playing tarzan on the bus

(photo of an stc bus from the national archives of singapore)

just found out that there were at least 11 bus services serving the whole of singapore in the 60s. they were: changi bus company limited, easy bus company, green bus company limited, hock lee amalgamated bus company limited, kampong bahru bus service limited, katong-bedok bus service limited, keppel bus company limited, paya lebar bus service company, puggol bus service company, singapore traction company (stc) and tay koh yat bus company limited.

of the 11, the two biggest were singapore traction company and tay koh yat. stc had a depot at mackenzie road and tay koh yat had one at thomson road, where the concorde block of apartments now stands. these were the same two bus services which i was more familiar with.

i would take the tay koh yat bus to tekka occasionally and to beach road almost daily to get to school. when i was in primary school, i sometimes took the stc service number 1 to clemenceau avenue. i also remember the few times i took the changi bus from capitol theatre to changi point.

i was quite naive when it came to payment for the bus-ride. once, i accompanied a neighbour to tekka. i did not have the money to pay for the fare and so he gave me a treat. when we boarded the bus, he handed the conductor some money and i overheard him say "5 cents, two tickets". not knowing that he had paid 10 cents, i had this silly idea that you could request two tickets with a 5-cent payment.

those morning rides to school were something i did not look forward to. sometimes i chose to walk all the way to school. the buses were so crowded that most times you could not get on board the first bus that came along. when i finally managed to get a grip on the bus, i usually had to cling on to the hand hold for dear life, literally.

in our teenage and youthful years, we liked to 'play tarzan' when boarding and alighting the public buses. what is meant by 'play tarzan'? well, we acted macho and hopped onto the moving bus just as it was pulling out of the bus-stop and we jumped off the bus even before it came to a complete stop. you had to do it right or else you might end up with an embarrassing fall.when alighting, you had to jump backwards to counter the forward momentum.

in those days, every bus had a driver and a conductor. the driver did not need to double up as a fare collector. his job was to drive. the fare collection was done by the bus conductor. there were no specially built bus bays for buses to stop; the buses stopped at the bus-stop by the side of the road.

red hibiscus behind the left ear

i enjoy visiting spring orchard at lim chu kang lane 4 and taking pictures of the colourful hibiscus flowers. so far, i have come across purple, white, yellow, orange and pink hibiscus flowers on this farm.

the hibiscus is the national flower of one state in the usa and at least two countries in the world, one of which is our neighbour malaysia where it is called the bunga raya - the flower of celebrations.

when i visited hawaii many years ago i observed that some of the local and native women wore the red hibiscus flower behind their ears. then i did not know the significance of wearing a red hibiscus. now i know.

wearing a red hibiscus behind a girl's right ear means ' i have a lover'; behind her left ear, it means 'i seek a lover'; and if she wears one behind each ear, it means ' i have a lover and i seek a lover'.

young men should focus on those with a red hibiscus behind the left ear.

hot air ballooning in cairns

i read about seenthisscenethat's two failed attempts at hot air ballooning and decided to write about our experience in cairns in 1999.

the australians are quite experienced when it comes to adventure stuff. we had to get up at about 4.15 a.m. the mini-bus took about 45 minutes to reach mareeba, the site for the ballooning. we did the ballooning over the atherton highlands and after that had champagne breakfast at the anthill restaurant.

tableland balloon flight cost aus$115 for an adult, with children getting 30% discount off the adult price, for a half hour flight. in addition, we had to pay aus$7 aviation fee on the day of travel. the total cost included a chicken and champagne breakfast.

the basket, which could easily carry 15 persons, including the pilot, was laid on its side while they funnelled the hot air into the balloon. when the parachute envelope ballooned out, the basket uprighted itself and we were helped into it.


there were three or four hot air balloons up in the sky at the tableland that morning. by the time the balloon was aloft, it was bright enough for us to take in the sights around and below us. it was a smooth ride and surprisingly, i forgot all my fear for height.

flights are usually carried out early in the morning when the air is still cool which makes maneuvering easier. as the day gets warmer and the warm air rises, controlling the balloon becomes a bit tricky and unpredictable. as it was, even in the morning, our balloon strayed slightly off its target and we landed near a cemetery.

when it finally landed, all of us, especially the men, had to pitched in to help anchor the balloon onto the ground while the pilot and his assistants worked at deflating the balloon and folding the huge piece of parachute material. it was quite a good work-out before we proceeded for our much awaited breakfast.

Telok Paku English School & Changi Village - by Ow Suek Yin

TELOK PAKU ENGLISH SCHOOL

I have read your stuff regarding Telok Paku School. I'll pass the pics to you as soon as I can find time to visit my primary school teacher, Mr Laurie Chan. He taught me at Pr 6 and was the best teacher ever. When I first started teaching I met him again when he was the Senior Teacher at Jalan Eunos School. He was an avid photographer and took numerous pics of us, his pupils. He used to pack us all in his station wagon and drove us all around the island. Some of us were very poor and it was his way of broadening our horizon.

Telok Paku School had this beautiful school field and it was surrounded by cashew nut trees. Yes, we loved our field. As pupils, we also grew vegetables as part of our Science lessons. In those days, the servant's quarters were nearby and helped to look after our garden too. By the way, this was in the mid 1950s. Close to the school was also a marshy area - come to think of it, it was probably part of the river or creek. I remember us playing in the sandy area too. In those days we sang the British anthem, God save our Queen.

None of the teachers lived in Changi and all of them stayed in the Geylang or Katong area. The teachers were a dedicated lot. Imagine, the only road to Changi in the old days was long and winding - and very dark, cos there were no street lights for a major part of the road. And the bus from Capitol to Changi was No 1. And Changi Village was 14 miles (22.4km) from the city centre!

