"Serangoon Road"

I've watched the first few episodes of this Australian-Singaporean collaboration, with great interest. I've struggled to remember when it is on, or to get to the set having remembered, but fortunately have been able to watch it in instalments on ABC iView and have now caught up with all three weeks worth.

The serialized drama has so far offered intriguing and shocking insights into the complex world of Singapore in the 1960s, through the vehicle of the Cheng Detective Agency: The British, The Americans, The Chinese gangs and The Malays, all vying for supremacy in an atmosphere of uncertainty, upheaval and corruption. Not only inter-cultural rivalries, but internal ones: The American law-enforcers paranoid about a Communist take-over; cowardly, White Supremacist American GIs killing those within their own ranks over petty rivalries and then blaming their African-American colleagues in arms; The British hatred of the Americans and their pompous, superciliousness as they looking down upon the larrikin Aussies, and so on. So The Cheng Detective Agency, which employs the skills of a variety of individuals, in both a formal and informal capacity, represents a breath of fresh air, in its willingness for the culturally diverse team to work together harmoniously and collaboratively to solve personal mysteries which nonetheless touch on the political events of the time.

Last week's episode had me weeping at the story of a Chinese-Singaporean woman who, having been deported back to China after surviving Japanese-occupied Singapore and who had thus lost her citizenship, returned to Singapore twenty years later, was poisoned by her successor-wife yet, with the help of the Cheng gang, survived that and was eventually re-united with her husband, their abiding love undiminished by time and ageing and wife numero due duly carted off to prison for her folly (Changi Women's Prison, whose ominous edifice my son and I passed on the bus).

Watching the latest episode tonight, I was shocked at the extent and the devastation of the rioting depicted by Sernagoon Road, that which occurred in  1964. The first and most infamous episodes had occurred just prior to our arrival, in 1964. There is a good account of these events here on the Remember Singapore website (among lots of other interesting and informative Singapore nostalgia) and here on Wikipedia.

Indeed, riots are reported to have occurred in Singapore as occurred as early as 1950:

"The Maria Hertogh riots, began on 11 December 1950 in Singapore after a court decided that a child who had been raised by Muslims should be returned to her biological Catholic parents. A protest by outraged Muslims escalated into a riot when images were published showing 13-year-old Maria Hertogh (or Bertha Hertogh) kneeling before a statue of the Virgin Mary. Riots in Singapore lasted till noon on 13 December 1950. In total 18 people were killed and 173 injured. Many properties were also damaged. Hertogh (also known as Nadrah) had been in the care of Aminah binte Mohamed before being returned to her biological Dutch Catholic parents."

I was unwittingly and innocently a part of this turbulent epoch in Singapore's history, by virtue of living in Changi as an RAF kid, during the time of further riots and bombings, from 1967 to 1970. The most direct impact of this was that two children who travelled on my brother's school bus, one of whom was in his class, were injured and killed respectively by "red flag bombs" planted near where we lived—purported to have been put there by pro-Communists. Here is an account of the riots that occurred during our time, in 1969.

I was probably too young to register the full scenario. Being in Changi and part of an essentially British enclave, we must have been comparatively protected. How terrible for those living and working in the thick of the unrest! But I do recall that the vast expanse of green at the end of our road suddenly became off-limits, my father gravely instructing us not to play there any more. Even at the age of not-quite five, this was a disappointment, since we went to the padang regularly to fly kites, either made by Dad or bought from Han the greengrocer, who would magically produce such wonders from the back of his van. Although they tried to protect us from the news, in the way of children, we somehow got wind of the death of my brother's classmate, which was deeply disquieting. And so my world was rocked in its own small way.

Since reading the newspaper articles about the flag bombs, which Stanley Ng kindly forwarded to me, I've been feeling sad for those kids' families. I was never sure that one of them had died, so i was abit shocked to see that the girl Katty did. I think maybe my parents protected us form the full details at the time.

I mentioned it to my Dad. He told me he remembers vividly the day the policeman came to the airbase where he worked in air traffic control. The officer told them that a bomb had gone off near Jalan Pergam and injured two British kids. Dad told me he went as white as a sheet with worry, in case it was my brother and myself. He was distressed for the other families, but so relieved it wasn't us.

