Recollections Starting Out from a Street (2017)
by LIN KANG
(Translated from the original in Chinese)
A street
His birthplace
Childhood home
That is, hometown
The southern part of Singapore, below the Singapore River, locals refer to as ‘Xiao Po’ [North Bridge Road and further parts to the south, the second settlement of the Chinese immigrants], as opposed to ‘Da Po’.
Street 7 of ‘Xiao Po’ (Selegie Road) used to be a two-way street.
Nowadays, it’s one-way. Vehicles no longer pass along in opposite directions—they follow the designated single direction flow of traffic.
On both sides of the road, there used to be a row of pre-war houses. Each had quite a number of double-storey units, with five-foot ways typical of Nanyang colonial architecture. The ground floor usually housed shops, while the upper level was the living quarters.
Following the direction of traffic today, the second floor of the old house on the left near the intersection with Sophia Road—that was where his childhood home, his birthplace used to be.
From the second floor going down the stairs, the doorway faced Street 7; on the left was an electrical shop. The five-foot way in front of the doorway was wider than usual, and spacious. His mother rented the space to an Indian man, who operated a small provision store. It sold everything from daily necessities to candy and popular books and magazines. The type most people simply called “Keling (Ji Ning) stall”. However, Ah Wu, the fifth son of the boss of the electrical shop, attended English school and called it “Mama/k shop,” which confused him thoroughly. Could this store be his mother’s? His mother was the owner? For sure that couldn’t be right. [Mamak means ‘brother’ in Tamil, but most non-Indians, unaware of this, would say “Mama”]
Some forty years ago, his house was demolished. His birthplace and childhood home is no longer there, replaced by a towering modern commercial and residential complex, today’s Peace Centre. Everything from the past, wiped out.
A childhood home and where one lived as a grownup are two entirely different matters.
A childhood home is one’s “hometown.” It carries the weight and authenticity of one’s roots, which cannot be replicated. So much is encompassed in it.
The demolition not only cruelly changed the street scene in this corner completely. It shattered his “hometown” and his childhood years, leaving only broken pieces, memories of the debris.
No wonder then, that as he gets older by the year, and closer to that other side, he keeps having dreams. In these dreams, he’s inexplicably plagued by anxiety and a sense of loss. Upon waking, he is left sitting on his bed for hours, unable to piece the fragments together.
Everything is in a haze. The anxiety and loss that permeate his dreams seep into his waking hours.
Take the story of his birth, for instance.
He is referring to his mother not going to the hospital; instead, a nurse from the hospital delivered him at home (apparently a common practice back then. It might well have been cheaper, but mainly, women who gave birth in the hospital were often mistreated by impatient staff).
Of course he couldn’t have known this if it had not been told to him.
When he thinks back now, it is confusing. He is not even sure if the story is about him or his younger brother, for he also remembers (of course being told) that he was so clumsy in his mother’s womb that he couldn’t turn so that his head would go down first. His feet came out, but his hands were stuck inside. Thankfully, the doctor was experienced and quickly pushed the feet back in, turned him around and used forceps to pull him out head first. If not for this, he would have put his mother and his own life in danger.
In later years, whenever his mother missed his maternal grandmother, she would tell him with a smile how much his grandmother adored him, and complained that the doctor must have applied uneven force on the forceps. She would hold him in her arms and try to massage his head back into shape. He believes this story to be true. When he looks into the mirror in the shower, his head does look somewhat misshapen. There is a faint trace of it having been ‘repaired’.
Since a doctor was present, was he born at a hospital or at home? Surely it’s unlikely that the doctor would have made a house call?
His parents, grandmother, and everyone who were actually there are gone. There’s no one left to ask. His childhood home too, the entire street and everything associated with it. How to pursue this further?
Sometimes he would share such worries with his wife. She would laugh at him for being silly and assure him that it is a normal part of aging. He should stop being preoccupied and bothered by nothing. As he couldn’t reason with her, he simply kept quiet.
How can she know? How can she ever know that he moved from that place with tears in his eyes?
He had forced himself to hold back, afraid and unwilling to cry out loud. Yet tears welled up and streamed down his cheeks. An impetuous teenage lad, he had long lost his childishness but was still full of youthful naivety. Yet he had never felt so resolute, so filled with an inexplicable sense of pride.
