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.