I'm kind of interested in the sense of being interested in the history of what was happening in Singapore politically and socially at the time, that led to such bombs. I'm not sure if Serangoon Rd will touch on all this, but perhaps it may— it opens in 1964.

I think imperfect grammar is forgivable on blogs, so long as we understand each other. I type too fast and end up mis-spelling things!

I admit that, perhaps due to my own unwitting placement in it, I am variously magnetized to, repelled by, and saddened by the footage of the riots, by the carnage and mayhem generated by a nation full of fearful people mostly desperately trying to survive difficult times, each cultural group fearing decimation.

The Singapore of today seem so (outwardly at least) so much more tolerant and multi-cultural. Perhaps cultural tensions persist beneath the surface, but outwardly there is certainly a semblance of integration. Serangoon Road encapsulates this attempt on the part of courageous pioneering individuals who made an effort to respect each other as fellow human beings, learn each other's languages, and co-operate in the face of more pressing, broader global political concerns.

Here's a decent review of the series from The Australian newspaper, if you'd prefer to cheat and miss the actual episodes. Amazing what insomnia unearths!

 

1964 Riot, Geylang

 (I was shocked to learn that the place we stayed in on our recent trip was the centre of these events)

 

 

The 1969 riot

 

 

 

The 1950s inter-racial riots were due to the Maria Hertog case

Nothing But Memories: Somapah Village, Changi & The Old Singapore

My Dad, now 87, the kind of guy who took the time to learn a bit of the local lingo while in Singapore, and whose penchant for foreign languages I have inherited, was sad and nostalgic and told me he was envious when he learned that I was taking my son to Singapore last week. But I think he would be overwhelmed by the cityscape, and even more saddened by the last forty years or more of changes. Somapah has all but been demolished, in the mid nineteen eighties by all accounts, the local people, for better or for worse, ‘relocated’ to high rise flats in the nearby area of Tampines.

We made it out to Changi last Wednesday on the bus, which passes directly by our condo in Geylang, and thence to the relatively unchanged if somewhat de-populated Pulau Ubin, on a bum boat from Changi Jetty, where we cycled around the island. I could not, however, bring myself to visit what remains of Somapah Village, which by all accounts is a flattened wasteland with dead end streets.

From 1967 to 1970, we lived at number 10 Jalan Pergam, near Somapah, in a bungalow-style house allocated to my Dad, Corporal Cedric Webb of RAF Changi (I've since been told our street was in the area called 10 Mile- for more detailed information and a link to an old map of the area, see Stanley Ng's comments below this blog post).

My brother and I were born in Wales, when my  Dad was stationed there after signing up for the British armed forces, having left South Africa, restless and disillusioned with Apartheid, making his way around the Mediterranean as a steward on the Union Castle shipping line and finding himself in England with nothing better to do. The story goes that his companion, whose contract on the ships was also almost up and whose bright idea it was to sign up, twisted Dad’s arm into applying for the RAF, but flunked the entrance tests himself, whereas my half-hearted Dad was accepted!

 A lifelong lover of planes who had earlier in his life saved up and learned to fly small aircraft as a civilian,  Dad did stints at RAF Locking, RAF Valley (Anglesea Island Wales), Little Risington (Cotswolds, near Weston-Super-Mare) and finally RAF Changi in Singapore, before emigrating to Australia where Mum’s Anglo-Burmese-Indian family had settled some years earlier, 1949, after the second world war and India gained independence.

Mum meanwhile had trained as a nurse at Kalgoorlie Hospital and then headed to London to do some further midwifery training. They met at a dance in Coventry, where she worked for a spell as the infirmary nurse in a school for blind kids. The rest, as they say, is history.

I openly admit that my nostalgia for Singapore is influenced by the subsequent demise of the family, and my parents divorce. Our time in Singapore represents a time of relative privilege- although my working class Dad never flew and never got past the lowly rank of corporal, we were technically British ‘white folk’, who after all could afford an amah (housekeeper), at least by day. But more than that, it represents the halcyon pre-conflict days, when we were an  intact family and my parents were still in love, in a hot climate, in a land of many wonders.

