The reason for our father to move us to Singapore from Labis is that our new step-mother could take care of us. He would commute from Singapore to live and work at Labis. Nonetheless, we were in a big city during 1955-57. Near the end of 1956 (found out in a newly discovered letter), he lost a lot of money in timber business and we had to move back to Johor Bahru (JB), the closest town in Malaya.
We lived on the 3rd floor of a typical shophouse during the colonial era. Four of us (including my first half-sister, picture below) lived in a apartment rented from a plump lady teacher. We called her Mr. Deng (in old time, out of respect, Mr. was used for all teachers) and she was very nice. I remember my high school English teacher was also very nice and called by students "800 pounds", but I didn't think she was that heavy. In fact, Mr. Deng's husband and two unmarried daughters were also teachers. Since we lived in a very civilized flat surrounded by teachers (see next write-up), maybe our step-mother's temper was tamed.
Only in this week, my brother suddenly remembered the street name sounds like Calvin. I found some 1954 old maps and located a Cavan Road, a small street near the New World Park (see map at left). I also found it on the 2020 Google map and the street scene (2nd picture). Amazing, the shophouse is still there. My brother thought we lived in the 4th one counted from the left of those orange roof shophouses.
Interestingly, in 2023, my niece, her husband and daughter took us to visit this place (below 3rd and 4th pictures), it looked pretty much the same as in the old time. My niece was surprised this was the place her father had lived. All she knew was some place near Jalan Besar Stadium, the biggest sport stadium in our time. Whenever there was a big game being played, we went up to the roof to watch it for free. We decided that the orange roof was not there at that time.
During that time, I was always interested in looking down on the street from our apartment. There were cars, pedestrians and hawkers manning food carts. I was always alerted that some person, like a friend of Mr. Deng's unmarried daughters, on the street shouted at the windows that he wanted someone to let him in to come up. I still had this scene in my dreams when I was older.
Now I could not find any trace of that school called Shiyong (means Practical Use, after this writing I found it and labeled it on map). I also did not remember that private school except it was near the Park (also we had identified and labeled it "Qixiu School" on map, see my next write-up).
In the morning during the school days, Mr. Deng gave us a ride to go to the public school that she got us in after we left from a private school. However, we had to walk home after school through the side of the New World Park, and it almost took an hour (maybe we walked slowly, see map).
We did not arrived at Singapore at the beginning of the year and so we could not attend Mr. Deng’s public school. Instead we went to a private school run by a person as the principal and the janitor. She left me a memory that when we arrived at the school some days, she was still brushing her teeth. However, she did something good for us.
The first day we went to that private school, the principal thought my brother's name was too girly and she added a character Wei (means Great) in his birth name Ng Choi, and changed Choi into Chai (means Talent). Also she added that Wei into my birth name Nge Wing. Later it became Woo Wee Yong in Mandarin pronunciation when I applied for my first passport.
These are great names except my brother still uses his birth name in government documents. He thought he could be denied a citizenship if he used other name even he was born in Malaya. My father always used Ng Piew, the name probably printed on the papers when he came to Malaya.
Our step-Mom never hesitated to spend money if we were well-off financially. When our father came home, we went to the famous New World Amusement Park (left pictures). It wooed Malaya and Singapore night crowds in old times. Before the arrival of televisions, it attracted people from all walks of life from laborers to Europeans. Like a typical amusement park, it had merry-go-round, Ferris wheel, shooting galleries, restaurants and shops etc.
For adults (quoted from Wikipedia), there were striptease queen Rose Chan, wrestler King Kong, strongman Mat Tarzan, and boxer Felix Boy etc. For admission of 10 cents, it was quite a entertainment and it occupied a large area stretching from Besar to Serangoon Roads (see map).
Today, only a renovated New World gate is situated along the Serangoon road in which a large district (near Bukit Timah road, a major road to get to Johor) is designated to call Little India, a famous tourist destination (left picture). One can see the colorful street decorations of their annual celebration of Hindu Deepavali festival in the picture.
In 2019, we made a family trip to Singapore and had our dinner on banana leaves at a restaurant in Little India. Many Hindu temples were built along the Serangoon Road by Tamil people originally of southern India. Every year, they had grand scale Thaipusam procession along the road and I remember watching one which was quite incredible. The biggest Thaipusam celebration is held at the Batu (Stone) Cave Hindu shrines in Kuala Lumpur where we had also visited.
I remember the Clifford Pier (left picture, Chinese called it Red Lamp Pier) was a busy landing and departure port. At nights the carpark transformed into a hawker center popular with musicians and revelers. We were always excited to eat there and watch the ships on Singapore Straits.
In 1994, a huge landfill was created over the sea in front of the Clifford Pier (presently becomes a restaurant or venue to serve versatile events) and formed the shore profile of Marina Bay that we see today. The well-known Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Gardens by the Bay are built on it.
We probably had also gone to Happy World Park (left picture, 1 of 3 popular amusement parks to be described in next chapter), located in the east of Kallang district where we also lived and shopped. The sign at the gate of the Happy World said, "Long Live The King", so the picture must have been taken before the Queen was crowned in 1953.
I remember my step-Mom took me to visit a medical doctor for my kidney illness. The doctor’s advice, printed firmly in my mind, is not to exercise too much. I didn’t play ball games or sport tracks in JB schools, however, I joined boy scouts and became a King Scout (though it was a queen in England during that time) and a scout leader. This scouting made me away from home many times.
When we met our step mother first time in Singapore, we called her Ah Sham (Auntie in Cantonese, used for the wife of younger uncle or someone not related). It ended up all her daughters by both marriages also called her this name. The next generation, the daughters of my brother called her Maa-Maa (paternal Grandma in Cantonese), called our birth mother Pou-Pou (maternal Grandma typically) and our father Ye-Ye (paternal Grandpa typically). Our grandkids simply call us Pou-Pou and Gong-Gong.
My first half-sister (now living in San Francisco) was born here and was a baby when we arrived. Left picture was taken much later in time because we don't have pictures from this period of time.
Lately we thought about it, our step mother grew up in a very rich family at Jementah (see maps in previous “Edge of the Jungle”) such that they could afford her to go to school. Maybe she was quite spoiled in her childhood before her father lost their fortune. The sawmill company next to her father's house used to belong to them. Every time she went home to give money to her father made her very angry.
She was absolutely a boss to all the workers in my father's company. We called her "Old Government" (in Chinese) at her back and call our father "Old Sultan" (a person at high position with no power). All younger members in our household used these names all the time. I think she was aware of it but didn't care.
The story of the origin of the name of Jementah is a logger called Jem who was keeping cutting trees. People asked him when he would finish and he answered, “entah” (in Malay it means I don’t know). So they called this place “Jementah”, where I had good memory in going to the river in the jungle with my step-cousin.
I remember one time when he came to Johor Bahru (see later writeups), he tried to catch a crab and had to sit on sea floor for half an hour because his finger was being clamped by the crab. It would be real hurt if he moved. The daughters of our step-Mom became our step sisters and one of them was in our family gathering in our 2019 Singapore trip.
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