For a long time after moving out, he deliberately avoided that street corner even when going downtown. It was a place of sorrow, and out of sight, out of mind, he thought. Later, he returned many times. Sometimes it was on the way, but more often, a memory would be triggered, prompting him to go back for a look. What he saw became increasingly unfamiliar. His sense of loss deepened with each visit.
Now, it’s even blurred, as it invades his dreams.
Still on the street
Before the destruction were other big changes
But the feelings then were
Of joy and anticipation
His street was demolished when he was about sixteen or seventeen.
Actually major changes had taken place before that (as far as he could remember).
He was little then. To check if he remembered correctly, he went to the library to search through old newspapers, and from the microfilms, he roughly figured it out. Change had been brewing—that should be in 1957; the momentum built up with the happenings in the first half of 1958. It meant that the transformed street scene lasted for a decade before it was obliterated.
The changes in the two periods were met with completely different feelings.
That year, he was seven or eight, and had just started primary school. From the whispers among his school teachers and the heated discussions his father had with his friends visiting at home, willy-nilly he sensed that something was up.
He kept hearing everyone repeatedly mention something like “yongyuan” (forever; mis-hearing of Ong Eng Guan’s name in Chinese) and “xindong” (touch the heart), mispronouncing the word for “action”). As a child, how could he possibly know that the former was the name of an individual and the latter, the organization that person belonged to at the time.
On the way home from school, he would sometimes run into neighbourhood kids. In those days they would be playing with glass marbles, holding spider fights, or using a white clay marble to knock the other kid’s into pieces. But a new game had become popular, with everyone grabbing a broom held against the chest or lifted high, running around in groups shouting something like “Merdeka”, and declaring that they would sweep away all the bad old things into the historical garbage heap.
Thus it was that this new game spread rapidly, with children from different groups all playing it.
One day not long after, low railings were erected on both sides of the newly repaired road. Painted a vibrant green, they gleamed in the sunlight. The entire street instantly took on a fresh and lively look. Adults explained that this was to protect pedestrians from vehicles that might lose control and crash into the five-foot way.
Thus it was that on a certain Sunday megaphones blared on the main street, with instructions on how to queue for buses. Barriers were also set up in front of the bus stop, and people lined up one behind another along them to board the buses.
This never happened before, and it looked really novel.
The left window of his house faced a bus stop across the street. From then on, he would sit by the window watching as people queued to board the buses and listening to the announcements go on and on. While he and his brothers might not have grasped the meaning of the phrases, they could recite every word.
One day on his way home with his parents, his father was stopped by a group of neighbours.
“Hey, look! look!” one of them exclaimed. “Government workers can’t afford to be idle anymore.” “Just drinking tea and reading newspapers.” another neighbor chuckled.
They unfolded their newspapers to show one another the photos in their papers. The boy tiptoed to have a look. Each and every photo was of people sweeping the streets with brooms, and smiling.
The pregnant wife of the electrical appliance store owner downstairs told everyone that she had recently gone to the hospital for a checkup and had been unexpectedly well-treated. The staff was like family, surrounding her and asking how she was doing. Other women immediately joined in with similar experiences of the change from the past.
He didn’t understand what the adults were saying. But he remembered the smiles on everyone’s faces, ones of satisfaction, happiness, and pride.
When he returned to this street corner after the destruction, he would sometimes recall those scenes.
He could certainly remember how people were smiling. Smiles of satisfaction, happiness, and pride… perhaps with a certain expectation for the future, he thought.
Recollecting this, he couldn’t help but feel dejected.
Another Street
Sophia Road, another street,
No less part of his childhood home
Has faded into the mists of time, it would seem.
When they were young, his brothers, sister and he were all obedient and well-behaved. They obeyed their parents, followed the rules, and never caused trouble.
When their parents went out with them or when they were on their way home, the grown-ups would often stop and chat with their neighbours. The children would stand quietly beside their mother, perhaps holding on to her skirt. No matter how long they waited, they never made any noise. They also did not dare to wander away.
He could recall that the neighbours would sometimes glance at them and then lean over to whisper to their mother. She would object modestly, “Oh, not at all,” or “They’re naughty sometimes,” but she couldn’t hide her look of satisfaction and pride.
He so loved this look on his mother’s face.
This was the way adults were in those days. They would not praise children openly. So the neighbours and their mother spoke in low voices, but every word went straight into the children’s ears.
