The colours of the day

There are those days when the sunrise or sunset delights us with a spectacle of colours. Somehow up till now, I have not given much thought as to what sometimes makes the transition from night to day or from day to night such a marvellous sight. I guess it is one of those things like art and music, that we should appreciate by sitting back and marvelling at.

The afterglow of sunset on 8 Feb 2010.

Sunrises in particular have long been my favourite time of the day. It is a time when the day is abound with freshness and with the anticipation of the new day. It is a time when a sense of calm and peace envelopes the atmosphere around us. There is nothing that beats watching a sunrise, as the darkness is transformed to light, revealing the beauty that surrounds us. As the sun – our source of life, makes it journey over the horizon, sometimes preceded by the announcement of her arrival by the wonderful colours of the morning, we can find the time to contemplate and be thankful for the beauty that mother nature has provided.

Sunset on Tasik Bukit Merah, Northern Perak.

Sunrise on Tasik Bukit Merah, Northern Perak.

Sunsets bring the day to a close, when the tiredness and heat of day is transformed to the cool quiet darkness of night when we are free to be lost in our dreams. Sunsets can surprise us sometimes … when the heat and anger of red and gold is suddenly transformed into blue and red afterglows that mesmerise as the sun bids farewell to our day …

Whatever it is, I just adore sunrises and sunsets!

The roads less travelled …

As trivial as a fence may appear, a fence does have a place in the memories I have of my childhood. It is a fence that I now pass on the drive to work, which for a while seemed to deserve no more than a cursory glance at, part of the uninspiring landscape along the stretch of Tampines Road which is visible from the Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway (KPE). The KPE is the latest addition to the Singapore’s impressive expressway network, which should really make travelling across Singapore a breeze.

The KPE running across Tampines Road.

All too frequently, though, driving along the KPE, as with many of the other expressways, is hardly a breeze, and one wonders if it would soon join the ranks of the “every road pay” network. “Every road pay” is of course what many locals use to refer to Electronic Road Pricing or ERP. It was on one of these crawls that I allowed my thoughts to drift as I surveyed the scene before me, and drift it did, as I was soon back in the back seat of my father’s Austin 1100, peering out of the open window at the fence.

For me, the fence, which marks the northern boundary of Paya Lebar Airbase (it was then the Paya Lebar International Airport), had served as a marker of sorts on the frequent long drives my father took along Tampines Road. Looking out for the fence helped to break the monotony of what seemed a long and boring journey, a journey that I willingly partook in for the reward that lay at the end of it, be it a fun day at the beach or wandering around the old Changi Village.

The high fence along Tampines Road.

The journey on Tampines Road would start with a right turn from Upper Serangoon Road, near the sixth milestone, just after the sixth mile market, an area my mother had fond memories of, having spent a part of her childhood in. She would never fail to mention a thing or two about her memories as my father turned into Tampines Road, about which my father would sometimes tease her about. The start of Tampines Road seemed to always be rather busy, as we followed the mini-convoys of rubbish trucks on their way to the Lorong Halus landfill.

The Upper Serangoon Road 6th Milestone area ... a well known market stood the left of the picture which has since disappeared - this is the junction where turn off to Tampines Road is.

The start of Singapore's longest road: Tampines Road.

The right trun from Upper Serangoon Road to Tampines Road would be accompanied by stories my mother had of the 6th milestone area from her childhood.

The first sight of the fence along the road was the precursor to the start of a meandering path eastwards through what was Singapore’s longest road. It was a path that would start with a large bend that brought us past a cluster of houses at Jalan Telawi, seemingly the last sighting of civilisation before we descended into the greener, narrower and quieter section of the road, passing by villages and fishing ponds … and of course Elias Road – the gateway to Pasir Ris beach.

The fence and the bend in the road signified the start of the meandering part of Tampines Road.

Immersed in the musings of a time when journeys on roads less travelled could only be undertaken at a pace far slower than what we are used to these day, my mind drifted off to the many journeys of my childhood along the other roads less travelled: Jurong, Choa Chu Kang, Lim Chu Kang, Neo Tiew, Punggol, and Sembawang Roads to name a few. While many of these roads have been swallowed up or disfigured by redevelopment, a few remnants of the old stretches of these roads still remains, very much as how it had must have been, albeit devoid of the life the roads were built to sustain. These remnants sit silent and forgotten, discarded for the numerous highways that have replaced them to enable the sheer volume of today’s traffic to be carried.

A remnant of Jurong Road running parallel to the Pan Island Expressway.

The journeys on these roads always seemed to take forever. They were never journeys that were taken for the love of a long drive, but usually for the incentive that the destination provided. The ones to some of the “ends” of the island was usually reward with a feast of seafood in one of those wooden shacks that lay at the end of the road where land met the sea. Punggol and Tuas (accessible from Jurong Road) Roads featured these popular old style seafood restaurants where utensils and teacups would be brought to the table in a bowl of steaming hot water. There would of course be the customary bowl of water with lime cut in half bobbing up and down on the surface of the water. These were meant to clean one’s fingers as one fiddled with the delicious mess of gravy coated crabs and prawns that were served. The thought of this brings to mind a story that a friend of my father’s related. He had brought a foreign visitor to one of these restaurants and on seeing the bowl of water place on the table, the visitor prompted squeezed the lime in the bowl of water and emptied the contents of the bowl into his mouth, believing that it was a refreshment of sorts!

On occasion, the journey to Tuas would involve seafood harvested straight from the sea, in the glow of camphor lamps – the smell of which still lingers in my memory. This wasn’t a journey that my mother was particularly fond of, as it often meant a drive home in the wee hours of the morning, past a shadowy part of the old Jurong Road where the rather spooky looking Bulim cemetery always seemed to leap out at you. This was the road that would go through what would now be Bukit Batok housing estate, to the junction with Upper Bukit Timah Road. My mother would always heave a sigh of relief at he sight of Bukit Timah Fire Station and the huge Green Spot bottle at the entrance of the Amoy Canning factory, as this signified our the re-entrance to civilisation.

Where civilisation began ... the start of Jurong Road at the Bukit Timah Fire Station and the Green Spot Bottle next door.

Jurong Road would be the road the buses took on the many school excursions of my primary school days. Even then, the journeys seemed to take forever. I would look out for the distinctive JTC flats with the louvered windows of their exteriors at the junction of Jurong and Upper Jurong Roads, Jalan Bahar, and Jalan Boon Lay, where HDB flats seemed to feature common corridors, as it meant the journey would be drawing to its close. The turn left along Jalan Boon Lay would always be greeted with anticipation by my classmates, for near the end of the road, a whiff of chocolate would always greet us as we passed the Van Houten chocolate factory as we made our way along what seemed like a grand avenue lined with trees on the wide central divider.

What is nice to know is that there are a few remnants of the narrow roads less travelled that remain, some sitting beside their modern replacements which carry a much heavier volume of traffic to and from the huge densely populated public housing estates, constructed where there were once farms and villages. They serve as a reminder of the journeys that I have taken in my childhood some of which I have lasting impressions of.

A fascination with flying machines: some alternative views of the Airshow

Flying machines have caught the imagination of many a young boy or girl and I guess still does for the adults that the young boys and girls have become. I for one have had varying degrees of fascination for these machines, peaking with each encounter I had with an aeroplane. It was after an excursion in kindergarten to the airport that provided the motivation for me aspiring to be a pilot. I am not sure how long that aspiration lasted – weeks, or perhaps months, as did my ambition to become an astronaut in the wake of the first lunar landing. The fascination I had would probably have peaked with the first Concorde flight into Singapore in June 1972, during which an uncle rounded up my cousins, my sister and me, to excitedly watch the landing from the viewing gallery of the Paya Lebar Intentional airport. For a while, I was into drawing the Concorde (which I didn’t do very well), with its drooped nose, delta wings and all … and I would surround myself with news on the Concorde and a Soviet counterpart – the TU 144. Whatever it was, today, the Singapore Airshow provided me with an opportunity to revisit the childhood fascination I had with aeroplanes …

The Singapore Airshow has provided me with an opportunity to revisit the childhood fascination I had with aeroplanes .

Having revisited my childhood fascination, I was left with a different perspective. The airshow is not just about the flying display which draws the crowds, especially this year’s which had a the Korean T-50 and the RAAF F-111 grounded. However, being at the airshow on a trade day does allow you to have many photo taking opportunities that a crowded public day wouldn’t – providing the opportunity for some alternative views of the airshow …

"Bombs" on display: Drinks that cost a bomb at the Airshow.

The flying machines were not the only thing taking off. Umbrellas were deployed in full force due to the blazing sun.

Here's looking at you.