 Anyway, memories of the Old 1960s Singapore, of Changi and Somapah, both the human landscape and the natural  landscape and coast around them, are indelibly etched into my psyche as something precious and never-to-be-repeated. This and my Mum's family background have deeply influenced my Asian-leaning sensibilities and my food preferences!

I will never forget wading out across the squelchy mudflats at low tide, watching small fish writhing asthmatically on  the naked seabed, small hermit crabs  scuttling to safety, molluscs burrowing frantically away from the marauding humans, ancient Rickety-legged Chinese women gathering these fruits of the sea in their pointy woven hats, smiling toothlessly and extending small maritime offerings when they spotted us kids. The underbellies of wooden boats exposed, marooned  on land until the waters returned at high tide.

Chasing small, yellow butterflies in the garden with filmy, gauzy green nets purchased at the bric-a-brac shop in the village; playing with local and other RAF kids in the deep monsoon drains which flanked the road. On one occasion, seeing something which looked like a leach, and my Dad having to be summoned to pluck my terrified four-year-old self out of the drain!

The various mobile vendors that visited: ‘The Barbit Man’, so named because of his spruiking cry as he rode past on the top heavy tricycle laden with buckets and brooms for sale; the bread  van, the back doors of which opened to reveal delicious delicacies;  eating sherbet bought from the mobile greengrocer, who also sold us kites which we flew on the green expanse at the end of our street;

The kampong directly opposite us with its coconut trees,  audible chickens and pig farm, and girls who let us taste their exotic rambutans; buying things in Somapah village and Changi; the loud and scary Chinese funeral processions down the main st (Changi Rd?).

Turbaned, bearded Indian wood carvers who paid house calls, spreading out their white sheet and demonstrating their craft on our tiled living room floor (my Dad still has small, carved teak 1960s style bedside lamp and a coffee table bought from them); Indian snake charmers skilfully luring mezmerized cobras out of baskets.

Dinners at the lantern-lit night market at the end of our street, where we would go to eat al fresco satay and nasi goreng and drink sugar cane and coconut drinks in ‘ju bags’- plastic bags fastened with a rubber band, like the sort of transit bag you get in Australia if you buy goldfish to take home.

Passing Changi Gaol (the white façade and guard posts have been transplanted but are still there, just as ominous) on the school bus, with all the kids chanting “Changi Gaol, Changi Gaol” to deal with our attraction-repulsion kind of fear.

Visiting my expectant Mum in Changi hospital with offerings of grapes and bananas, bought in a market, then excitedly coming home from kindergarten to meet my new baby sister.

Learning to swim at the Changi pool, where apparently I could not float, but would wiggle my bottom like a fish under water, and every so often be lifted out by Dad for a breath!

More grimly, I recall one of the kids in my brother’s Chinese classmates being either killed or maimed or blinded  by some sort of landmine planted in the vacant expanse of green at the end of the village where kids used to play. My parents were worried  for our safety after this, and certain places became off-limits.

Since returning home on Friday, I myself have been experiencing a wave of nostalgia and sadness. I’ve been surfing the ‘net hoping to find information about what happened to our house and our street. I've  found people- both ex-RAF and local Singaporeans- with similar sentiments about a Singapore ‘lost’ to modernity, ‘progress’ and development. The most detailed of these is an award-winning  blog by Singaporean Jerome Lim, who didn’t actually live in Somapah, but recounts his fond memories of holidaying there. Go here http:// for an interview with Jerome, and here for the actual blog complete with old photos (a similar one about Changi Village can also be found on his blogsite).

I also like the informative comment posted by Koh (details contested by other commentators) in  response to Jerome's Somapah account:

"Somapah started as a plantation in around 1850 when Mr H. Somapah, originally an India convict (due to some family dispute back in India), became rich in Singapore after his release and purchased many pieces of land in Singapore, one of which is Somapah (Changi). He passed on the land to his son W.L.S Basapah. Basapah was involved in a peculiar murder case in 1919; he killed his brother-in-law Ram Mohan Singh. You may read the story here. http://newspapers.nl.sg/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19191118.2.57.aspx. By the way, Basapah was later released.