Sometimes his older brother would give a mischievous smile which he would return. Perhaps it was children’s sense of humor, or they felt embarrassed to hear praises they were not supposed to.
They rarely went downstairs to play with the other children. Occasionally, his older brother would take him to rent two books from the Indian man, paying him five cents. The man didn’t want to charge them, but their mother insisted, so he took five cents, the usual rent for one book.
The brothers sat on the bench at the street corner, and swapped when they finished reading their book. The Indian man never hurried them, unlike with other children.
Their home was at the junction of Street 7 and Sophia Road. The bench was on the corner of Sophia Road, that’s the other street.
This part of his childhood, his childhood home, his hometown, this part of Sophia Road too has disappeared.
His older brother and he went to the primary school at the end of Sophia Road. Their two younger brothers and younger sister too were to attend that school. They walked to and from school daily along this other street. Unlike children nowadays, he did not go to kindergarten but went directly to primary school. In primary one, he was timid. When he couldn’t see his mother’s head from the classroom window, he would cry immediately and cling to her when she came to him. It took an entire semester or half a year for him to finally let go of her.
After that, it was his older brother who took him to school. He loved to eat, and quickly spent all the pocket money that his older brother had saved on mee siam at the stall near the school entrance. When they had an argument, his brother would scold him for eating away all the pocket money. He would retort that they both ate the food.
So many things took place there.
This other street was not just another street.
The significant change on this street before the destruction took place when he was in primary five or six. He could recall returning home from school one day and noticing that low fences had been installed on both sides of the road.
The changes were a series of linked events. So was the destruction.
When he finally could bring himself to return to this corner after the destruction, he went to Sophia Road.
The small row of five or six houses that used to be at the intersection with Street 7, including the charcoal shop run by the father of the young neighbour nicknamed “Oh Tua Tao” (Black Charcoal Head)was no longer there. It’s now part of one side of Peace Centre.
Behind Peace Centre there’s now a smaller mall. It used to be a bare hill with a few wooden huts where Indian families lived. His classmates said the spiders caught there were fierce fighters, each one a ‘tock gong’.
His primary school at the end of the road was a stunning villa with a beautiful campus. Though the school is no longer there, the buildings and grounds are still standing. When he first went back, it had been leased to the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts as one of their branch campuses. On his subsequent visit, the Academy had moved; the place was vacant and desolate.
On one of his visits, he encountered a drunken man at the entrance. The man was raving, claiming that he used to be the guard there. He had lost his job all of a sudden. It’s unclear whether he was referring to the primary school or the art school. At first glance, he thought he had not seen this man before but looking at him again, the man was vaguely familiar. It’s hard to say for sure.
Many things had taken place there.
This other street, how could it be just an ‘other’, he wondered.
Someone
Big brother from that other street
Somehow
With each encounter, something major would follow.
His siblings and he rarely went downstairs and didn’t really mix with the other kids. It’s not clear why this was so, as their mother didn’t actually impose any restrictions. Their parents weren’t the type to look down on others. Perhaps the oldest brother, being a serious guy from a young age, didn’t enjoy hanging out with others. His siblings simply followed suit.
The kids downstairs weren’t completely strangers; they knew each other by sight. The group of kids here, that group there, but they didn’t know each other by name. He only knew the name of one kid, who was much older. Everyone called him “Oh Tua Tao” (Black Charcoal Head) or Ah Oh. It was not his nickname from birth; most likely someone just came up with it.
Oh Tua Tao’s father never called him by his name, just shouted “hey” or something like that. He’d usually just yell out a command.
Oh Tua Tao’s grandmother was gentle and soft- spoken. When she talked about her grandson, she would beam and refer to him as “gina yi” (“little child” in Hokkien). Like the father, she never called the child by his name. When his own grandmother visited Oh Tua Tao’s granny, she would sometimes bring him along. He noticed that the granny referred to her grandson as ‘boy-boy’. She would say things like, “Our boy-boy did this and that”.
He would not have wanted to go to the charcoal shop except that his grandmother loved him, and he would accompany her. The place was stacked with charcoal; even in the daytime, it was hard for sunlight to penetrate. If he happened to touch something, he would get dirty with charcoal dust. Perhaps that’s how Black Charcoal Head got his nickname.
