My brother and I lived happily at Labis during 1953-55 (much more later). He actually remembers our first step-Mom was a nice person (she let us skipped school) and was probably arraged by her brother to marry our father. At old time, that was quite normal and it was good thing that she ran away.
Ironically, our 2nd step-Mom was her sister-in-law. Even she had a very bad temper, she was the most educated among our mothers. Maybe that’s why she insisted on our going to school even in hard times. I heard she yelled at her father while visiting Jementah (will describe later), a city near the jungle in the east side of Segamat.
Above was originally written in previous chapter. Now let me continue in details. First, detailed Labis street maps are needed to make my description easier to follow (Feb.2024). I used a recent 2-D Google street map and a 2023 June (2019 and 2020 shots are in 1st and 2nd chapters) aerial shot of the completed electrified double-track railway at Labis (left pictures).
In late 1952 or early 1953, my father took us to join our first step-mother in her brother's house in a village at Labis (left map). At nights, we all slept on a long bed, including our two future step-sisters. My brother remembered that it was 20 feet and was common in old time to save space. For privacy, one could always put curtains to partition the bed.
May be there was a good reason that we were not staying in our uncle's house which was in Labis New Village and closer to downtown (see map). Not sure where my father lived, I remembered he came in some early morning after he finished the duty patrolling the perimeter at night or had dinner at the house. I remembered the chicken running under the dinner table to eat what was dropped and I went to backyard to feed them.
Very soon, our family, including our 1st step mother, moved to a shophouse on Jalan Pasar (above and below pictures). May be this was the first time I lived in downtown Labis. Most my memory is village living: kerosene oil lamps, dogs running around, chicken in backyard, fruit trees in many front yards, etc.
The best part in living here is going to the river at the end of the street (left 1st picture taken in 2011). I should had passed the open-walled market before the river but my memory is very vague on it (market picture shown in previous chapter).
I found an old 1954 picture showing exactly where I lived (left 2nd picture). Four of us lived in a room on second floor with the windows facing the front. It was on the upstairs of a coffee shop where my brother got hired and paid $10 per month. Good thing was that we got to eat there sometimes.
When the train arrived at the station, we ran out to sell some pineapple to visitors. The shophouse was at the beginning of market street and at the end is the river where we swam quite often. I remember we only went home after playing a long time at the river. We had to wait for our step-mother to cook even it was late afternoon.
Now Jalan Pasar also includes the beginning section of Jalan Tenang (said it in Google map, not sure it's true) and made it into a L-shaped street. Behind the streets were veggie gardens and fruit trees (they are gone now). We often played, did spider fighting and fought other kids at the back.
Our 1st step-mother’s older sister who was married to a son of a big timber boss also lived near the end of the market street. My brother recalled that she talked our step-mother out of running away and they were not hiding the plan from him. I only noticed that the step-mother disappeared someday.
I also found a 1950s street scene of Tenang Street viewed from the north and compared it to a 2019 Google picture (below pictures). The shophouses still look very similar in both pictures. I feel bad to see the old trees, where we did hide and seek in the evening, were cut down.
To the right of the pictures, one can go a hawker center and continue to Labis Road going out of town. Our father worried about what we would eat if he worked late in the jungle. He set up a plan with a food vendor at a hawker center that we could go there to eat and he paid them at the end of the month. Our choice of food was controlled by the vendor and we could not eat whatever we wanted. However, this period of time is a good part of my life living in Labis that I remember well.
I don’t know at what time the step-mother’s brother also moved away with his family, including our future step-mother and 2 step-sisters. Later, I found out that they moved to Pahang, a state situated in the north of Johore and they lived poorly over there. Later, according to our future step-mother, she had to rescue her daughters from their father who was a very brutal person and mistreated his daughters.
When I was in Taiwan, the younger daughter joined our family from another family (she worked like a slave according to her mother) after she was given by her father to that family. However, during a specific arranged Malaysian east coast vacation before I left for USA in 1970, she asked me to let her to privately visit her father’s tomb.
One day in 1955, our father told us that we were going to Singapore. Worried about that my only toy could be stolen, I hid it in a hole on the wall in the house (looked the same in 2011). I didn’t know that only after 56 years I would come back to it.
At Singapore, we met our new step mother and our first half-sister. Four of us lived in a apartment located in the neighborhood of Jalan Besar Stadium which was a major football stadium in the past (left pictures, only my brother recalled this). It seems like it was our step mother to have found this good location in northern Singapore (called Small-Pore by Chinese).
This living in Singapore was quite different from the time period 1950-53 when we lived with our birth mother in southern Singapore (called Big-Pore by Chinese)and was a major swift of my life style from living in a remote town of Labis near the jungle. I didn't quite remember this time period 1955-57 even I had come to a major city in Asia or even the world. I will write fully about it in my next chapter.
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