Coming back to Mr Laurie Chan. While he taught us in the day, he also taught night classes in Telok Paku. And my late father who was from China used to attend his night class. Yes, my father and I had the same teacher. One evening the night classes, LEMBAGA (?) held a Dinner and Dance and both my parents had a great time then.

CHANGI VILLAGE

Changi Village in the old days had its fair share of haves and have-nots. I belonged to the have-nots because my father worked for the RAF and was a fitter. At first we stayed in the protected area - up on the hill next to the huge building where the British soldiers stayed. The quarters were terraced quarters and very small. There were four families in each of the two terraced quarters. Each comprised only one room and we had a common toilet and bathroom some distance away from the quarters. My family stayed there till 1955 before we moved to another set of quarters just behind the Changi Village shophouses.

These quarters are still there today and I've brought my siblings and son and visitors to view. I can't imagine how my 4 siblings and my parents stayed in the one bedroom quarters. This time we did have our own bathroom and toilet. Separating our backyard from the shophouses was a huge drain (huge to me as a child). The shophouses in Changi in those days did not have modern sanitation. We often see our friends in the shophouses emptying their "urine pots" into the drain. We never thought about how unhygenic it was.

Who were the "haves"? The children of the shopowners in Changi Village. Us? We belonged to the working class - our fathers worked as mechanics or cooks in the RAF while my Indian neighbours' fathers worked as clerks (slightly better than my dad). My neighbours were either Indians or Malays. That is why to this day, my siblings and I are very conversant with the Malay language and we love Malay and Indian food. We ate mutton and beef and never thought of them as "smelly" unlike some of my Chinese friends.

I was about to talk about the shopowners' children who were my classmates in Telok Paku School. Perhaps because they had everything, they didn't work as hard at their studies. Many of them had to repeat school. I was considered young cos I was at least two years younger than them.

I was one of two girls who went to RGS. It was a first for Telok Paku. I had to thank Mr Laurie Chan who pleaded with my parents to put RGS as my first choice after PSLE. But RGS was a mighty long way. I left for school at 6 am and didn't come home till about 3 pm or 4 pm. To help out with the family's finances I gave tuition to some of the kids [mostly shopowners' children and some of the children of the clerks (they could afford to pay me)] so that I could carry on with my secondary school.

I have fond memories of Changi Beach. The old stone bridge that links the beach to the ferry terminal is still there. I remember the village boys and girls diving from the bridge into the creek. I didn't cos I didn't know how to swim then. Whenever I go to Changi now and look at the stone bridge I can't help remembering those kids diving from the bridge. No one thought about the danger or how dirty the creek was in those days.

The Civil Service Club at Changi used to be a transit centre for the English soldiers and families when they were scheduled to return home to England. Naturally they would board the air force planes at Changi airfield. After the British forces left, the place was occupied by the Red Cross Home for the Handicapped (in the old days it used to be called the Red Cross Home for the Crippled).

When Changi Airfield was in existence, the buses had to stop for planes to "cross". A long long time ago my teacher friends and I used to sit on the slopes overlooking the airfield and gaze at the stars and planes. No hanky panky - just enjoying the stars!

Incidentally, when we were studying in Telok Paku School, my teachers used to threaten the boys that if they didn't work hard they might land up in Changi Prison. I can't believe that we actually believed the story. Our lessons were also often interrupted by the aeroplanes which used the Changi Airfield.

kampong life was not all bliss

lest the people who grew up living in modern housing estates have the notion that kampong life was always beautiful, let me help dispel this perception. although we oldies always hark back to the good old carefree days in the kampong, it does not mean that we all would like to embrace that kind of lifestyle all over again. kampong life was fraught with dangers and there were quite a number of drawbacks.

drawback number one was the state of hygiene which we had little control over - the sharing of latrines which used the bucket system. imagine twenty or more families sharing three latrines, that was what happened in our case. sometimes, especially in the morning, you had a queue waiting to use the place. and not everybody was accurate when it came to dropping the missiles. then there were the women who threw their bloodied pads into the same receptacle.

drawback number two was experienced by those living in low lying areas which were prone to flooding. now that we live in high-rise flats i do not have to worry each time the rain comes down in torrents. back in those days i used to worry about my siblings being caught in a flood or stranded somewhere because the path leading to our kampong home was covered by flood water.

drawback number three had to do with privacy. in our kampong houses, the walls were thin - just a plank - that they seemed to have ears. i can still recall an incident involving a eurasian couple who rented a corner house with a footpath by its side. one afternoon i saw a group of men showing special interest in the cracks between the planks. not long after i heard a shout coming from within the house and the men outside ran helter skelter in different directions.

tied to this loss of privacy was the fact that anything that happened in your house would be common knowledge to all your neighbours. for example, when you got whacked by your parent/s, everyone would know about it. sometimes, punishment was carried out in the open for all to see.

drawback number four was the creepy crawlies that made their appearances when you least expected them. i have mentioned this before in an earlier blog - when it rained, sometimes, centipedes would drop from the thatched roofs.

the dangers came from the influence exerted by the other kids in the kampong. as kampong kids we were acquainted and friends to all, regardless of their character. so we had gangsters, bullies, gamblers and, in later years, drug addicts in our midst. we did not shun them but we tried to mix with them less.

it was not difficult to pick up bad habits like smoking, gambling and fighting in that kind of environment.

i know one of my kampong kids who was detained indefinitely, under the pleasure of the president of the republic of singapore. a few others were jailed for taking drugs and/or drug trafficking.