The land (about 1000 acre of coconut plantation) was then purchased by the Quek brothers (郭巨川 Quek Kee Suan， 郭镜川 aka 郭新 Quek Shin). The Queks were originally poor. They helped out their father in tapioca plantation in Malacca. They later became rich. The Queks were prominant Hainese leaders in Singapore and Malaysia. They donated land in Somapah Village for Red Swastika School (www.redswastika.moe.edu.sg), Kwang Boo Martial Arts Association (http://guangwuwushu.com) and the Sinchew Hainanese Association, which are all located within the vincinity of the “market” in Somapah. Their contribution can be read here: http://www.hnszw.org.cn/data/news/2009/06/44019/ and http://www.hnszw.org.cn/data/news/2009/06/44022/.

I walked by these buildings everyday in the 70s and 80s."

Time for a slideshow I think. Dad used to inflict these on us, but now I want to see them. I want to convert all the old format slides into digital ones, as my unique contribution to documenting and preserving memories of a time that has passed, in a Singapore that no longer exists.



 

 Somapah village in the late '60s (Courtesy of  Singapore National Library

via Jerome Lim's blog The Long and Winding Road)



"Cannot": On The Buses in Singlish

We've been catching public transport everywhere, since Singapore has a comprehensive underground train system and buses to most place on the island. The number 7 leaves from Guillemard Rd, almost outside our condo which is on the corner in Lorong 14, while other routes pass by Geylang road at the other end, all going either into town or towards Bedok and Changi.

Bryn has been reluctant to leave the condo (where there is both a three year old playmate and my computer) to go sightseeing, but happy when we finally caught a double decker on Guillemard Rd. he makes a beeline for the top deck in the front seat, being loud and chatting non-stop,  quite unlike local Singapore children. My main concern is his safety (if we stop suddenly, he will go flying through the windscreen). But it is entertaining hearing him sing his little songs (the current one is "oh baby baby baby" sung ad nauseum).

We have  a standing joke about Singapore's strictness, initially inspired by all the signs everywhere. I say things like "if you're rude to your Mum in Singapore..." and " if you laugh too loudly in Singapore..." and "if you fart in Singapore..." all of which which he completes, laughingly, with "you'll get arrested!" My favourite sign is in the MRT: "No smoking, no eating or drinking, no spitting...NO DURIANS" !!!

As central Singapore has a one-way road system, I find myself having to ask frequently for the correct route. The Malay or predominantly Chinese bus drivers mostly speak Singlish, so when I ask if this is the bus to place x, the response is either "can" or "cannot", which is the Singaporean way of saying yes or no! I've only once seen a woman drivingabus- mostly it's blokes. They're very helpful when it comes to letting us hapless tourists know we've arrived at our destination, however.

After a couple of days of fumbling around with single trip fares (cheap at around a dollar for me and fifty cents for Bryn), and making sure I have ample coins in my purse, we head to Raffles Place on the bus nearest the apartment, to buy a 3-day tourist pass. For around $10 each (plus a refundable deposit for the plastic card) we can conveniently  now jump on and off any bus to anywhere. Bryn loves swiping the thing on the little machine as you board the bus, and to get through the gates at MRT stations.

 

Double-decker bus into town

 

Front row seats, top floor, heading down Nicholl Highway

 

Map of the MRT, Singapore's underground train system

 

 

 Bryn choosing a durian, the offending fruit which is banned in many places including the metro, at one of the fruit stalls on Geylang Rd near our condo. It stinks to high heaven, but tastes sweet, like a mango has mated with some custard. As our Philippino-American AirBnB host says "smells like hell, tastes like heaven" !!!





Where do You Find a Musical Cat?

...in Sing-a-paw, of course! Where I ventured, for the first time in nearly thirty years, with my seven-year-old son (whose joke it is) for 6 nights, last week, after spotting bargain Tiger Airways fares from Perth, on the 'net..