Tail and winglet.

A jet engine on display.

Airbus 330-200F.

Winglets.

The control tower.

Watching over the Firescout UAV

Rocket Pods on the AH-64 Apache

An executive jet on display.

Strobe light on the Fire Scout UAV.

Exhaust port on the Fire Scout UAV.

Fire Scout UAV.

Global Hawk UAV.

Lockheed Martin's F-35J.

CH-47 SG Chinook.

Gulfstream G550 AEW airborne early warning and control system aircraft.

A USAF F-15E through the eyes of a trolley ring.

Afterburner of the RAAF F-111.

An alternative view of the airshow provided by a leading edge.

After the flying display.

The view downwards during the flying display - evidence of the light breeze which made it a lot cooler!

Another view downwards during the flying display which didn't live up to expectations this year.

F-111.

A F-16 and a AH-64 Apache crossing paths?

Wilting in the heat of the day.

A friend mentioned that this looks like a racy toilet seat cover.

Post Offices of old

I just loved the old two storey post office buildings that were found all over Singapore when I was growing up. With a compound where one could park the car, it made it easy to “run in” to the post office for whatever stamps you might need. These were unlike the post offices of today, nestled in an obscure corner of a crowded town centre or on the hard to access upper floor of a shopping complex. I suppose there are those SAM self service machines which does make it convenient to buy a self-adhesive stamp label and post a letter, but nothing actually beats buying a stamp which would come out of a book and wetting it on a damp sponge placed in a little container of water at the counter, or even licking it, before getting it onto the envelope.

Many of the old post office buildings have since disappeared. Of the few that have been left standing – what comes to mind are the ones at Killiney Road and Alexandra Roads are still used as post offices. There is also the former Nee Soon Post Office building, now disused, which still stands along Mandai Road, close to the junction with Sembawang / Upper Thomson Roads.

The old Nee Soon Post Office along Mandai Road.

The disused Post Office building now stands as a reminder of the old Nee Soon Village.

Some of the post office buildings were built with an upper floor to serve a purpose: while the ground floor served as the post office proper, the upper floor given to the Postmaster and his family’s quarters. A childhood friend whose father had been the Postmaster at the Thomson Road Post Office once related a story of how visitors to the post office were sometimes greeted by the strange sight of bean sprouts strewn across the car park. To get quickly through the tedious chore of plucking the roots off the huge bag of bean sprouts, which his mother often had him and his brother do, they would discard a portion of the bean sprouts out of the kitchen window into the car park!

The former Nee Soon Post Office building that still stands provides us with some reminders of a time when it served Nee Soon village, dominated by the rubber factory with a zinc sheet exterior painted in a rusty red, which was once owned by Lim Nee Soon: an orange and white post box of another era, old PO Boxes built into a wall … I am not sure what the future holds for the building, but I od hope it would always be there, to serve as a reminder of the old Post Offices that I so loved.

Evidence of when the Nee Soon Post Office sold its last stamp - an orange and white postbox with the old Telecommunications Authority of Singapore (TAS) logo. The orange and white TAS post boxes were introduced in 1982 and were used until the reconstitution of the TAS in 1992 which saw the TAS split into three entities: TAS, a statutory board serving as a regulatory body, and Singapore Telecom and Singapore Post.

Another view of the former Nee Soon Post Office.

PO Boxes at the disused Post Office.

Looking down Mandai Road to the Sembawang / Upper Thomson Road junction.

Danger on Wilkie Road?

While walking around the Selegie Road area I came across this sign next to Wilkie Edge – which stands on the grounds of the former Selegie Complex, in which one of my aunts had hosted her wedding in one of the restaurants …

I guess the whoever had put up the sign did not realise that the words on the sign could be understood quite differently …

Drop off at Wilkie edge?

Curry puffs, brightly coloured candy and a bus garage: Selegie and Mackenzie Roads

As a child, I often passed through MacKenzie Road, a street that my father would use as a means to get to Kampong Java Road on our way to our home in Toa Payoh. What I remember most of the street is the area where Rex Cinema is where there were back lanes of food stalls, and the bus depot which always caught my attention. My parents sometimes stopped by, visiting the back lanes for chendol and Indian Rojak. There was some nice Indian Muslim and Malay food as well. My mother sometimes would pick up goreng pisang there and of course the delicious Rex curry puffs from a coffee shop in the area.

Back lane next to Rex - which was once be filled with food stalls.

Back lane across Rex - which was once be filled with food stalls.

The original cinema was opened in 1946 by the Shaw Brothers and ceased operations in 1983. The building then housed the Fuji ice skating rink at the end of the 1980s and early part of the 1990s, and was also used as a church at some point. Rex is of course one of the five iconic cinemas featured in a stamp set “Cinema Theatres of Yesteryear” issued by Singpost in 2009, being one of two still used as cinemas. It saw its rebirth as a cinema sometime last year, screening mainly Indian movies – with the help of two enterprising businessmen. I don’t think I patronised the cinema much as I only can recall one occasion on which I accompanied some older neighbours for a movie there, having visited one of the Malay food stalls in the back lane across the road for lunch.

Rex Cinema - opened in 1946 was used as an ice-skating rink and a church before being reborn as a cinema in 2009.

The reborn Rex Cinema now screens Indian movies.

Shop along MacKenzie Road where the Selera Rex curry puffs are found.

The area around Rex was also interesting to me. On Selegie Road – we could see the tallest school building in Singapore, all ten storeys of it, which belonged to Selegie School. Being used to walking up to classrooms from Assembly class by class in rows of two, I often wondered how pupils could do that with the lifts. Next to the school building was Selegie House – a complex of HDB blocks of flats with shops and restaurants below – passing by, I always noticed the sign at the foot of the block closer to Selegie School with the words “Gomez Curry”. Gomez was known for some of the hottest curries around Singapore. My parents mentioned that Gomez had moved there from nearby Sophia Road where he had first set up shop – operating out of a car garage, with a long table from which he sold his curries!

The ten storey former Selegie School building as seen along Selegie Road.

Selegie House - I used to watch out for the "Gomez Curry" sign at the foot of one of the blocks.

Closer to the junction with Rochor Canal and Bukit Timah Roads, opposite Mackenzie Road, there was of course Albert Street, where supposedly some of the best food in Singapore could be found. The stretch joining Selegie Road is now a pedestrian mall. On the opposite side at the junction with Bukit Timah Road, there is the very distinctive façade of the Ellison building, with its domes on the roof, believed to have been built for a Jewish lady named Ellsion in 1924. The roof was reportedly where Colonial governors would watch the races at the neaby Race Course. From the vantage point of the bus I took home during my secondary schools, I would often observe the going-ons at the shops at the stretch of the building along Selegie Road – there was a little shop that sold magazines that operated out of a little unit next to a restaurant, with items displayed on a wooden rack fronting the shop, as well as on shelves in the narrow passage. I remember that there would usually be a bunch of bananas on the stem that hanging outside, from which customers would pluck bananas off the stem to purchase them from the shopkeeper.

Ellison Building as seen from the junction of Rochor Canal and Selegie Roads.

One of the domes atop the Ellison Building.

There were also a couple of Indian vegetarian restaurants there – I remember noticing the wooden counter at the entrance of the Sri Vijaya Restaurant and the display opposite it which would be filled with Indian sweets and candies … what always attracted my attention was the brightly coloured coconut candy, similar to the very sweet tasting ones that a Sikh neighbour would make with condensed milk during the Deepavali celebrations, stacked high in the display cabinet.

Cubes of brightly coloured coconut candy - one of the things I observed from the bus.

The Mughals, a treasury of the world

The Asian Civilisations Museum will be holding the “Treasury of the World: Jewelled Arts of India in the Age of the Mughals” exhibition from 12 Feb to 27 Jun 2010. Please go to the section at the end of this post for details.

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History lessons in school were one of those things that most of us would dread. For me, it didn’t help that it was delivered with what seemed like an endless drone of the teacher reciting passages out of the textbook. What we lacked then was maybe the opportunity to see history come alive in the way that many of the exhibitions in the museums in Singapore bring to us these days. The Asian Civilisations Museum, housed in the Empress Place Building of which I have fond memories of, runs a series of exhibitions and activities which brings history out of the textbooks which can perhaps make the subject more interesting and better appreciated.

