Reminiscing - 3...Childhood, Youth and the Neighbourhood

When you are a child or in your youth, you wanted to be like the adults, to go out to work and be dispensed with the misery of going to school. Perhaps it's the stifling education system but soon enough when you became an adult, you feel like wanting to be a kid again.

Which is why I have always advocated strongly that we should let children be children (not the disciplinary part) but children who could play imaginatively and with wide eye wonderment and even to a certain extent I believe being with nature builds up the creative side and EQ of a person. That's why some people talk to plants. Maybe they are tired of talking to people?

Going to the kindergarten was a first real experience of being with complete strangers, like when you first came to primary school, then secondary school, National Service, etc. except that when you were older, you could cope better. I could still remember that just before tea-break as the aroma of Milo filled the air only to find out that what they dished out were diluted version compared to children today who can have their own Milo dinosaur.

The primary school (Kim Keat Primary School) I attended made all boys sport a crew cut for all six years with hair slightly longer than Shaolin disciples. We would play marbles, police and thieves and hatam bola and where the first 36 colours coloured pencils was an "in" thing. That was why the first thing most of the boys did after PSLE was to keep their hair long - like the coming of age and where the first pair of long pants they owned was something like a dream come true and where there were only barber shops and not salons. Barbers who prided themselves using a comb rather than today's stylists who use their hands and blades to shave like what you saw in Mafia movies of Al Capone days and it never fail to amuse you when you watch them going about digging some adult's ears by placing a powerful light bulb close to their ears.

These were times when teachers never fail to lavish corporal punishments on students such as slapping them on their faces, slamming books on their heads, etc. The lucky ones get to stand on chairs and if you were to mention this to your parents, you get another round of punishment as if the earlier abuses were not sufficient. 

One stare from the discipline master, a burly six-footer (Mr. Yeo or Mr. Yang) would make many pee in their pants but one of the most feared was the music teacher (Mrs. Miranda) as it was seemingly impossible to escape your turn for brutality since everyone has to take turns to play the dreaded recorder. Some who never had any musical inclination would fumble their way along and get the "pinch-in-the-abdomen" treatment and many would be hiding behind one another during lessons. It was even more deadly than Bruce Lee's one-inch punch as she would not just pinch but twisted her pinch once she held on to the side of your abdomen making her one of the deadliest exponent ever known to mankind. Once she started warming up on her piano you could sense a death chill in the room and all students would avoid eye contact usually just staring at the cold floor for comfort and safety like mates awaiting their death sentence. 

No wonder there were not too many great musicians during our time. Fighting in school was something that was almost unavoidable as some came from rougher neighbourhoods. In the neighbourhood, you would hear of accidents through road mishaps, children chasing after kites that lost in their fights along what is now PIE (Jalan Toa Payoh) near to where we stayed at Kim Keat Avenue and children who drowned swimming or playing at the canal next to Jalan Tenteram. 

My grandma or an aunt would unwittingly drag me along to join some neighbours to go along to look see. There, I witnessed death a close quarters at a young age not knowing what to make of it. The horrified scenes of of people in demise and bodies being fished out of canals by divers and the anguish of family members rang in my ears. That brought me my first questions on the issues of life and death.

We would later shift to our first new HDB home in Toa Payoh, in those days dubbed the "east side of Chicago" for obvious reasons being one of the most notorious centres for hoodlums. The smell of newness in everything seems to be a lasting memory - a new book, magazine, car, etc. 

In this case, the smell of fresh concrete, cement, paint came at a stage where at the age of being a teenager with a heightened sense of awareness and memory, a new secondary school, friends, activities and growing up angst and friendship provided the backdrop of many fond memories to behold and some others to forget. 

Youths today should take note that this is a very important part of life and one that you would cherish for years beyond. Many old friends I met these days are talking about the good old days and how important family and friends are as they grew older and that other pursuits in life paled in comparison. Yes, I think this is the beginning of wisdom.

There has never been a year that has gone by without me transporting myself to the school days up to my youth as those were the most memorable - warts and all from the physical space of the school and its surroundings to the teachers and especially the students and friends. While I have been in touch with the primary school mates who went to the same secondary school, I have always been looking forward to those I have not met for the longest time. Even as I searched on social media, I have not found them. Not giving up yet and perhaps somewhere in time. Till we meet again.