indoor playground for small children

if you do not have young children or if your children are grown up, you may not be aware that such places exist. i first came to know of such facilities when i was in melbourne recently.

you would not step into such a place unless you have small kids to take care of. i was not aware that such a service was available in singapore until i was asked to accompany a grand nephew to fidgets at turf city. when my two girls were younger, we took them to ikea at sixth avenue, actus at sunset way and the macdonald's at serene house. (incidentally, actus at one time occupied the premises vacated by ikea at sixth avenue.) all these places had playroom with multi-coloured balls for toddlers to romp for free. nowadays, these indoor playgrounds are enjoying good business.

at fidgets, adults who accompany the children go in for free but the kids are charged $8 per entry for those who are below two years old and $15 for those between 2 and 10 years old. one accompany adult has to be there with the kid. the area set aside for 'little fidgets' has two small plastic cars and a small ball room.



for the bigger children, there is a bigger playing area in the form of an adventureland. still, sometimes adults have to climb in to rescue their little ones. the under 2s should be kept away from this area because the bigger ones tend to be rowdier. the area is carpetted and socks have to be worn at all times.

there is a cafe which serves drinks and snacks. however, the prices, to me, seem higher than those at starbucks - which i don't patronise anyway. you do not pay cash but instead use the same card issued to you upon entrance. the parents, especially the mothers, seem to find some respite while their little ones are playfully occupied.

if you go to this website, you can find a list of the indoor playgrounds distributed all over the island.

'kampong of forgotten souls'

a kampong house in the 50s (from national archives, s'pore)

i just found out that the kampong (kampong chia heng) where i spent nearly 30 years of my life was labelled 'the kampong of forgotten souls' in the 50s. i also found out that the rows of attap houses that we stayed in were constructed without a permit. although it was located 6.4km from the city, there was no proper road, no proper sanitation and no electricity.

a complaint was lodged when three blocks of unauthorised wooden and attap buildings were under construction. the authorities were not able to find out who the 'developer' of the buildings was. by the time, the people who claimed to be owners - 7 women and 5 men - were charged in court, there were already nine blocks and some were already occupied. anyway, there was no court order to demolish the illegal structures. the 12 owners - all chinese - were fined $30 each. it was reported that the 'kongsi' raked in a profit of some $400 000.

in the early days, there was no electricity although there was piped water. there were two public stand pipes serving a population of 1000. when electricity first came to the village, it was in the form of a noisy private generator which was operated for four hours between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m.

in a 1953 government report, 9 congested areas in singapore were listed as potential fire risks and kampong chia heng was one of them. the following year, the villagers were praised by the fire department for helping to prevent a lallang fire from spreading to the houses. actually, i remember there were a few instances when we all pitched in to help put out fire, not just lallang fires but also fires that started in some of the houses.

kampong chia heng also made the news in 1963 when a 62-year old village man was infected by cholera. all the people in the village - babies, children and adults - had to be innoculated against the disease. the man was hospitalised at middleton hospital (orr sai).

in the political scene, i can remember three members of parliament. the first was a hainanese barber, a mr lim, who later defected to the barisan socialis. subsequently, we had mrs devan nair and she was succeeded by mr lawrence sia, a former president of the teachers' union.

i have blogged about my kampong in this earlier post.

changing scene - kranji

(kranji railway crossing)

there used to be a kampong kranji near to the railway crossing. in fact, just beside the track, there was a short road called jalan surau. (a surau is a prayer room/ a small mosque.) in the patch of secondary forest between the former army camp and kranji loop, there is a small malay (muslim) cemetery. i had not noticed this in the past when i drove past this point. today, when we decided to walk to the hut next to the crossing, i saw the tomb stones.

this stretch of kranji road is usually lined with vehicles, mainly, heavy ones, in the mornings and evenings. the waiting traffic towards woodlands road can sometimes stretch more than a kilometre. the cause of this congestion is the bottleneck at the crossing which permits one directional flow when the light is in its favour. prior to 1990, before the traffic light controls were in place, it must have been more chaotic. i cannot imagine how it was like when there were no barriers. i suppose users had to be very alert to the sound of the whistle and the train.