The Mughal Emperor Jahangir, son of the great Akbar, reigned from 1605 - 1627 (Source: ACM)

Despite the uninspiring lessons on history, there were the bits and pieces which did have enough intrigue to keep me interested in the subject. I certainly was enthralled by the story of the Mughals, who ruled India for over 300 years between 1526 and 1858. The term “Mughal” immediately evokes in me impressions of grandeur and splendour that graced the Mughal court, of art and poetry, and of tales of love and romance. It would also be difficult not to be impressed by Akbar the Great, who besides being known for his role in expanding the Mughal empire, had a significant influence on art and culture, which has allowed the Mughals to leave a magnificent legacy for India as a nation and as a cultural entity to inherit. There are wonderful examples of this legacy in the buildings that the Mughals have left behind – a constant reminder of the pinnacle that the Mughals achieved in architecture, many of which have been very well preserved and are listed as UNESCO heritage sites. There is of course the magical Taj Mahal and with it a romantic tale of eternal love, which serves as a magnificent icon for India. There are the many forts the Mughals have left behind, a reminder of the warring nature of the Moghuls: the Red Fort in Dehli, and the forts in Agra and Lahore. And there is the “ghost town” of Fatehpur Sikri, a city constructed from the ground over a period of fifteen years by the great Akbar to serve as the capital of his empire, only to be abandoned after some fourteen years later when it became clear that its water supply could not meet the demands of the growing population of the city.

The magical Taj Mahal rising over the Yamuna River (Source: David Castor on Wikipedia).

Finding myself in Dehli with a free day while on a working trip in 1997, before I was to catch an evening flight out, I could not pass the opportunity up to visit the Taj Mahal, even when it meant a four hour journey there and a five hour one back, through half constructed highways which were notorious for slowdowns caused by the numerous bullock carts using parts of the 200 km route. The sight of the magnificent white marbled edifice rising over the Yamuna river proved that it was all worth it, as did the forty minutes that I spent, first, gazing in awe over the reflecting pools in the forecourt and then in the cool shadows of the Taj, mesmerised by the sheer scale, splendour and beauty of what is a mausoleum inspired by the romantic tale of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal. What struck me then was the intricacy and fine work involved in many of the motifs, colourfully inlaid with gemstones, that beautifully decorate the white of the marble structure.

Inlay on Taj Mahal (Source: Wikipedia)

The Mughals, having at their disposal, the rich gem deposits that the sub-continent had been blessed with, certainly had large appetite for gemstones, not just in decorating their monuments by also by adorning themselves and the implements of their daily lives expansively with the colourful stones. In doing so, the Mughals perfected the art of inlaid work, jewellery making, and in the crafting of wonderful treasures. The reaction of a 17th century British Ambassador, Thomas Roe, so astounded on seeing Emperor Jahangir adorned in all his finery, that he described Jahangir as being “the treasury of the world”, leaves us an appreciation of the taste that the Mughals had for finery and gemstones.

Having been left with the lingering taste of the splendorous Mughal legacy, I certainly have a desire to see more examples of it. The exhibition to be held at the ACM would provide an excellent opportunity for me to do this without having to venture far and I will be looking forward to a visit to the exhibition.

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A sneak peak at the Treasury of the World
Jewelled Arts of India in the Age of the Mughals
An exhibition to be held at the ACM from 12 Feb to 27 Jun 2010

5 pairs of passes to be given away (courtesy of the ACM)

The upcoming exhibition that the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) is holding, the “Treasury of the World: Jeweled Arts of India in the Age of the Mughals”, which is on from 12 February to 27 June 2010 provides a wonderful opportunity to see the splendour of the Mughals first hand. The exhibition has been organised by The al-Sabah Collection, National Council for Culture, Arts & Letters, Kuwait in collaboration with the ACM, and will provide visitors with a chance to be dazzled by the magnificence on display, where the visitor can also learn about life in the Mughal court, from leisure pursuits to food and weaponry of the royal family. The exhibition also offers a fascinating insight to the diverse techniques in the jewellery arts used by artisans and craftsmen during the period.

Featuring gem stones and other precious objects from The al-Sabah Collection, this blockbuster exhibition has been shown in prestigious venues such as the British Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Louvre Museum in Paris. It makes its Asian debut at the ACM in Singapore.

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Details of Exhibition

Date: 12 February to 27 June 2010

Venue: Special Exhibitions Gallery, Asian Civilisations Museum 1 Empress Place, Singapore 179555

Website: www.acm.org.sg

Enquiries: 6332 7798 / nhb_acm_vs@nhb.gov.sg

Admission charges: $8 (adults) / $4 (concession); Family package at $20 for up to 5 pax. Free admission for children aged 6 and below and seniors aged 60 and above every day (locals and PRs only). 50% off for foreigners aged 60 and above. 50% discount every Friday, 7-9pm

Opening hours: Mon, 1pm-7pm; Tues to Sun: 9am – 7pm (to 9pm on Fri) How to get there: By MRT – Raffles Place; By Bus – 100, 107, 130, 131, 167, 608

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A sneak peak at the some of the exhibits that will be on display at the exhibition:

Dagger with Scabbard (LNS 25 J). Image courtesy of © The al-Sabah Collection, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait.

Turban Ornament (LNS 1767 J). Image courtesy of © The al-Sabah Collection, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait.

Royal Spinel (LNS 1660 J). Image courtesy of © The al-Sabah Collection, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait.

Small bottle set with rubies, emeralds and diamond crystals (LNS 959 J). Image courtesy of © The al-Sabah Collection, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait.

Pendant with Cameo of Shah Jahan (LNS 43 J). Image courtesy of © The al-Sabah Collection, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait.

Bangle set with rubies, diamonds and chrysoberyl cat’s eye (LNS 2219 J). Image courtesy of © The al-Sabah Collection, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait.

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Details of the exhibition ticket giveaway (courtesy of the ACM):

The first five entries to correctly name who is described as the “treasury of the world” will each receive a pair of tickets to the exhibition. Entries need to be sent by email by noon on Sunday 7 Feb 2010 and the winning entries would be announced on this blog on 8 Feb 2010.

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Congratulations to the 5 recipients of the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) “Treasury of the World” exhibition ticket giveaway, who will each receive a pair of tickets to the exhibition:

1. Agnes Gan

2. James Tan

3. Novella Tan

4. L. H. Tan

5. Alyssa Wong

Winners may collect the tickets at the ACM front desk at any time during the exhibition.

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Vel, Vel, Vadivel: Thaipusam in Singapore

Thaipusam is one of several religious festivals which makes a grey Singapore a little more colourful. It is one of those things that is still very much practiced in the same fashion as it had been when the first Tamil immigrants brought the tradition over from Tamil Nadu. I have been fascinated with the festival since my days as a schoolboy, particularly the sight of tongues, cheeks and various parts of the body pierced with vels, skewers or imaginary spears. Going to school along Bras Basah Road, I wasn’t far away from the “action”. This  took place one a year during the Tamil month of Thai, on the day of the full moon. The procession of devotees carrying Kavadis of various forms and milk pots, accompanied by friends and family members and the sound of drums, musical instruments (only drums are permitted today) and the chants of “Vel, Vel, Vadivel“, through a four kilometre route from the Sri Perumal Temple in Serangoon Road to the Sri Thandayuthapani Temple in Tank Road would pass close by at Dhoby Ghaut. As schoolboys, several of us would follow a part of the procession from Selegie Road to Penang Road and sometimes on to Tank Road, where some of the more daring ones would go inside the Sri Thandayuthapani Temple, where a vegetarian meals served on banana leaves would await them.

I have somehow never photographed the event and did so today. The tradition of Thaipusam provides interesting reading, but there would be enough of it already explained elsewhere so I guess it is best to let the photographs do the talking …

The Vel Kavadi is synonymous with Thaipusam in Singapore

The Vel Kavadi is adorned with peacock feathers and attached to the devotee through 108 vels or skewers pierced into the skin on the chest and back.

Peacock feathers on a Kavadi.

Devotees carrying a milk pot and a simple Kavadi.

Milk Pots are carried by both men and women, young and old.

The procession on Selegie Road.

Kavadis along Selegie Road.

Devotees with milk pots along Selegie Road.

Devotee carrying a simple Kavadi.

Concentration and silence is maintained by the Kavadi bearers.

Devotees carrying milk pots.

Old and young carrying milk pots.

Hooks on the back of a devotee pulling a chariot.

More scenes and faces captured during the procession along Upper Serangoon and Selegie Roads today.

Psst … guess who dropped in today?

When I was growing up in Toa Payoh, my family had the privilege of receiving some rather important visitors to our humble 3-room flat. We were living on the top floor of a block of flats that the Housing and Development Board (HDB) built intentionally with a viewing gallery on the roof to provide visiting dignitaries with a vantage point from which the latest public housing project, Toa Payoh New Town, the pride of the HDB’s resoundingly successful public housing programme, could be better appreciated. This, together with the advantage that both my parents had, that given the general view that being teachers, they would have a better command of English than our neighbours on the same floor would have, and living in the flat that closest to the lift landing, had its benefits: the HDB would usually have our flat in mind when there was a need to provide the dignitaries with a view of how the typical dwelling looked like.

