Mak rummaged amongst her sarongs to retrieve her precious gold kerosang, a three-pin brooch linked by a fine chain to hold the kebaya together.
“This is the only thing I’ve got left from my previous life,” she said without rancour. She meant her life in Malacca with her rich parents. Tragedy had claimed my grandfather, and grandmother had fled to Singapore with her children. “I hope to save it for your wedding one day.”
But it was not to be. The heirlooms I received from my mother were of a different, more lasting kind.
I helped Mak comb her long black hair and she tied it into a bun. I helped her thread the creamy bunga melor buds, and she tied these around her sanggul. The natural perfume of the flowers wafted up as she glided past. She powdered her face with bedak sejok, then pinched her cheeks to redden them. It was a delightful transformation, from ordinary housewife to film-star glamour.
“You want to wear something nice as well?” she asked me.
Of course I could not go into town in my home-made shorts! Kampong kids were wild. At my age, I was permitted to run around without wearing any footwear or top. I was flat-chested and brown and could pass for a boy. Since my long hair was snipped off due to the infestation of kutu, I definitely looked like a boy.
“How about your Chinese New Year dress? The one I sewed with the full-gathered skirt and fabric rosette.”
I hated it. Mak had sewn a can-can petticoat to flounce up the skirt and its material made me hot and sweaty.
“Do I have to wear shoes?”
My feet were used to being uncased by shoes and free so my toes had spread wide and were like a chimpanzee’s feet. I could pick things up quite easily with my toes, which were as agile as my fingers. I could climb trees like a young chimp and if challenged, could even swing upside down from branches. There was a cherry tree in the sandy forecourt of the village shophouses and I climbed it often to pick the cherries. I had feet like a monkey’s, no wonder my father kept saying that there would be no marriage prospects for me. If I had lived in China, they would definitely have bound my feet! Dainty feet were synonymous with beauty. (This could only be proclaimed by a man!) Mine were far from dainty. I used to be able to hold a piece of chalk with my toes and draw with it! This meant that trying to fit my feet into tight shoes was excruciating.
“You certainly can’t go into town barefoot!”
It was a case of enduring the pain or not going into town. So I force-squeezed my feet into my narrow Chinese New Year shoes, which were tight black pumps. They hurt. I would have preferred to wear what my mother was wearing – kasut manek, the traditional Peranakan sandals with glass bead panels which she sewed herself. We spent our evenings embroidering or sewing manek. Mak used an old-fashioned wooden frame to hold the material for her bead-work. But sewing by candle-light for years took its toll on hers as well as my eyesight. The manek-shoes were her going-out footwear as she normally wore char kiak or wooden clogs when she went about in the village. The Malays called the wooden sandals terompah. In this instance, Peranakans used the Chinese and Malay term interchangeably. Most times, if we used a Peranakan or a Malay term for something, it meant we may not know the Chinese equivalent. I never understood why this was so.
My father wore a plain white shirt with his trousers. He never wore his sarong outside our kampong. Just as we were about to leave, his friend Ah Gu came rushing into our attap hut.
The names people give their children! Gu is a cow in Hokkien. Fancy calling your child That Cow! Ah Gu was a neighbour who became my father’s companion in the evenings. They usually sat outdoors after sunset, drinking their favourite tipple, a pint of Guinness, whilst they discussed politics.
“Have you heard?” Ah Gu said excitedly to my father in Teochew. “There’s going to be a rally at Kallang Airport on March 18. Chief Minister David Marshall is going to address the people about our country’s self-rule. Shall we go together? There’s a campaign right now to collect signatures of people who want independence. I’m signing. Will you? I think it’s right that the chief minister is pushing for us to manage our own internal security...”
“Ah Phine will be five on that day,” My father said. “Of course I will sign the petition for independence and go with you. Just because I’m earning a living in an English company and have good bosses doesn’t mean I want to be under their rule forever.”
“Independence is the only way to go now. You know I respect Chief Minister David Marshall a great deal. He’s trying to resolve this issue about the Chinese-educated. People like me.” Ah Gu said. “The colonial government doesn’t recognise our education. Our qualification can’t get us into university here. He sounds a clarion call of hope for us...”