I lived at number 10, Jalan Pergam, near the village of Somapah, near Changi Village, as a child, when my  South African Dad was based their as a corporal in the British  Airforce (I've since been told our street was in the area called 10 Mile- for more detailed information and an old map of the area, see Stanley Ng's comments below the blog post titled Nothing But the memories : Somapah, Changi & The Old Singapore). The people of Somapah were apparently rehoused in the area called Tampines.

Many of Singapore's flavours and smells are etched into my memory, so I was irresistably drawn back, if only to the ghost of the memory of that forgotten time. Go here for Jerome Lim's marvellous, award-winning photo blog, by a Singaporean about Somapah nostalgia that could nonetheless have been written by my brother or myself. Go here for an interview with Jerome about it.

I miss it I do, The Old Singapore, the Singapore of the 196Os.  I remember the market at the end of the village, the food vendors selling bread and fruit and groceries door-to-door from bicycles and small trucks, the kampung over the road with pigs and chickens, playing in the monsoon drains with other RAF and local kids.

FLASHBACK: I had been back to Singapore only once, in 1984, a $30 stopover in The Grand Central Hotel, en route to Paris. I'd met an Englishman on the flight from Perth— Christopher Tapp, of Henley-on-Thames in Oxford—who had been studying in Australia for a year as an exchange student. There he was in the queue at Perth airport, wearing his souvenir cork-fringed, bushfly-defying swagman's hat. It turned out he was in the adjoining bank of seats on the half empty plane  and was staying in a hotel near mine, so we arranged to meet the next morning to go sightseeing together. I recall him wanting to go to the Raffles Hotel, but it being closed for renovation or something along those lines. I also recall giving him a  book of vouchers that I was unable to use, as I was due to catch my connecting flight to France after only a one night stopover.

Chris warmly invited me to visit his family home in England after Paris—a posh-sounding place called Shandi, Hop Gardens, Henley. Through shyness and  reserve (I think, at the tender age of eighteen, I felt intimidated at the prospect of staying with a wealthy family) I never did, and regret it to this day. I just Googled him and discovered a newspaper article dated 2011, revealing that Christopher is now a successful architect, was about to become a first-time Dad at age 50, and specializes in sustainable housing design!

This time,  I really wanted to take my son to see  some of the places I knew as a kid. Such as it is. Even since 1984, Singapore has become a high rise, cosmopolitan metropolis. A comprehensive network of trains and buses  that run to schedule across the island; cleanly-swept streets...and an underbelly of prostitution (in Geylang, the red light district where we have just stayed) that allegedly doesn't exist.

Good  on 'em, those Singapore people who now have independence, universal housing and all the mod cons. Those well-behaved subjects of Lee Kuan Yu and now his son, who risk being flogged or, worse, imprisoned in Changi Gaol, for spitting, swearing, smoking or committing other earth-shattering acts of public disobedience in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Good on Singapore, for gaining independence from first the post-Raffles Brits and then Malaysia. But boo oh boo hoo I say, for rejecting their past and modernizing at the expense of much of its 'character'—a demolished heritage for which many now pine, scrambling to salvage what's left (e.g the Capitol Theatre renovation project) in a landscape of skyscrapers and regimented, contrived parks, entertainment and  playzones. As a Wikedia article puts it:

"Singapore has a partly deserved reputation for sterile predictability that has earned it descriptions like William Gibson's "Disneyland with the death penalty" or the "world's only shopping mall with a seat in the United Nations." Nevertheless, the Switzerland of Asia is for many a welcome respite from the poverty, dirt, chaos, and crime of much of the Southeast Asian mainland, and if you scratch below the squeaky clean surface and get away from the tourist trail you'll soon find more than meets the eye."

Exactly! We visited the well-trodden tourist trail... and also made a point of going to the lesser know relics of the old Singapore: Pulau Ubin, the Botanic Gardens and Tiger Balm Gardens, with its Chinese statues; the hawkers huts and the satay stalls. The places of my childhood which— thankfully—struggle on among the skyscrapers and the cleanly efficient but characterless clockwork trains.

 

A view of the modern Singapore city from Gardens by the Bay, where we went on Tuesday, despite the rain.