So it was with that, that we received out first VIP visitors not long after moving in, in June 1968: John Gorton, the then Prime Minister of Australia and his family. I guess I was too young to really understand what the fuss was all about and all I can really remember is that towering hulk of a man from Australia who had come by and had given me with a gold-coloured tie-pin which had a figure of a kangaroo on it. I also remember that following the visit, I  had somehow developed the fascination that I had with kangaroos as a child.

Photograph and newspaper cutting of John Gorton's Visit, June 1968

The most notable visitor we had was none other than HM Queen Elizabeth II, who dropped in on us on the afternoon of 18 February 1972. It was an occasion that deserved quite a fair bit of preparation, and there were several interviews and briefings before on areas such as security and protocol. It was for us an occasion that called for a makeover to be given to the flat and the flat was renovated and terrazzo tiles tinged with green, white and black replaced our original black and white mosaic flooring. Outside, the area below the block of flats had been spruced up, pots of flowering plants lined the area where the Queen’s car would be driven up to as well as the corridor leading up to the lift and the lift landing on the top floor, the block of flats had also had in the meantime, been given a fresh coat of paint. The lift cabin was done up very nicely as well, which was a welcome change from the rather tired and dirty looking interior it wore after five years of service.

It was an occasion that I had kept from my classmates in school, not that I would be missed. The schoolboys in the afternoon session, which I was in, were to be distracted, having to line the sides of Thomson Road to wave flags, where the Queen and the convoy of vehicles that carried her, was to pass that afternoon. I was certainly happy for the opportunity to skip school, but maybe a little disappointed that I would not get my hands on the miniature Union Jacks, which was a favourite of mine back then.

When the Queen finally arrived at our flat that afternoon, I was caught somewhat unawares. The Queen come to the flat first before going up to the viewing gallery, but somehow ended up doing the opposite. I decided to sit down before she arrived and while daydreaming which I was fond of doing, Her Majesty had appeared at the doorway, and I was seen on the evening’s news scrambling to my feet!

Scrambling to my feet at the arrival of the Queen.

Shaking hands with the Queen.

HRH Princess Anne during the visit.

The Queen at the Viewing Gallery on the roof of Block 53 Toa Payoh

One thing I avoided doing immediately after the visit was to wash my hands. A neighbour had told me that I shouldn’t wash my hands that day, as I would wash my luck away, having shaken hands with the Queen. The Queen also made her way to the block of flats behind, where she had visited the flat of another family. A neighbour from the 17th floor, Ranu, related how there were crowds of people who gathered in the car park separating the two blocks of flats, hoping for a glance at the Queen, Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh, and Princess Anne. Ranu also related how she had shouted “Long Live the Queen” at the top of her voice, along with the crowds.

Prince Phillip and Princess Anne among the crowds

Going to school the following day, the driver of the minibus I took to school, was quick to shake my hand having witnessed the events on TV the previous evening – he had wanted to shake the hand of someone who had shaken hands with the Queen. I remember him saying to me: “no wonder you ponteng school lah”, ponteng being a colloquial word used to describe playing truant, from the Malay word meaning the same.

Somehow, from the evidence of the photographs I have, the kitchen seemed to be the focal point of the visitors, perhaps because it was probably the most spacious part of the flat – unlike the kitchens of HDB flats that were built later, or perhaps it was because of the excellent view we had looking south towards the Kallang area, being on what was the tallest block of flats around.

The kitchen during the Queen's visit.

The kitchen during Sir William Goode's visit - the man on the extreme left is the late Teh Cheang Wan, the then Chairman of the HDB, who later served as the Minister of National Development.

Over the few years until 1973, when a new and taller “VIP block” was built in Toa Payoh Central, part of housing built to initially house athletes participating in the 7th South-East Asian Peninsula (SEAP) Games, which Singapore hosted for the first time that year, before being sold to the public, we saw a few more notable visitors. The visitors included President Benjamin Henry Sheares, Singapore’s second President, as well as Sir Willaim Goode, a former Governor General of the colony of Singapore who served as the first Yang di-Pertuan Negara of Singapore when Singapore was granted self-government in 1959.

President Sheares saying hello to my sister, June 1971

Where slipways once lined the muddy banks of the Geylang River: Jalan Benaan Kapal

My first taste of what life was in a shipyard – an eight week stint in 1982, part of a training programme I underwent, provided me with a first hand view of what the Geylang River and Kallang Basin was like then, one that I would not otherwise have had. The shipyard I was attached to was located at Jalan Benaan Kapal, near the area where the Kallang Indoor Stadium is today. The road had been named in Malay after the activities it was built to serve – Benaan or how it is spelt today, Binaan, the word for building or construction, and Kapal, meaning ship. Looking at the areas around Jalan Banaan Kapal today, it is hard to imagine that it was once had been a hub of activity, with a thriving cluster of family owned shipbuilding and shiprepair businesses. It was Singapore’s first purpose built marine industrial estate, set up based on the recommendation of a UN led industrial survey mission, put in place to identify areas of industrialisation had a potential to develop in what was a newly independent Singapore in the 1960s. With this, the area close to where the Geylang River empties into the Kallang Basin, including a 180 metre stretch of swamp, was developed into a marine industrial estate.

Once a swamp, the site of Singapore's first marine industrial estate, which was a mess of activity, now looking spick and span following a massive clean up effort.

The area where shipyards once would have lined the river side of Jalan Benaan Kapal on the right.

Jalan Benaan Kapal as seen today, close to the junction with Stadium Road, which would have led to the area where the shipyards once were located.

A building once used as workshops housing businesses supporting the marine industry.

Evidence of the industrial past of the area.

What greets the eye today is empty land, some disused workshop buildings and condominiums on either side of the river: Jalan Benaan Kapal on the Kallang side and Kampong Arang Road on the Tanjong Rhu side, where muddy banks laid with slipways, on which boats and small ships such as tugs could be up-slipped and repaired, and the clutter of rusting barges, ships and boats afloat once dominated the scene.

How the Geylang River looked - a slipway of a boatyard on the Geylang River.

Once a industrial area where the rank stench of a river carrying all kinds of flotsam and waste in its dark murky waters would greet each breath, is now a quiet scene of luxury condominiums and a sleepy, much cleaner and better smelling river.

A quiet scene of empty land and condominiums where once slipways, rusting barges and a mess of ships would have dominated the scene in what was Singapore's first marine industrial estate.

The trip to Jalan Benaan Kapal every morning back then would involve a bus ride on service 133 from my home in Ang Mo Kio to a bus stop in Kallang, close to where the Kallang MRT station is located today. Next would be the long half an hour trek to the shipyard that I would have to make. The trek would take me past the former Kallang Airport, which was then used as the People’s Association complex, and across the Nicoll Highway. Continuing, I would have to walk by the area in between the National Stadium and the Practice Track, past the area to the west of the Mountbatten Pitches,  an empty plot of land that had once been the Wonderland Amusement Park – in which I had my first  experiences of  roller coasters. This would now be where the large open car park by the Kallang Theatre and the Kallang Leisure Park is today. This would be where the end of Jalan Benaan Kapal was, at its junction with Stadium Road, where a cluster of small factory buildings would greet the eye and the end where most of the shipyards were located.

The former Kallang Airport, which was used as the People's Association HQ - a landmark that would have marked the start of the long trek from the bus stop I would alight at to Jalan Benaan Kapal.

Where the junction of Jalan Benaan Kapal and Stadium Road had been: now a bend in the road near the Kallang Indoor Stadium.

A row of what would have been workshops left behind along the stretch of Jalan Benaan Kapal where the shipyards once were.

Once in the shipyard, I would get into my blue overalls, and when it was time, make my way to the slipways of the yard. The view we got of the river from the vantage of the slipways – the clutter of ships and boats afloat in the river alongside rusting barges, was a sight to behold. But what I would most remember the Geyland River for was the smell that greeted me at the slipway! Each breath meant having to inhale the rank stench, a stench carried by the dark murky waters mixed with the smell of rotting seaweed and marine organisms  which had  been scraped off the bottoms of the boats and ships, that lay on the mud below, accompanied by the day’s collection of rotting carcasses, wood, rubber tires, plastic bags stained with oil, and whatever else the river carried from the numerous villages (many without sanitation), godowns, factories, and farms upstream.  Looking at and and taking a breath by the river as it was back then, it would have been hard to imagine that the river would one day be a source of clean water: the Kallang Basin, together with the adjoining man-made Marina Bay, is now a part of the downtown Marina Reservoir, created with the construction of the Marina Barrage, which has also cut the Kallang, Geylang and Singapore rivers off from the sea. Another thing that I would well remember was seeing an explosion as it happened, as I was peering from the forecastle deck of a ship across the river towards a barge afloat on the other side. I remember very vividly how at the very moment I had looked across, I could see the deck of the barge buckling upwards and the thunderous noise that accompanied a burst of debris that flew some ten metres up into the air that followed.