“Yes, I know it’s tough for Chinese-educated people like you. But the problem is not so straightforward, because of the Chinese schools’ involvement with the communists...”
“Not all Chinese-educated people are pro-communist, you know,” Ah Gu said in an offended tone.
“I know. I know. Look. We’ll talk another time. I’m taking my wife and daughter out to town.”
The rally that Ah Gu was talking about was to take place at the Old Kallang Airport. Up until a year earlier, it had been Singapore’s civil airport. Though there had been air-strips on the island, they were mainly built for military purposes, but the first commercial aeroplanes flew out of Kallang Airport.
In 1931, Governor Sir Cecil Clementi had said, “I expect to see Singapore become one of the largest and most important airports of the world. It is, therefore, essential that we should have here, close to the heart of the town, an aerodrome which is equally suitable for landing planes and sea planes; and the best site, beyond all question, is the Kallang Basin.”
The mangrove swamps surrounding the basin were filled and land was reclaimed from the sea. Kallang Airport was born and officially opened on 12 June 1937 by the British Governor at that time, Sir Shenton Thomas. The terminal building and hangar were beautifully designed in art deco style, similar to the design of the oldest civil airfield in England, Shoreham Airport in West Sussex. It had a grassy landing zone and a slipway for seaplanes. For many years, Kallang Airport was considered the “finest airport in the British Empire.”
A week after the airport opened, a historic event took place. World famous female aviator, Amelia Earhart, flew in from Bangkok on her second attempt to fly around the world. She was accompanied by her navigator, Frederick Noonan, and they were on their way to Bandung. Her aeroplane, the Lockheed Electra10E landed at Kallang Airport, which she called “an aviation miracle of the East”. Sadly, it was just a few weeks after this, on 2 July 1937, that she disappeared. She was last heard from about 100 miles from the tiny Pacific atoll, Howland Island.
With the opening of Paya Lebar Airport in August 1955, the historic Kallang Airport also disappeared as such, for its operations as an airport ceased and it became a centre for the Singapore Youth Sports Council. This was where the David Marshall rally was to be held.
It felt like a long walk from our house through the dusty, pot-holed village road to Upper Serangoon Road. The sun was beating down on us and my Chinese New Year dress with its can-can petticoats irritated my skin. My shoes were having a jolly time biting my feet. If it were not for the anticipation of seeing the High Street and all its shops, I would have preferred to be topless and without shoes and to stay at home. I was such a peasant! My parents and I walked past the fish ponds where the Chinese men were shouting out in a kind of musical rhythm as they pulled up their nets. The bulging nets were poised in the air for several minutes, heads of fish poking through the nets, their round eyes appealing for last minute reprieve. But none came, and their mouths opened and shut, opened and shut in silent screams.
We boarded a trolley-bus to town, its thick overhead cables slithering like air-borne snakes, forming a network with other snakes at the junctions of roads. Every now and then the bell went ping! And the bus would shudder to a stop and some people would alight hastily w
hilst others boarded. I was delighted by this sound and waited in anticipation for it to happen next. Ping! Ping! Ping!
“Watch for this, watch for this,” Mak said to me. “There’s Tekka market where we go to get special things when Ah Tetia has his bonus. And soon we will go across the big Rochor Canal. It’s like a river.”
Mak hoisted me up so that I was off my bottom and she placed me onto my knees on the bus seat so that I could peer out of the window. Indeed, as the bus clambered across the stone bridge, I could see the water flowing. It was a strange river to me, not as wide as our Kallang River in the village and it did not have muddy or moist banks either. Through the open windows of the bus, the sounds of the city were so different from the sounds in our kampong, clamouring to be heard, exciting yet daunting.