But he didn’t like visiting the shop not so much because he minded the dirt. He was afraid of Oh Tua Tao’s father’s fiery temper. He was afraid that the boy would be embarrassed to be yelled at in front of him.
He and Ah Oh in fact did not know one another well. But after the incident where Ah Oh protected him, he naturally felt grateful to this big brother, his neigbbour.
The charcoal shop was diagonally across the bench where he and his brother read their rented books. From there, they often saw Oh Tua Tao returning from Chinese High School. Sometimes, without even changing out of his school uniform, he would start to stack charcoal onto a three-wheeled delivery cart parked outside the shop.
On one occasion his older brother and he went to rent books. Before he could finish half of the book he was reading, his brother was called away by a classmate. He was left by himself. He placed his brother’s on the bench and continued to be immersed in his book. When he finally realized something was wrong, the neighbourhood rascal had already taken his brother’s book and was about to run across the street.
The book had to be returned to the shopkeeper. He felt helpless, and was on the verge of tears. Then out of nowhere, Oh Tua Tao appeared and confronted the thief. Before he could say anything, Oh Tua Tao had already growled at the person.
“The book’s not yours,” he heard Ah Oh say, “And this place isn’t for you to cause trouble.”
The rascal ignored him and tried to dash across the road, but Oh Tua Tao grabbed him by the collar.
“Leave the book here. You, scram.”
The rascal hesitated, glanced to the back at him, then glared fiercely at Oh Tua Tao, dropped the book and went off. Seeing that there were two of them, the guy probably did not dare to put up a fight. Before he could even say thank you, Ah Oh had already resumed loading charcoal onto the three-wheeled cycle.
With this incident he became deeply impressed with this neighbour.
While he might be impressed by the big brother, Oh Tua Tao’s father did not stop yelling at his son, hardly ever showing a pleasant demeanour. Sometimes, when the scolding was particularly bad, he was afraid that the big brother would feel embarrassed. He could only turn his back to the charcoal shop.
There were a number of times when Oh Tua Tao would dash past when he was not looking. By the time he looked up, he could only catch a glimpse of his back. Furious at not being able to catch his son to give him a hiding, Oh Tua Tao’s father would fling down the pieces of charcoal in his hand.
A few days later, on his way to rent books he saw Oh Tua Tao going about his business as usual, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
This big brother simply attracted trouble. Each time they came across each other, it seemed that a major incident would bound to take place.
One day a few years later, his grandmother made a visit to Oh Tua Tao’s granny at the charcoal shop. When she returned, her eyes were red and swollen from crying. Apparently, she had been crying away with the granny. His own grandmother reported that Oh had offended “royalty” at school activities, was arrested by the authorities and wouls be sent back to his hometown. Oh Tua Tao’s grandmother didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t bear to leave her widowed son, but equally she couldn’t bear to leave her beloved boy-boy.
He was then already in middle school; Oh Tua Tao was enrolled at Nantah (Nanyang University). Although he had outgrown children’s books and rarely sat at the corner bench, he would pass by the charcoal shop on his way to and from school.
After that, the fiery charcoal shop owner aged overnight. He often saw the man sitting in front of his shop and staring blankly, unlike in the past when he was busy every minute. From then on, his neighbour, the big brother disappeared from his life, and was not seen again.
After that, things were happening at Nantah non-stop. One after another, students were suspended or expelled. Before that, the once highly popular “yongyuan” who had brought excitement to the people had already been caricatured as a clown for his having two wives and magazines with cartoons ridiculing him were widely displayed at the Mama/k shop. Following that, “xin dong, xin dong” faced a good number of crises.
Such memories often creep into his dreams these days. Upon his waking, they form pieces of a fragmented and elusive tragedy which included Oh Tua Tao, his neighbour, the big brother whose name he does not know, up to this day.
He was well aware that beyond a point, he would have to tell his wife about the turmoil and alienation within him. And listen to her say that everything’s fine and he shouldn’t get worked up over nothing.
Who knows, at times this might offer some solace.
This article was published in the literary supplement ‘Wenyi Cheng’ (文艺城) of Lianhe Zaobao on April 25, 2017.
Lin Kang wrote two essays on the editors’ theme of “Spiritual Musings”. Critics noted that his “1963 and The World Surrounding” (September 20, 2016) possessed the conception and structure of a story. Both essays are cross-genre writings, essays that resemble short stories.