by You Jin
My tears welled up, threatening to overflow. I defended myself for all I was worth. “I wrote it, and wrote it all by myself. It’s not plagiarised.”
“You have the cheek to talk back?” Mr Xu yelled. “Ask your parents to come to school to see me tomorrow.”
Crying inconsolably, I grasped for straws. “Go ask my sister. She’s in Primary 6. She saw with her own eyes that I wrote it.”
He stared at me, obviously still not believing a word of it. He said coldly, “Okay. I’ll go get your sister and ask her in a while. Now, I want you to stand there and think about what you did.”
I stood there for the rest of the class, being punished like that in front of everyone. When the bell sounded, as my classmates bustled toward the canteen, Mr Xu got someone to find my sister. After interrogating her closely, he could find no evidence to prove what he’d accused me of, and so he let me off. It was a very painful experience, for which I did not even receive an apology.
After this happened, I lost all feeling for this school. And as for that Chinese teacher’s class, I had never been interested in the first place, and this killed any potential there might have been.
The following year, we moved to a new house, and also changed schools. That was when everything started to turn around.
A Home in a Small Apartment
After a year of living in the communal home, my father officially joined the construction company set up by my second uncle, Lian Tai Construction Pte Ltd. We packed up and moved out of Fire City.
The place we moved to was a flat situated on Kim Tian Road, located at the end of a long slope. It was on the first floor of a lovely four-storey building with red roof tiles. There was a large open space in front of the house, which allowed for a welcome breeze smelling of trees and flowers to flow into our home. Inside the house, there were two large bedrooms, a sitting room, a dining room, a washroom, and a kitchen.
My father used the front room as an office during the day, so we children had to use the back door to the house. During the move, we ran in and out, half-crazed with joy, looking the whole place over. We ran here and there, leaping with pleasure, but hardly daring to believe it was ours. We no longer had to fall asleep amidst the noisy din of the old place, nor carry our toothbrushes and toothpaste to join the long queue at the washroom. We all felt as if we had escaped a sea of troubles.
We stayed in this half-office, half-house for two years. But my recollection of that home cannot compete with the memories I have of the year spent in the communal living environment. Life there was like a chaos of colours thrown onto a sheet of paper, with many different hues. You might not like it, but one thing was for sure: you could not forget it. The apartment, on the other hand, was a single colour. It was easy to adapt to it, but it did not make a deep impression on a person.
During the time we lived in that apartment, I saw a completely different lifestyle, and I made friends with people who came from good homes and wore nice clothes. They took lessons in piano, dance, painting and swimming, learning things that belonged to a land of plenty. To our family, this sort of lifestyle was like paradise—completely out of reach.
My father worked day and night, adjusting to his new job. My mother was occupied with endless housework. We were left to our own pursuits. Money was still tight, so we had nothing beyond basic necessities. We had all sorts of wants, but no ability to attain them. I still remember very clearly that, at the time, I very much wanted a doll dressed in white frills, but I had no more chance of getting a doll like that than I did the moon reflected in a pool of water or a flower’s reflection in a mirror. I was not brave enough to ask my mother, since I knew very well that, even if I did, there was no chance of seeing that wish fulfilled. When I was grown, I went crazy buying all sorts of dolls, most likely as a form of childhood wish-fulfilment.
Though the environment in the apartment was good, it was not our own home. With the business and the house all in one unit, there were many inconveniences. Often when there were clients in the office, our father would call to our mother, “Don’t let the children get noisy!” At that age, we did not have the ability to think beyond our own concerns, and we certainly weren’t capable of feeling that the client was more important than we were, so we went on with our rollicking, playing and yelling.
It was most difficult for our mother. She couldn’t use fierce methods to keep us from making noise, and she couldn’t heap a stream of scolding on us, when what she wanted was for us to be quiet. But at the same time, she couldn’t change us, even though our noise was affecting our father’s business. So all she could do was mouth warnings at us as she swung the cane through the air to scare us. This method was tiring for her, and not very effective with us.
In the early 1960s, many Singaporeans still lived in attap houses, in slums scattered all over the island. Situated on high ground behind the apartment where we lived was a row of lopsided wooden huts, insect-ridden, dark, messy, run-down. Not far from here was Bukit Ho Swee, where wooden huts crowded together, and the smell of hen and pig waste mingled with the flavours of daily human traffic.
One day, our youngest brother was sleeping, and we three older children were doing our homework. Our mother was in the kitchen cooking. It was extremely hot, and the heat made us so antsy we could hardly sit still. Suddenly, we heard a loud ruckus outside, and a shuffle of rushing feet. The noise grew louder, as if a great torrent were coming at us. Then we heard sirens coming steadily toward us. We rushed out after our mother to see what was going on. In the near distance was a fire, its flames leaping up and swallowing the sky. A huge mass of black smoke billowed up into the air as row after row of wooden houses was consumed by the flames.
Anxious cries filled the air above us. Everyone in the apartment building was in a pale-faced panic. Someone shouted, “It will come this way very quickly. Get out, hurry!”