We passed my uncle’s home in Petain Road where he lived with his wife and family and my grandmother, Lao Ee. Their apartment was in a four-storey block. For me any building made of brick or concrete seemed wealthy compared with the attap-roofed huts which in our kampong were made of rough planks of wood, crudely painted with kapor, limestone; so badly constructed on the cheap that there were gaps in the walls where you could peep into your neighbour’s house. A Chinese hawker woman wearing her samfoo, trouser-suit, carrying two baskets slung on a pole on her shoulders, was at the foot of the block of flats calling out, “Ang Ku Kuih, Ang Ku Kuih.”
The dessert she was selling was made from glutinous flour stuffed with softened yellow mung beans. The glutinous paste was coloured red and pressed into a turtle-shaped mould, hence giving it its eponymous name, ang ku, which was Hokkien for Red Turtle. Because of its vibrant colour and the symbolic meaning of the turtle, which stood for prosperity and longevity, this cake was served at auspicious Chinese ceremonies like weddings and Chinese New Year. The sweetened mung bean paste was designed to bring sweetness into one’s life. The Chinese were very concerned with symbols and so Peranakans too adopted the ang ku kuih as their own, as well as the love of symbols and meanings. Not adhering to certain symbols or customs was taboo, which made Peranakans very pantang, the Malay word for superstitious.
Adults and children rushed to their balconies when they heard the hawker-woman’s cry. A young girl shouted out from the second storey to catch her attention. The hawker put her baskets down and looked up. They had a brief discussion, presumably on what the young girl wanted to purchase. Then the young girl placed some coins in a small rattan basket and lowered it with a rope in the same way that we lowered a pail into the well. The hawker woman pulled down the basket, took the coins, then placed the ang ku kuih in the basket and the young girl drew it up towards her. I had never seen anything like it before as we all lived on the ground floor in the kampong so did not have a need for this system. The contrast of city to village was fascinating.
At Dhoby Ghaut, an area between Selegie and Bras Basah Roads, the small wood of trees was strung out with flags of washing flapping in the wind. I knew that dhoby was the Hindi word for laundryman, since many of the laundry-men were Indians. People must be rich to have someone else do their laundry for them, I thought.
“Look, Ah Phine,” Ah Tetia called out. “That’s the Cathay Building, the tallest building in Singapore.”
The four-storey building was imposing. It was completely made out of concrete, not a piece of wood or attap in sight. I thought to myself, “I bet they have flush toilets like my rich cousins.”
At the junction of Bras Basah Road, a traffic policeman in his khaki shirt and shorts, wearing a pith helmet, waved his arms about in order to direct traffic.
“Bras Basah is a corruption of the Malay words beras basah, wet rice,” my father said to Mak. “There’s a Malay legend that it was named after the incident when a barge on the Singapore River carrying sacks of rice had overturned, causing the wet rice to spill onto this area.”
My mother was impressed.
Town was a magical land of robust buildings and landscaped gardens, with colourful orchids, bunga raya hibiscus and bougainvillea. The roads were tarmacked and there were street lamps. I imagined that when the electricity ran through the wires, the lamps must light up with joy. At nights, our lorongs in the village were shrouded in darkness, instilling in the children a fear of ghouls and Pontianak, the legendary Malay female vampire and spirit-familiars called polong. Our attap roofs were rigged with cactus plants so that their thorns would snag at the long hair of pontianaks and polongs when they levitated and flew over our houses, according to popular belief.
There were variations as to how the Pontianak came about. There was actually a village in Pulau Pemanggil, near Mersing, which was named after her. People said she resurfaced after her death to take revenge for her death. Some said she was killed. Some said she died in child-birth. Some said she lived in banana trees, others said she lived in the chempaka trees. Some said she had long hair and long fingernails and loved fish. Some said she loved to devour new born babies. Others even said she loved to suck the blood of men. But all agreed that she took on the form of a beautiful woman until she found her victim, before showing her ugly wizened self. A polong, on the other hand was said to be a personal spirit kept by someone who indulged in black-magic.
Ping! I was startled by the sudden sound as my thoughts had strayed to the Pontianak and polong. My father had pressed the bell.
“We’re there. It’s time for us to get off.”
I practically leapt off the last step of the bus, leaving all thoughts of evil spirits behind. Surely neither a Pontianak nor a polong could survive in the city, with all its electric lights?
