When I was little...

I consider myself very lucky to have tasted kampong life for at least 4 years. Not many Singaporean did. I couldn’t remember much as I was only 2 or 3 years old then. But I remember I didn't have to worry about anything... my main concerns were to eat, sleep and play... and followed my 2 elder brothers to catch spiders, fly kites, pluck fruits, splashed in the stream… sometime watched them fighting with other boys from another kampong. My duty at such time was to run back to get help from the other ‘kor kor’ (big brothers) in my kampong. Although, most of the time they won the fight but my brothers weren’t spared because those boys’ parents would come over and complain to my parents. As usual, my dad would spank my brothers, punished them with no dinner or if my dad wasn’t too furious (only happened if he just won the card game with the neighbours), they would just need to write 500 times of “I will not fight in future”. But if this happened, my brothers would begged to be spanked instead. It took me a few years to understand why.

Soon the kampongs had to go, to make room for future developments. We were then relocated to flats, my dad called them “government house” (zeng hu chu). It contained 2 small bedrooms, a small living area and a small kitchen. Everything seemed so small to us. It took us a while to adapt to this new living, especially the feel of “loneliness”. My dad’s “card kaki” were gone, my mum had to throw most of her huge utensils because she couldn’t use them in that small kitchen and there wasn’t much room for us to run about like before, no free roam to next kampong... And then, I was put into a kindergarten called PAP where I started my study life...