My Contribution

I remember the days, after Edinburgh, before Hui Sing, when Amu will cook yummy porridge or fried noodles for breakfast before going to school. Gungx2 will drive me to school with him in that old colt car! Now & then I get to visit him in the staff room where I get to share his kolo mee lunch... :) I think my first year at that school was U Khoon's last year?? Boys would tend to play marbles, & girls would do hopscotch or rubber band skipping rope or the seed game (see below)

Then there's the old hawker guy outside the gate of Chung Wah No 4 school who sells belachan beehoon in little plastic bags with toothpicks to eat out of them. Since the gates were locked to keep students out, most kids had to stretch out their hands to conduct business with this old man.

Amu used to teach us games - like 'ping-pong' hand clapping games, as well as the little red seeds that we used to play games using our pinkies. Can't remember what the names of those seeds are. U Pin will probably know. Doing origami with old calender papers were fun too. (as well as used to clean up lizard's shit!) And the stash of biscuit tins underneath the stairs - salty biscuits - amu's favourite?, as well as the sweet little round ones with the multi-coloured icing on the top! Also some of our old toys were stashed there too?!

U Swee & U Khoon would yell out ebony & ivory songs when they're in the singing mood, & dad would be doing some beatles thing, on the good ol cassette player.... in front of the black & white tv! :)

Then there's the old guy on the bicycle who would sell the tau foo fah at fair park.... have to provide our own containers for that! And the ice-cream man who sells jagung & red bean ice cream flavours! Probably very unhygenic but tasty nevertheless for us kids.

Turtle eggs were a treat that we grew up with - haven't had it for ages until LAST YEAR! A. Sofia (Angela's fren) heard us mentioning it, & bought us some, which most of us ate the nite before we flew out @ U Kester's place! We wouldn't have requested it if not for the fact that she had already bought it, & someone had cooked it already! :|

The fair park house didn't have much of a garden but we enjoyed the rare leng kim, other wise known as a mini custard apple that amu had growing on a solitary skinny tree. Yummy & delicious! The australian ones are giants compared to that - but somehow I prefer the small ones I grew up with?? Memory bias? Was there soursop in the garden at one stage too??


RE the arm twister that dad mentioned - it is a genetic thing - but not due to the fall that dad took. My physio friend said that it's genetic - & some people just get it. (Dad's arm was probably bent before the accident!) Basically means that most of us Tays have more flexible joints (can't remember the medical term), hence the ability to bend it at an unusual angle. Quite ok - just need to be careful cause it's not just the arm/elbow. It's the whole body. This physio friend checked my wrist joints & said it's more flexible than normal people. Also people who have this 'ability', can have their arm/shoulder easily dislocated just by being pulled/yanked upwards by someone using both hands under the armpit. So moral of the story: it's a tay gene that characterises who we are! :) And as we all get older, need to make sure that we keep up our strength & resistance training. So roll out those party tricks!

Going to sleep now - will add more when I think of something next.

Zoe