High Street was a different country! The grand Adelphi Hotel stood at the corner like some great matriarch looking down at the more humble shophouses and five-foot ways. Saint Andrew’s Cathedral, regal and imposing, sat in a verdant landscape of lawn and trees. There was such a burst of colour and light as we strayed into various shops. My mother held my hand tightly and when she was fingering a bolt of fabric, she pressed me close to her sarong. I stood amongst a thicket of legs, afraid to get separated from my parents. I could hear my mother’s sighs of contentment and I knew she was happy even though she did not buy anything. And I knew my father was happy too because for the first time, I saw him holding Mak’s hand. When we peered at the elaborately dressed windows of the shops, they stood pressed hip to hip. Glass window-panes were a novelty to us, as the windows in our village were wooden shutters.
“Wait till you see the toys at Robinson’s,” Ah Tetia said to me.
My heart pounded in anticipation. I could feel my feet squashed to death in my shoes but I gallantly walked without whingeing because I wanted to see what toys from a store looked like when they were new. Any store-bought toy I had so far, came from the dustbins of the English children from Atas Bukit, at the top of the hill above our village. Most of the time, we had to make our own.
My father did not feel comfortable in taking us into Robinson’s itself, as its customers were all richly dressed and were mostly angmoh, Europeans. We just gazed in awe at its magnificently dressed windows resplendent with wonderful things. We pressed our noses so close that our breath steamed up the glass panes. My mother oohed-and-ahhed over the beautiful crockery and home items and I held my breath at the sight of gorgeous dolls with blonde hair and blue eyes, large cuddly teddy bears with fur, a toy train whizzing along its tracks set in the verdant English countryside. I noticed that the uniformed doorman was watching us critically, perhaps wondering whether to tell us to move on. This subtle disapproval of our circumstance was something I became more aware of as I grew older. Poor people were like a bad smell to the rich or a disease that they might catch.
“Come on,” my father said, conscious of the doorman’s looks. “Let us walk through Change Alley and then we will go and see the fountain at the Esplanade.”
It was going to be a fair walk from Raffles Place to the Esplanade so I asked, “Can I take my shoes off ?”
“No!” my father said sharply. “Do you want
people to regard you as ulu?”
Ulu was Malay and Peranakan for a place that was remote, but it also referred to someone who acted naïve, at worst stupid, like an ignorant country bumpkin. A similar expression in Hokkien was Sua Ku, Mountain Turtle. It was the ultimate insult. Though he did not show it earlier, my father’s feelings must have been rankled by the doorman’s attitude, causing him to lash out at me.
Fortunately Ah Tetia’s dark mood evaporated as quickly as it had appeared. He held my hand tightly as we pushed through crowds at Change Alley, which was a street bazaar that had all sorts of peddlers with colourful crafts, saris and costume jewellery. There were many Indian Money Changers, which must have given the street its name. My father walked us down Cavenagh Bridge and down to the seafront Esplanade Park. As he worked in an English company, he was a fount of information about the English and the buildings they re-created here in Singapore to reflect their own. Also he loved to show off to Mak, pointing out this and that to us – places like the Fullerton Building, which was the city’s main post office. At the park, he stopped by a magnificent tiered water-fountain in Wedgwood Blue, decorated with statues of nymphs and cherubs, water spouting out from the mouth of a gargoyle. The sound of cascading water was lovely. My father gesticulated with his hand.
“This is Tan Kim Seng Fountain.”
“Who is Tan Kim Seng?” Mak asked.
“He was a Peranakan philanthropist who donated $13,000 in 1857 towards building Singapore’s first public waterworks so that people could get fresh water in town. Of course it has not been piped down for us to use in the villages yet, but one day it will. That’s what our local politicians are promising us anyway.”
“It will be a small miracle for us to be able to turn on a tap in our houses and have water flow out of it. We won’t have to cope with drawing water out of a well, nor suffer when the rains don’t come and the well dries up. Our lives won’t be dictated too much by the weather.” Mak said with a sigh.
Kampong Spirit Page 5