Sources of pollution along the waterways (Source: PUB)

The river today is a much prettier and cleaner sight, smelling a lot less than it used to: the result of a ten year effort undertaken to clean up Singapore’s rivers, and perhaps a much safer place to be on: the effort also meant the phasing  out of boat and shipyard activities in the area. These have been replaced by luxury condominiums on the Tanjong Rhu side, and empty plots of land along the Kallang side. Vehicles now run across the area of the river where ships and boats once cluttered it – both over it and under it: the construction of the Tanjong Rhu Bridge now links Tanjong Rhu with Kallang and a tunnel under the river, part of the newly constructed Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway (KPE). The construction of the bridge has also meant that Jalan Benaan Kapal has been cut into two: the section east of the bridge is now dominated by indoor sport facilities housed in the former industrial buildings, and the section west has been left with a row of former workshops, cut-off from its other half, and lying somewhat obscure and  forgotten. Forgotten as well, are the ship and boat yards and the workshops, which had possibly provided a vital contribution to the growth of a fledgling economy of a nation that many felt had little chance of surviving.

The Tanjong Rhu Bridge now links the Kallang area with Tanjong Rhu, allowing vehicular traffic over the area of the Geylang River where shipyards once featured.

What used to be a slipway lined river bank along Jalan Benaan Kapal now features an empty plot of land. There is evidence of the KPE tunnel which runs under the river in the form of a structure housing the tunnel's vents.

The road leading up to the Tanjong Rhu Bridge now cuts Jalan Benaan Kapal into two sections.

The section east of the bridge leads to industrial buildings which are now used for sports and recreation.

Futsal at The Cage on Jalan Benaan Kapal.

The west section of Jalan Benaan Kapal end abruptly where it once led to the junction with Stadium Road.

A former workshop where a different kind of weights would have been lifted by A-Frames and chain blocks ... now used by the Singapore Weightlifting Federation.

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My first taste of what life was in a shipyard – an eight week stint in 1982, part of a training programme I underwent, probably provided me with a first hand view of what the Geylang River and Kallang Basin was like back then, one that I would not otherwise have had.

The shipyard I was attached to was located at Jalan Benaan Kapal, close to the area where the Kallang Indoor Stadium is today. The road’s name being derived from the activities that went on along the road, from the Malay words for building or construction, Binaan and ship, Kapal. Looking at Jalan Banaan Kapal today, it is hard to imagine that it was once had been alive, with a thriving cluster of family owned shipbuilding and shiprepair businesses, in what was Singapore’s first marine industrial estate. This had been set up based on the recommendation of a UN Industrial Survey Mission to help in developing Singapore’s industrialisation potential following its independence, in what was a swamp area close to where the Geylang River empties into the Kallang Basin.

What we see today as empty land and condominiums at the area on either side of the river, Jalan Benaan Kapal on the Kallang side and Kampong Arang Road on the Tanjong Rhu side, were muddy banks laid with slipways, on which boats and small ships such as tugs could be up-slipped and repaired.

When gunmen roamed the streets of Singapore: A showdown at Jalan Kubor

Having mentioned in my post on the old Protestant Cemetery in Penang that I wasn’t particularly fond of wandering around cemeteries, I found myself drawn to another cemetery while passing through the part of Victoria Street near Kampong Glam one day. As I looked out at Jalan Kubor from the safety of the car, I remembered an incident that happened at the cemetery there when I was a boy of eight,  that had somehow left a lasting impression on me. In the incident, the final scene of what was a real-life drama had been played out at the Madrasah Aljunied Cemetery at Jalan Kubor. This involved two of Singapore’s most dangerous criminals, Abdul Wahab and Mustapha, the Hassan brothers on a December’s evening in 1972. Cornered at their hideout at the cemetery and desperate and outnumbered during what was to be a final confrontation with the police on the 16 December 1972, Wahab shot his younger brother and turned the gun on himself, bringing an end to a one and a half month long reign of terror which had begun with Wahab’s escape from Changi Prison where he was being held for armed robbery.

Jalan Kubor which literally means "Grave Road" in Malay.

The Hassan brothers were behind a gun smuggling syndicate set up together with a few others in October of 1972 and along with several accomplices, staged a series of daring armed robberies at several petrol stations in the Bukit Timah area as well as at a goldsmith’s shop in Geylang. In the period that followed leading up to their last stand at Jalan Kubor, the two had several encounters with the police, including a shootout at Labrador Park during which a policeman and Mustapha himself were shot, and a successful rescue attempt staged by Wahab to free Mustapha from police custody while he was being treated at Outram Hospital just a few days prior to the brothers deaths. The latter incident also involved the abduction of a taxi driver and a policeman.

The Madrasah Aljunied Al-Islamiah Cemetery off Jalan Kubor and Victoria Street was where two gunmen met their deaths in 1972.

The early 1970s seemed to have had more than a fair share of gunmen. Many of these gunmen, as with the Hassan brothers, did not have second thoughts when it came to pulling the trigger. Shootouts between the gunmen and the police were all too frequent. One that involved another gunman on the run, Ng Ah Bai, in April 1973, saw a police detective killed. Closer to home in July 1970, a gunman Tan Chian Lai also known as Hun Cher, shot himself, after being cornered in a flat in Block 64 Toa Payoh. A massive manhunt had been launched for the reportedly trigger happy Tan, who had killed a watch dealer in a robbery at a shop in North Bridge Road. Just a few weeks before the showdown at Jalan Kubor, another notorious gunman, Lim Ban Lim, had been shot dead by police in a gun battle in Margaret Drive after being on the run for nine years, getting away with $2.5 million during that time. The alarming rise in such incidents led to the introduction of harsh penalties for gun offences – new laws were passed in 1973 stipulating a mandatory death penalty for anyone using or attempting to use a firearm to cause injury.

While trying to find out a bit more about the cemetery, I also stumbled upon an article relating to the exhumation of the grave of a certain Ngah Ibrahim, which reportedly was located in the cemetery. Ngah Ibrahim was originally from Perak is notable for a fortune made from the tin mines of Perak and as the headman of Larut. He was apparently implicated in the assassination of the first British resident to Perak, James Birch and sent by the British into exile in the Seychelles, before ending up in Singapore, where he died in 1895.

in April 1973

Memories of my maternal grandmother (III): Minyak Kayu Putih

A bottle of Bosisto’s Parrot Brand Eucalyptus Oil kept in the top drawer of my grandmother’s dresser was her answer, a miracle cure of sorts, to the many aches and pains I seemed to have been afflicted with in my childhood. It could have been that it had perhaps a placebo effect on me, I don’t really know, but I seem to remember that whatever I complained of, be it a muscle ache, gastric pain or a headaches, it would miraculously vanish with the application of what she referred to as Minyak Kayu Putih, which she got from the Chinese medicine shop for 70 cents, which she would apply to the affected area reciting a rhyme of sorts that asked for the aches and pains to go away …

Bosisto's Parrot Brand Eucalyptus Oil packaging similar to when my grandmother used it

Penang’s link to the Bronze Elephant in Singapore

I am not one who is fond of wandering around  burial places. Having had a bad experience at a cemetery on St. John’s Island on a school camp where a few teachers and some senior students had conspired to scare the hell out of my classmates, I had developed an irrational fear of cemeteries, and made it a point to avoid cemeteries like the plague. There had been occasions when I didn’t have much of a choice: once, on a cold and dark winter’s evening, I had missed the bus stop to get to my lodging in Earl’s Court in London, and I ended up having to walk by the Brompton Cemetery – and having an overactive imagination did not help. There were of course the occasions when I did venture into cemeteries out of choice: looking for the resting place of Hector Berlioz at the Cimetière de Montmartre, I ended up losing myself and wandering aimlessly around the cemetery – somehow I wasn’t the only one as I encountered a few American tourists doing the same, in search of the grave of Jim Morrison (who is actually buried across town at the Cimetière du Montparnasse). I once did the same at the Necropolis in Glasgow as well, when at the end of a walk on autumn’s evening to soak in the magnificent colours of the fall, I somehow ended up getting lost among the tombstones of the old cemetery. So, when I found myself walking by the old Protestant Cemetery along Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah in the half light of dawn on my way to take some photographs of the ruined Shih Chung Branch School building next  to the cemetery, I passed up the opportunity to explore the cemetery, after taking a few photographs from the safety of the clearing just inside the cemetery grounds by the main gate. The cluster of trees staring eerily at me as if beckoning me to walk through the passage it held open for me, looking as if it was a scene from the Twilight Zone added to a sense of unease, as did the solitary trishaw that sat in the clearing, seemingly awaiting the custom of perhaps one of the cemetery’s inhabitants.

