehow the tune must have conveyed the vibrations of happiness to him.

  For many years, we all believed that like Julie Andrews, Audrey Hepburn had sung her own songs. Then someone leaked the secret that she only lip-synched to the lyrics. The songs in the entire musical were sung by a woman called Marni Nixon. Audrey Hepburn graciously admitted that the role should have gone to Julie Andrews. But the movie mogul, Jack Warner, wanted a more famous name. Perhaps he didn’t know how famous Julie Andrews was in the UK. A Surrey girl, Julie Andrews had been only 13 when she sang the British National Anthem in front of King George VI at the London Palladium. Her pure, clear voice had been heard throughout her maturing years in British theatres. Fortunately, when she was finally cast in her first Hollywood film, Mary Poppins, in the later part of 1964, and subsequently, in The Sound Of Music in 1965, she too became known to the US market and to the world. Still, the fact that Audrey Hepburn did not sing her own songs did not diminish her stellar performance in the film.