in singapore, all the gates at the five railway crossings are manually operated. the four crossings are at kranji, sungei kadut avenue, stagmont, chua choa kang and bukit gombak.

when the barrier across the road is in place, traffic comes to a standstill in both directions. this will take only a few minutes, the time needed for the train to clear this crossing. the barrier is manned by an employee of (malayan railway) ktm. he stays in the ramshackle of a hut most of the time. a few years back, there were some concrete structures but these have all been demolished. even the rambutan and mango trees seem to have disappeared.



come july next year, this scene will eventually change. with the track no more in use, this section of the road can then be widened to facilitate the normal flow of traffic. however, i hope they do not make it too wide or too straight as many drivers, especially of trucks, here have a tendency to speed.

hokkien names for roads and places

sio poh hai kee and thih pa sat

my parents' generation knew these roads and places by their hokkien names. when i went to keng lee road, i would tell them that i had gone to 'ang keo thau'. my uncles and aunts were at one time living at 'si kar teng', until their houses were razed in the big fire. i also remember my mother referring to a place called 'sua tee'. i am not sure where that is; it could be somewhere in tampines where there were many sand quarries.

below is a list of those roads and places i can remember.

albert street - kum pong bangkulu (kampong bencoolen)

alexandra road - lau chi kha

arab street - jiauwa koi

balestier road (near towner road) - goh chor tua pek kong

balestier road end - mang ka kha

battery road - tho kho orr

beach road - sio po hai kee; ji chap keng

boat quay - tiam peng lor thau

bras basah road - lau kho khen khau

bukit ho swee area - si kar teng

bukit timah road - beh chia lor boi

chinatown - goo chia chwee

china street - kiau keng cheng

clifford pier - ang teng beh tau

clyde terrace market - thih pa sat

fort canning - ong ke swa kha

ganges avenue/havelock road - orh kio thau

henderson road - poh lay long

hokkien street - beh chia koi

johore - sin swa

kallang gaswork - hway siah

kandang kerbau road - tek kha

keng lee road - ang kio thau

merchant road - cha choon thau

middle road - sio po ang moh pah thi (european foundry)

middleton hospital - orr sai (black lion)

nicoll highway - tok lip kio (independence bridge)

north bridge road - jee beh lor

petain road - keng jeo kha

queen street - sar beh lor

serangoon garden - ang sar lee

singapore general hospital - si peh por (sepoy)

south bridge road - tua po tua beh lor

sungei road - kek sng kio

telok ayer - kiau keng khau

waterloo street - si beh lor

do you have any more to add to the list?

huat kway (prosperity cake)

i bought this huat kway (prosperity cake) for $1.40. in those kampong days, most chinese hokkiens made their own huat kway at home. these days, they are manufactured in flatted factories, like those at woodlands link block 15 and gourmet east kitchen at bedok north st 5. sales of these cakes is very good, especially on the 1st and 15th days of the lunar calendar and during the chinese festivals.

i used to watch my mother make bigger ones to be offered to the gods - the more important the god, the bigger the kway. she would use the round, bamboo tray, lined with grease paper (or bread paper) to steam the huat kway. she would hand-beat the flour mixed with dissolved brown sugar - which she called 'black sugar'.



the huat kway would be only considered a success when the top cracked open. so, when she was in the process of making and steaming the cake, we could not mention anything related to the splitting of the cake, otherwise we would be blamed if it turned out rounded. she would use a burning joss-stick to estimate the steaming time. however, she would still stick a chopstick into the cake to check if it was properly cooked. if the dough still stuck to the chopstick, then she would prolong the steaming time by a few minutes.



today, i experimented with making my own huat kway. the ingredients were few and simple. i used self-raising flour, brown sugar and water. instead of using firewood to heat the kwali filled with water and topped with a cover, i used the three-tier electric steamer. as i did not have any bamboo trays, i used whatever holders i could find. i lined the side with grease paper.