Wandering aimlessly around the Necropolis in Glasgow, Autumn 1988

The Protestant Cemetery was used between 1789 to 1892.

A side gate to the Protestant Cemetery.

A solitary trishaw waits, as if waiting for the custom of one of the cemetery's inhabitants.

Gravestones include one of the British colony of Penang's founder, Captain Francis Light.

View through the cluster of trees in the Protestant Cemetery. It seemed as if the path made by the rows of trees were beckoning me to walk into a scene from the Twilight Zone!

Thus, it was only much later, when I was doing some research into the background of the abandoned Shih Chung Branch School building, that I came across an interesting link between the cemetery and a bronze statue of an elephant in Singapore and the story of the English school teacher at the court of King Mongkut Siam both of which had fascinated me in my childhood. Apparently, Thomas Leonowens the husband of a certain Anna Leonowens (Anna is the subject of the story), who as a young hotel keeper in Penang was struck down with Apoplexy in 1859, and is buried in the cemetery. That Anna would have later taken up the position at the Siamese Royal Court if her husband had still been alive, we do not know, but we can speculate that it was in these circumstances that she did take the position up three years later, which provided us with the delightful tale of Anna and the King, and perhaps opened the doors to the travels of one of Anna’s pupils, Chulalongkorn, the eldest son of Monkut, who ascended the Siamese throne upon his father’s death. Chulalongkorn had on one of his trips presented the statue of the bronze elephant as a gift to Singapore, which was the first foreign place in which Chulalongkorn had set foot on in his vast travels.

Inscription on the tomb of Thomas Leonowens at the old Protestant Cemetery in Penang.

The cemetery is also interesting from the perspective that among those laid to rest there, are several notable personalities which include Captain Francis Light, the founder of the British Colony of Penang and Quintin Dick Thompson, the brother-in-law of modern Singapore’s founder Sir Stamford Raffles. Another interesting  note on the cemetery is that there are over 30 Chinese graves which date from the 1860s to the 1880s, which is suggested, may have belonged to Christian Hakkas who came to Penang after the Taiping Rebellion in China. Perhaps, given the interesting facts I have uncovered, I would summon up my courage to venture into the Twilight Zone the next time I visit Penang.

Forgotten with time: Chong Pang Village

With the help of an old map, and some sketchy memories of the village at which we would stop over at to get our supplies for the fishing and crabbing trips we used to make to the jetty at Sembawang end, as well as some old photos of the area courtesy of Mr Derek Tait, author of “Memories of Singapore and Malaya” who spent some of his childhood years in Singapore in the 1960s, and some from the National Archives, I was able to get a better impression of what Chong Pang was like in the 1970 and early 1980s. Taking a walk around the area, I could perhaps retrace some of the steps I had taken down the streets of Chong Pang, as I must have done in the early 1980s with Paul, an apprentice with Sembawang Shipyard, whom I had befriended during a six month stint I had with Sembawang Shipyard. Paul had come over from Kulai in Southern Johor, as many of the shipyard workers once did, and rented a windowless room in a wooden shack, which he once showed me. The wooden shacks of Chong Pang, as well as of Canberra Road, housed the thousands of Malayalees and Malaysians who worked at the shipyard. In the mornings and evenings, Canberra Road would be filled with streams of these shipyard workers dressed in the light blue coveralls of the shipyard, cycling to and from the shipyard.

Chong Pang Village erased: An open field slated for the development of a sports complex where the once bustling village used to stand, while a new public housing estate Sembawang rises in the background.

Today, the area where Chong Pang once stood bears very little evidence of the bustling village that once occupied the area. Most of the roads associated with the village have disappeared: the main part of the village centered around Chong Pang Road and the roundabout where the Sultan Theatre stood and around which some sumptuous hawker fare could be found in the evenings, is now a clear plot of land, that is, based plans for the area, to be used for the construction of a sports and recreation complex. The roads on the other side of the road, where I remember there was a market of sorts, have similarly disappeared, a “Land for Sale” sign sticking out prominently where wooden shop houses once stood.

Map of Chong Pang Village c.1978

Chong Pang Village as it used to be: Looking up Chong Pang Road towards the area where the roundabout with the Sultan Theatre was located.(Source: National Archives of Singapore).

The spot where the junction of Chong Pang Road with Sembawang Road once was, as it is today.

A view of the junction of Chong Pang Road with Sembawang Road in 1968 taken northwards towards Canberra Road (Courtesy of Mr Derek Tait)

A view of the junction of Chong Pang Road with Sembawang Road southwards. (Source: National Archives of Singapore)

There is maybe some evidence of Kedondong Road – what appears to be remnants of a paved road peeps out from the grass where the road once joined Sembawang Road. Further north, what used to be a fork in the road, the right branch being the continuation of Sembawang Road, the left, Canberra Road – which led to the Naval Base and was later the road leading to the shipyard which inherited the former naval dockyard after the pullout of the British forces. The gate that stood on Canberra Road still stood for sometime after as evidence of the former Naval Base. Canberra Road has since been widened, bearing little resemblance to the Canberra Road of old. A Catholic church, Our Lady Star of the Sea, which has since relocated to the Yishun, used to stand at the corner, near the start of Canberra Road.

Evidence of where a village road once stood: What's left of Kedondong Road?

Village Scene in 1985 (Source: National Archives of Singapore)

Village Scene in 1985 (Source: National Archives of Singapore)

Row of Shops (Source: National Archives of Singapore)

Wooden Shacks that housed the many shipyard workers who lived in the area Row of Shops (Source: National Archives of Singapore)

Church of Our Lady Star of the Sea - a photo taken in 1992 (Source: http://www.veritas.org.sg/olss/history1.html)

Where the Star of the Sea once rose: the site of the old Catholic Church, Our Lady Star of the Sea

The Junction of Sembawang Road, Sembawang Avenue (new) and Canberra Road today, looking at Canberra Road. A hawker centre built in the 1970s used to stand in the area on the right of the bus. Canberra Gate used to stand a little further up Canberra Road.

Canberra Gate along Canberra Road in 1968 - near the junction with Sembawang Road. (Courtesy of Mr Derek Tait)

Where the market area once was ... now a plot of land for sale

Jalan Sendudok, one of the few roads still left

The only part of the area that is maybe still recognisable is just south of where the village was: the Jalan Tampang and Jalan Legundi area, where the rows of shop houses still stand. The row along Jalan Legundi used to house the Cola Restaurant, a popular place for steaks, which later became Jack’s Cola Restaurant.

View of the row of shophouses along Jalan Legundi, from Jalan Tampang in 1968 (Courtesy of Mr Derek Tait). The Cola Restaurant in the corner later became the Jack's Cola Restaurant. At the other end of this row is the coffee shop which serves the popular Chye Lye Fish Head Curry. What stands on the field now is the hawker centre which once was the Yishun Village Seafood Restaurant.

A more recent landmark in the area, what used to be a rather run down looking Sembawang Shopping Centre, on the opposite side of Sembawang Road from JalanLegundi, was put up in the mid 1980s and was a popular destination for shoppers looking a bargain on music CDs. The shopping centre has since been rebuilt, and the chain that was build on the back of the sales of music CDs has closed, a victim of online music downloads. North of the area, a new public housing estate, Sembawang stands where the swamps around the Sungei Sembawang once stood. There is an area which is named Chong Pang in Singapore, left perhaps as a reminder of the old village, some 3 miles south of the village, bustling it is with a market popular with people living in the area, but nothing like how the old village was.

The other Raffles Hotel

Driving along Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah in Georgetown, Penang, one day, I noticed an old building in a state of ruin, in the area that is known as Millionaire’s Row – the stretch of street where a row of large mansions line the shoreline along the former Northam Road. The dilapidated building would make a wonderful subject for a horror flick, standing close to the eerie old Protestant Cemetery. With the words “Shih Chung Branch School” quite clearly emblazoned on the façade, it was clear that it was an abandoned school building, and I was quite pleasantly surprised to learn of the building’s fascinating past while doing a search on why and when the building was abandoned.