We all rushed back to our own apartments and scrambled to get our things. Some who were especially quick had already collected their things and were making a mad dash to get out.
Without a word, my mother went straight to the back room, took the keys, opened a drawer, and took out an envelope with all our important documents in it, including the birth certificates and residency papers for the whole family. She walked to the bed where my baby brother was asleep, picked him up, then very coolly told us to follow her. The five of us walked for a very long way, then finally arrived at the Jade Palace Theatre, where we found a cool spot to stand and wait.
It was a long and terrifying wait, and all the while we were wondering if the fire would be put out before it spread to our home, or whether the rapidly spreading fire would swallow the apartment and everything in it. But to our mother, having escaped from the flames with her four children safely at her side was the only thing that mattered. Gazing at the distant blaze, her beautiful face, now streaked with grime, was filled with a fierce determination.
I was about ten years old. Looking up at my mother’s face, I was filled with an inexpressible assurance, which has remained with me all my life.
Many were made homeless by this fire, which the fire brigade worked tirelessly to put out. Fortunately, the apartment building where we stayed did not go up in flames. By this time, the sun was going down and the lights were coming on all around us. A noxious smell filled the air. Our mother herded the four of us slowly back home. When we finally got there, her face was covered in tears.
Primal Cry
The school we attended was very far from the apartment on Kim Tian Road. So my father had us transferred to one nearer our home. I was in Primary 5, in the afternoon session. Every afternoon after lunch, I would head out under the hot sun and walk for about twenty minutes to school.
Beneath a row of shade trees, I would see stalls with books for rent. Most were comic books with martial arts, black magic, demons and ghost stories. These dazzling comics were glutted with violence, sorcery and bloodshed, and easily attracted youngsters. So, making my way to and from scho
ol, I would see students, backpacks slung over their shoulders, sitting on bamboo benches reading these rented books obsessively, totally oblivious to their surroundings. One day, out of curiosity, I went to rent a book myself but, when I sat down to look, I was dumbfounded. The story was preposterous, and written simply to titillate. Although I was only eleven years old at the time, I knew this sort of mental opiate could adversely affect a person’s life.
In Mr Xie’s class, we were assigned a topic for composition: My Dream. As soon as I took up my pen, my thoughts poured out in a stream, filling the paper. In my composition, I expressed my strong desire to be a writer of children’s books.
Why do I want to be a children’s story writer? The main reason is that I see many children reading books that are full of junk, material that’s not even suited to be put in book form. These can have a very bad effect on a person’s life. For instance, sword-fighting novels are full of fantastical events, and they are very enticing, but they can do a person real harm. These books fill the minds of naive readers with useless drivel and impossible fantasies. They suggest that one can fly to the Heavenly Palace and live with the immortals, and there learn some secret arts. These things are impossible, but innocent children follow it mindlessly. Once they have read such a book, they become addicted to it. If I could be a children’s book writer, I would write more meaningful books, and more interesting, so that my readers could learn from good books instead of looking to the world of the immortals.
There are many types of sword fighting novels, and I obviously have no objection to young readers reading the works of well known authors like Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng, whose works are not only insightful, but also promote good values and beautiful language. I am a huge fan of both these writers. And Journey to the West is a prime example of a work that can use immortals and the martial arts to express good values. It is a classic, and Sun Wukong is one of literature’s outstanding characters. The works I objected to then (and now) were those that used the tropes of these classics to promote violence and pornography through the writing and the images that accompanied them. They have no literary value, and serve only to confuse the minds of young readers. They are spiritual and intellectual rubbish.
Once I handed up the assignment, I put it out of mind. The false allegation of cheating when I was in Primary 4 was still a painful memory. Although I very much loved writing, I did not expect any praise from my teacher. And so the days passed quietly.
Then came the day that Mr Xie had finished reading our compositions. When he walked into the room, I was happily lost in my own world, captivated by tales of Sun Wukong frolicking among his monkey subjects on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. Once we had gone through the ritual of rising, greeting the teacher, and sitting back down, my mind went right back to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. Suddenly, I heard Mr Xie say, “This time round, the student who wrote the best composition was Tham Yew Chin. Now, I want her to stand up and read her composition.” Saying this, he looked at me and nodded, then added, “Everyone pay careful attention and learn from her.”
It happened quite suddenly, and my whole face turned red. In a blur, I stood, held out my hands for the composition, then shuffled about nervously.
“Go on!” Mr Xie said, smiling gently.
I stood, legs trembling, feeling like I was in a fog. To all of those other students, so much more earnest and capable than me, receiving the teacher’s praise must have been just a matter of course. But for someone like me, who was always such a poor student, receiving such praise from the teacher in front of my peers was an experience that stayed with me for the rest of my life, no matter what twists and turns came along the way. It was truly something to spur me forward, and to give me strength.
I stood in front of all thirty of my classmates, slowly and carefully reading out each word of my composition in a timid voice. I was clearly aware of the eyes of all my classmates on me, filled with admiration and a little envy, as well as a good measure of surprise.
