picture from national archive of s'pore
bathing in the kampong generally meant bathing with cold water, no matter what time of the day. we did not have this option of warm and cold waters, that is available (nowadays) by merely adjusting a knob. nevertheless, on warm days, when the metal pipes got heated up, we did get warm water gushing out of the tap, provided we bathed with the water right off the tap. during the rare times when we had to bathe with warm water - like when we were feeling under the weather - we had to boil a kettle of water and mix it with water from the tap or water from the container. on such an occasion, we would use a metal or plastic tub to hold the lukewarm water.
most households would have a huge ceramic or clay water container in the bathroom. this did not serve as a bath tub although it could have been mistakenly used as one by some unknowing guests, especially those from the then more developed countries.
the water collected in this pottery container was most of the time cooler than the water from the tap. in fact, it was cold. it was so cold that, i remember, my father had to thump his chest a few times before he splashed water on himself.
with this common pool of water, sometimes two or three children could have their bath at the same time. they just needed more scoops or they shared the scoop.
those days, bath foam or soap in a liquid form was unheard of. the fairer sex would use the fragrant 'lux' or 'palmolive' soap while most men would use any ordinary soap. some even used the 'axe brand' laundry soap.
picture from national archive of s'pore
there was, however, a choice of where you would like to take your bath. you could do it in the out-house or the bathoom - usually located in the kitchen area - where you enjoyed some privacy or you could compromise your privacy and take your bath at the public standpipe or at the communal spring. there was no public well in our kampong although a few households had their own wells.
12 comments:
In the 1960s at Chestnut Avenue area, there were many Malay kampungs and fresh water streams. I saw Malay women (wrapped in sarong) and children (usually naked) taking shower and washing clothes along the banks.
We had a huge cement tub which was used to collect water for bathing in the toilet too, and we kept fishes in it to prevent mosquito- breeding. Water from the tap was allowed to drip to fill this tub. I was told that water collected this way is free because the water meter cannot register the very slow flow. Taking a bath early in the morning or late at night was always a chilling torture, and we had to boil water to mix it with water from the tub. Yes, we often had to thump our chest with the cold water first before splashing water on our body. Sometimes, I even had to sing to overcome the coldness.
peter, you saw the children and looked at the women?
nah, you would know when we had started to bathe...when the first scoop of cold water hit the body, we would scream but after that it was okay.
so, you sang "ti kor liang, ti kor chor" while having your bath?
it was so cold that, i remember, my father had to thump his chest a few times before he splashed water on himself.
yg, how did your mum manage it then? Did women thump their chest too?
icemoon, most children yelled. i don't know about women. painful to thump their chest, right?
The trick is to bathe during the afternoon when the water is warm but the men are probably not around then, hahaha
kimology, the water in the container was cold all the time; only the tap water would be warm in the afternoon or even in the evening.
i ask my Indonesian maid how they bath in the kampung. She said early in the morning (5.45am before praying), 3pm and before going to bed. I asked her would it not be too cold in the morning? She said no problem, just jump can alreadi. OK YG answer your question!!!!
peter, so bouncing is as effective as thumping.
Bath-time so fun in public tap areas for children during the kampong days was a vanishing scene. That's a cute PICAS pix on your blog, yg. Thanks for the memories.
can you leave the link of the images in a comment? thank u!
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