In ruins

The building had started its life as the five storey mansion of a wealthy and prominent Penangite, Cheah Tek Soon in the 1880s. It would have been a magnificent sight to behold back then, and was apparently the first five storey mansion built in the Straits Settlements, being referred to as the “Goh Chan Lau” or Five Storey Bungalow by the locals. A book “Twentieth Century Impressions of British Malaya” published in 1908 was said to draw reference to the mansion as the “the pagoda-like residency of a wealthy Chinaman which is four storeys in height, from the topmost balcony of which a splendid bird’s-eye view of the harbour and mainland is obtained”.

The mansion also played its part in the history of China, being sold to fund Dr. Sun Yat Sen’s revolutionary efforts, by Cheah Tek Soon’s daughter who inherited the building and was married to a supporter of Sun Yat Sen. With the sale of the mansion to a rich local merchant Tye Kee Yoon in the 1910s, the mansion began its life as the Bellevue Hotel, which with an intended reputation for luxury, service and comfort, could have epitomised the Romance of Travel at the turn of the century, and came to be popularly known as Raffles-by-the Sea.

An old postcard of Raffles by the Sea in its heyday

A search through a digitised database of the Straits Times would yield several advertisements for the hotel which provide some insight into its clientele – one in 1912 reads: RAFFLES-BY-THE-SEA Penang. A SELECT UP TO DATE FAMILY HOTEL Under the direct management of the English Proprietor and Proprietress, situated in the best part of Penang, with an unequalled view of Hills and Sea. A suitable Establishment for Ladies visiting Penang alone.” Alas, although the intention was to mimic the luxury offered by the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, complete with afternoon teas on the lawn, the hotel was maybe a little less successful than the owner had envisaged and it closed a little later.

In the 1920s, the building was leased to be used as the Government English School. What is known however is that  the building began the final stage of its life as the Shih Chung Branch School after the Second World War. News reports point to the building being abandoned when the Shih Chung Branch School relocated to Sungei Nibong. When? Well, I still don’t know.

Another view of the former Raffles-by-the-Sea in ruins

Another view of the former Raffles-by-the-Sea in ruins

Where you could once have your car fixed in a church: Memories of Waterloo Street

I have memories aplenty of Waterloo Street from my days spent as a school boy on Bras Basah Road. At the south end between Stamford and Bras Basah Roads, which was the perhaps the most happening part of the street for us school boys, were, of course, the “sarabat stalls” that most people of my generation would remember. It was in this row of food and drink stalls where arguably, the best Indian Rojak in Singapore could be found. It was also the place to go for my favourite plate of Mee Rebus and where I could get my craving for an ice cold refreshment satisfied at the end of a hot day as I made my way to the bus stop from which I caught the Blue Arrow semi-express bus home. There was also the CYMA compound in which there was a basketball court where we would sometimes play our version of street football, without a goalkeeper, in which we made use of the posts supporting the basketball hoop as goal posts (which we referred to as “small goal posts”), and where a dog named Mani did a fair share of barking at us. This street in this area has since disappeared, converted into pedestrian walkway beside a building belonging to the Singapore Management University (SMU) which stands in place of the former CYMA building and compound.

The end of the road: The intersection of Waterloo Street with Bras Basah Road is now a T-junction. It used to be a four way junction which would have lead to the branch between Bras Basah and Stamford Roads where the "Sarabat" Stalls were located.

The Singapore Management University (SMU) stands where the CYMA building once stood

The area where the "Sarabat" Stalls were located and the bus stop from which I took the bus home from is now a pedestrian walkway beside a building of the SMU

It was on the next section of Waterloo Street where I had a close encounter with the undercarriage of a car – at the junction with Bras Basah Road, where on one rainy day when I was in Secondary 2, a decision to make a dash across from the five-foot way of the shop houses where the Plaza by the Park building is today, almost resulted me being run over by a car. This stretch from Bras Basah Road towards Middle Road was perhaps the quietest part of the street, occupied by a synagogue and several dilapidated pre-war bungalows on the east side of the street.

The junction of Waterloo Street and Bras Basah Road looking very different from when I had a close encounter with an undercarriage of a car

Plaza By The Park stands at the junction of Waterloo Street and Bras Basah Road in place of the row of bookshops and sporting goods shops

The synagogue, the Maghain Aboth Synagogue, built in 1878, is apparently the oldest Synagogue in South East Asia, a fact which escaped me back then, and stands close to the junction with Bras Basah Road. We referred to it as the “Synagogue on Waterloo Street”. Opposite the synagogue just behind the former SJI which is now the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) stands a Catholic place of worship: the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul, which was referred to as the “Chinese Church” – it was considered to be the seat of the Chinese Catholic community in Singapore. The back end of the church faces Waterloo Street. Special masses were often held on feast days in the church for the Catholic population of SJI, when the school chapel would not have been big enough to accommodate everyone.

Maghain Aboth Synagogue on Waterloo Street: constructed in 1878, is the oldest Jewish synagogue in Southeast Asia.

An alternative view of the Maghain Aboth Synagogue

An angel watches over the observer at the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul opposite the Maghain Aboth Synagogue: The church was known as the Chinese Church as it was the unofficial seat of the Chinese Catholic community in Singapore.

The stretch on the synagogue side of the street was where the dilapidated looking pre-war bungalows with overgrown gardens and houses could be found. The bungalows had once been the lavish homes of Jewish families who settled in the area – which have since been restored and are now used as Centres for the Arts, forming part of the Waterloo Street Arts Belt.

A pre-war bungalow along the stretch of Waterloo Street between Bras Basah Road (42 Waterloo Street) and Middle Road which has found a new lease of life as the Action Theatre.

Another pre-war bungalow along the stretch of Waterloo Street between Bras Basah Road and Middle Road (48 Waterloo Street) which is now used as the Singapore Calligraphy Centre.

A pre-war shophouse among a cluster of three shophouses along the stretch of Waterloo Street between Bras Basah Road and Middle Road (54 Waterloo Street) now houses the YMS Arts Centre.

Further up the east side of the street, at the end of the stretch at the junction with Middle Road, a rather fascinating sight would greet us: a white building in the shaped of a church, with its walls covered in streaks of oil from the business that was being carried out in the building. The building had indeed once had been put to more dignified use: as the Middle Road Church. Somewhere along the way, however, it had been converted into a car workshop, complete with a yard scattered with fenders and exhaust pipes! The building has since been restored and has found a new lease of life as a bright orange painted Arts Centre called Sculpture Square.

Sculpture Square in a bright orange coat: The building which was once the Middle Road Church had a coat of white paint coloured with streaks of oil in the days when I went to school as it was used as a car workshop.

Information plate on the history of Sculpture Square

The upper (north) end of Waterloo Street from Middle Road towards Rochor Road is the area I least visited during my school days. I suppose this would have be probably been the liveliest part of the street, where the hundreds, perhaps thousands of devotees would throng on a visit to the Kwan Im Temple (Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple) to seek blessings from the Goddess of Mercy. Beside the Kwan Im Temple, stands a Hindu temple – the Sri Krishnan Temple, where many devotees from the Kwan Im Temple would light joss sticks at, stands. The only time I could remember visiting the area was when I had to do my shopping for school books: I remember there being a bookshop just across from what was the Stamford Girls School (what is the Stamford Arts Centre today), where the Fortune Centre is today, where school books could be bought at prices lower than that of the established bookshops along Bras Basah Road.

The junction of Waterloo Street and Middle Road: There used to be a row of shophouses on the left where Fortune Centre is which housed a bookshop where I sometimes got my school books at a bargain

Stamford Arts Centre: The building housed the Stamford Girls Primary School in my school days and was built originally as a Japanese School in the 1900s.

Stamford Arts Centre

An example of religious harmony in Singapore: The Sri Krishnan Temple (or Sri Krishna Temple) on Waterloo Street which was built in 1870 - many Chinese devotees visiting the Kwan Im temple next door also light joss sticks at the Sir Krishnan Temple.

The Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple on Waterloo Street attracts many devotees seeking blessings from the Goddess of Mercy, especially on feast days.

I’ve got a ticket to ride: Bus Passes and Endless Bus Journeys

The earliest memory I have of the public bus is the Singapore Traction Company’s (STC) service number 1A, in the distinctive Isuzu buses painted silver and green, that my mother used to make her journey to and from Rangoon Road from our home in Toa Payoh in, on her regular trips to the hairdresser, to which I was an unwilling accomplice. Buses used to be painted with colours to identify the bus companies they belonged to: red (Associated Bus Services), blue (Amalgamated Bus Company), yellow (United Bus Limited) or green (STC). That is, until they became the red striped Singapore Bus Service (SBS) buses that by the time I was old enough to venture into taking the bus on my own,  the various bus companies had merged into. I was in Primary 4 then, and having finally persuaded my parents to allow me what I had craved for – the freedom of going to school by the public bus, I was on my own against the world, that was, only for the journey to school – as my parents were concerned about me having to cross the busy Thomson Road in the evening to catch the bus back.