My teacher had given me a score of 70 for the composition (a score of 50 was a passing mark). His comments read: The text flows, and the theme is clear.
That night, I was so excited I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned on the bed all night, thinking back over every detail of what had happened in the classroom that day, remembering every word that my teacher had said and of the expressions on each of my classmates’ faces, and suddenly an idea came to me: I wanted to submit this composition to the newspaper for publication. Thinking this, my heart was racing like a little rabbit, running aimlessly. Sleep was hopeless. My eyes turned to the window, anxiously waiting for the sun to rise. Sleep snuck up on me, pulling my eyes shut, and I finally dozed off.
When I awoke, the sun was shining on my blanket. I crawled out of bed, picked up my purse, and went to the nearby bookstore.
There were two types of grid paper there. One had brown lines making neat columns of boxes, like slices of cake in a row. The other had green lines like long stalks in a little vegetable garden, looking quite tidy. Choosing the green one, I clutched it to my chest and flew back home.
Stroke by stroke, I copied my composition onto the paper. When I was short of a few characters and nearly done, I wrote a character wrong. When I saw the single error, I felt it made the whole thing look horrible. At that time, there was no such thing as correction fluid, so I could only use an eraser to rub out mistakes and write the words again. I really liked to keep things tidy and absolutely could not stand unsightly marks on the page, so I came to despise the character I wrote wrongly. The more I looked at it, the angrier I became. Finally, I tore the paper from the notebook, threw it into the rubbish bin, and started over. By the time I had finished writing an acceptable copy of my composition, I had expended a lot of effort, and had spent a great deal of time revising my work too.
I sent my submission to Nanyang Siang Pau’s “Children’s Garden”, a section for children’s publications. It was published once a week, taking up half a page in the paper.
I kept this matter a huge secret, not telling a soul. While I waited, it was a torture to keep the secret. Each week, when “Children’s Garden” appeared, I woke up very early, and anxiously flipped through the newspaper. One week, two, three…and my hopes dissipated, completely extinguished inside me.
Another couple of weeks passed. I got up, prepared a cup of Milo, then sat at the table to drink it. My father was reading the paper. As he read, he suddenly laughed. “Hey, how come this child has the same name as you?”
As soon as I heard this, I leapt up out of my chair and flew to his side to have a look.
There in “Children’s Garden” was my composition, “I Want to be a Children’s Story Writer”. It was in print, a real publication.
I was absolutely thrilled. I felt like a million butterflies were fluttering inside me, struggling to burst free from my chest.
It was the first time in my life I saw my work in print. At the time, I had no idea that this little piece would have such a profound effect on the rest of my life.
Painstaking Practice
Finally, I was a Primary 6 student. As soon as Mr Xu walked into the classroom, he instructed, “Students, take out your exercise books and hand them in.”
I took my exercise book out, heart racing like a frightened rabbit. I was very anxious.
My writing was very large and clumsy, and it was difficult to hide the flaws. Once a week, I took up a brush and wrote in xiao kai script. This was always the part of my homework I most hated.
My teacher wanted us to copy the characters from the model tables, but even though the tablets were piled high on my desk like a little mountain, my interest was not ignited. Some things in life we are just good at, and others we are not. Calligraphy was the latter for me and, no matter how much I threw myself into it, I just could not manage to write beautiful characters. So, the more I wrote, the more agitated I became, and the more agitated I became, the less I wanted to write, creating a vicious cyc
le.
One particular evening, I took a little water and poured it onto an ink slab, slowly getting just the right texture for the ink. I sat quietly at the table, took out my brush, and started writing in xiao kai script. Looking at the samples, my mind began to wander, and I started to compose a story about a fountain pen.
Once there was a boy named Xiao Ming who wrote very good essays. He yearned day and night for a branded fountain pen. Every day after school, he rushed to the bookstore and stood in front of the glass case, staring at the fountain pen. It was silver, with a gold nib, shiny and beautiful. A million times, he dreamed of taking that pen in hand and writing a brilliant, moving story with it, something that innocent children could read with relish. His father knew of his keen desire, so promised Xiao Ming that at the end of the year, when he got his bonus, he would buy the pen for the boy. But at year-end, his father did not get a bonus, but a release letter telling him he had been retrenched. Xiao Ming, seeing his dream shattered, cried all night in disappointment. The following day, he went back to the bookstore, eyes red and swollen.
Unexpectedly, an opportunity presented itself. Someone was buying a fountain pen. The staff took out the keys and opened the glass case, pulled out the pen the customer wanted, and carefully explained the special features of the pen to him, all the time forgetting the door was still open. Xiao Ming’s mind was momentarily torn between two possibilities. Quickly, he reached into the glass case and snatched the pen.
As I thought of this, I forgot all about the brush in my hand, the paper it sat on, or even the strokes and characters I was writing. I was completely lost in the story.
I wrote with great urgency, filling up page after page. My hand was sore. When I stopped writing, I suddenly realised… oh no! What had I done? I looked at the four pages of xiao kai script I had written and was shocked. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was already midnight. There was no time for me to go back and start over.