I had a choice of two bus services then, 149 and 150, which would bring me from the bus stop along Lorong 4 Toa Payoh to my school in Thomson Road. Service number 150 would take a longer route that went past Bradell Road and Marymount Convent. On one of my first trips by bus, I recall that my ticket was blown out of my hand by a gust of wind that came through the opened windows of the bus as I held it in my hand having just collected it from the bus conductor – I looked at the conductor who just shrugged his shoulders as if to tell me I was on my own … it left me terrified for the rest of my journey, fearful that a ticket inspector would board the bus.

Full freedom came with what we referred to as the “bus pass”, that with a monthly concession stamp which we purchased for $4 affixed to the designated spot on the pass, allowed us the freedom of the buses – unlimited travel! Then, we could do what we wanted. Hop on and off at will, and discover where we could go with the buses.

This was particularly useful, as it was then possible for me to join my friends with whom I used to play football with for games against other teams outside of Toa Payoh, as well on a particular trip I remember making to a sports shop along Bras Basah Road to pick a team jersey.

The freedom of the buses offered by a monthly concession stamp affixed to a bus pass

It was when I was in Secondary school that we got our first double decker buses, but it wasn’t until maybe I was in Secondary 3 when they were introduced to the route that served the area where my school was, from my new home in Ang Mo Kio. I would catch the service number 166 bus from the makeshift terminal located at a large carpark down the slope from Block 215. In the evenings, after a few weeks of taking the 166 service back from the bus stop along Stamford Road close to what used to be the National Library, near a corner shop which sold crocodile skin products which fascinated me, I discovered I could half the journey by taking the semi-express Blue Arrow service 308 which ran from its last stop in the Central Business District at Waterloo Street just by what used to be the CYMA, all the way to Ang Mo Kio – and the best part was that it was air-conditioned! By the time we got to catch the double decker buses, the bus terminal in Ang Mo Kio had moved to another temporary location – along Avenue 6 by block 304.

Somehow as time progressed, the journeys became longer and longer, and where journeys took not more than an hour when I was in Secondary school, by the time I started my tertiary education, journeys meant queuing up for ages at yet another temporary terminal location along Avenue 3, just across from where Ang Mo Kio central is, and being squeezed into a bus filled with school children, factory workers and the many tertiary students from the institutions along Ayer Rajah Road and Dover Road, for over an hour. Pretty unbearable … and I used to arrive drenched in perspiration. The longest journey by bus I made would seem to be the journey I would tke home I when doing my national service at SAFTI in Pasir Laba and at Jurong Camp nearby, off Upper Jurong Road. Then, we could only catch service number 175, which would meander through what was then a winding Upper Jurong Road, through the winding Jurong Road to Bukit Batok or Upper Bukit Timah, where I could get a bus home. I was always in a hurry then, trying to make use of the precious few hours we were given at the end of each week, and the journey on the 175 seemed to be endless – it could take me an hour just to get to Upper Bukit Timah, making the entire bus journey home a two hour journey. Sometimes instead of the bus, I would try to hitch a ride on the back of a pick up or lorry on its way back to civilisation from the factories in the Tuas area which passed by Upper Jurong Road – we could save as much as half an hour by doing this. By the time I had finished my national service, the MRT had been introduced, and trips on buses did not seem to be so much fun anymore.

Memories of my maternal grandmother (II): Burung Kakatua

In between P. Ramlee and Pontianak movies in black and white … I would sit by the high green wrought iron four poster bed listening to the stories my grandmother would relate … and from behind the opening of the kelambu (mosquito net) drapped over the posts she would often sing a song which was a favourite of hers, a song that I learnt to sing by singing along with her, a song in Bahasa Indonesia about a Cockatoo (Burung Kakatua):

Burung Kakatua

Menclok di jendela

Nenek sudah tuah

Giginya tinggal dua

Letrum Letrum Letrum ooh la la

Letrum Letrum Letrum ooh la la

Letrum Letrum Letrum ooh la la

Burung Kakatua

My maternal grandmother and me, MacRitchie Reservoir, 1969

Penang … a doorway to the past

A few months spent in Penang put me in touch with its streets of old shop houses, street vendors and hawkers that for me, were reminiscent of a long forgotten Singapore. I was transported back to the Singapore that time has erased, the Singapore that I had spent my age of discovery growing up. The images of Singapore etched deep in my memory began to come back to me as if I was looking through old photographs and postcards of a Singapore frozen in time. It was then that I thought of looking into my collection of memories and impressions formed along the journey of life, and seeing what I could discover …

Sunrise over the Southern Channel and the Penang Bridge during my second visit to the island in 2007

I had first travelled to Penang as a school boy – my parents deciding to go beyond Cameron Highlands, the northernmost point on the west coast of Malaysia that we visited on ocassion, to venture further north to Ipoh and Penang. It was a trip that I would remember well, not for the impressions it made on me, but for one, it was the last outing to Malaysia on which my maternal grandmother had accompanied us on, and it was also the trip on which I got quite ill, developing a high fever in Penang, for which I had to visit a doctor on the return journey – for which we had to make an unscheduled stop in Ipoh .

Recollections of the impressions that Penang had made on me after some 30 years were sketchy to say the least, but with the opportunity to wander around the streets that the stint in Penang had given me, I was brought in touch with some of the places I had seen, bringing back a rush of memories of my first trip to Penang. I began to remember … the Towne House Hotel that we had put up at on Penang Road – still looking very much the same as it did all those years back, an icon of sorts at the end of Penang Road – the Hotel Malaysia, the Penang Hill funicular train, the magical Penang Ferry, and how could I forget it … the Esplanade, where on an evening stroll, I had persuaded my parents to buy me a toy from a street vendor on a bicycle – a Whee-Lo, a plastic wheel with a magnetic steel axle that rolls on a bent steel wire rail as it is moved up and down.

The Towne House Hotel on Penang Road where I had stayed at during a holiday to the island as a schoolboy in the 1970s - it still looks the same after all these years!

Hotel Malaysia on Penang Road - I guess you can call it an icon of sorts; one that I remember very well

The Penang Ferry used to be the only link between the mainland and the island until 1985. It is an icon that may soon disappear with the construction of a second bridge

The streets of Penang somehow provided a sense of being back in the Singapore of my childhood … the Singapore that I had very fond memories of but nothing more. It was a Singapore that one could only see mostly in black and white: in books, postcards and photographs, and in films from that era. It was a Singapore that one could see but not touch, one that one could no longer immerse oneself in: the streets of old, the colourful street markets, the hawkers and vendors that were permament features to the streets and back lanes, the shop houses and five-foot ways, the whiff of coffee beans roasting or bread being baked in a neighbourhood bakery … It seemed for a while almost as if I was back to a time I had forgotten about … back to where my heart is … back home …

The streets of Penang are reminscent of the Singapore of old

Streets filled with hawker stalls and street vendors - like being transported back in time to the Singapore of 40 years ago

A street vendor - a common sight on the streets of Singapore once upon a time

Hawkers and Vendors seem to be a part of the street scenery as it was all those years back in Singapore

Folded paper and rubber bands and a game of cowboys and indians

Perhaps influenced and inspired by the numerous Cowboy and Indian movies screened on TV which were popular in the 1960s, playing at Cowboys and Indians was something that I used to do in my pre-school years acting out the scenes of the movies I watched with some of the neighbours of my age in the wide lift landing and corridor as well as on the staircases of the block of flats I lived in. I actually had a Red Indian outfit, complete with a head dress of feathers, which my parents had bought for me from that wonderful toy department I loved going to in Robinson’s at Raffles Place, which I dressed up in from time to time.

Often, our Cowboy and Indian game would involve the use of rubber bands which would be used to fire projectiles made out of scrap paper, folded, rolled tightly and bent into a vee shape … the tighter we could roll the paper, the more painful the projectiles or paper bullets would be, to simulate guns and arrows. We would use these implements in games of “Police and Thief” as well as in playing out scenes from the previous evening’s Combat! as Vic Morrow’s character, Sergeant Saunders, or Rick Jason’s, Lieutenant Hanley, or sometimes as the Germans they fought, from behind the cover of cardboard boxes.

Rubber Bands and Paper Bullets

Although relatively innocuous, the paper bullets did actually inflict enough pain for us to scream out each time we were hit. Whatever it was, it was one of those things I thoroughly enjoyed playing with.