Memories (and Records) of My Childhood, Boyhood and Young Adulthood At Tasek Utara Estate

On My Early Peaceful Life

At Tasek Utara Estate

In Singapore: 1953-1972


I was born in postwar Singapore on 30 July 1953 at 9:15 A.M. at Merry Maternity Home in Geylang Road. My parents were married during the Japanese Occupation in Singapore during World War II. By the time I was born, my Hokkien- and Cantonese-speaking mother was already 36 years old--a "British Subject" in those pre-Independence colonial days. So was my father, who was a year older than my mother. He worked for the British colonial administration as a Customs Revenue Officer until his retirement in 1969.

At the time I was born, we were living in Tiong Bahru Road. After my birth, my family moved into a 3-room rented flat, built by the old Singapore Improvement Trust, at Tasek Utara Estate, where I lived for the next 27 years (from 1953 to 1980). I had many fond memories of my years at this beautiful, peaceful estate, which was bounded by Norfolk Road, Cambridge Road and Owen Road. We had many interesting, friendly and ordinary folks as our neighbours in those days.

I began schooling in 1960 at Norfolk Primary School. I was a very quiet student, who didn't play or mix with my fellow students but usually keep to myself. I spent my primary school years studying and playing with my 2 younger brothers, my elder sister and my nephews and nieces. I also listened regularly to Rediffusion Singapore and watched both Chinese-language movies from Hong Kong, Japanese movies and English-language movies from Hollywood and the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Television soon came onto the scene and many nights were spent watching programmes from both the English and Chinese channels.

Most of all, I soon discovered, during my spare time, the pleasures of reading books in English -- adventure stories and Nordic tales -- and popular magazines like Life, Readers' Digest and The Asia Magazine, for instance. As a Pre-University student, I would become informed about news makers and world events through reading regularly such Western news magazines as Time, Newsweek and The Plain Truth (published by a foreign church organization) -- as well as local newspapers like The Straits Times and The Singapore Herald.


INTERLUDE:

A Moment of Intrusive Observation (From A Point In The Present: On A Series of Personal Acts -- Of Active, Continuous and Conscious Self-Realisation):

This self-cultivated reading habit has continued right into my adulthood, when I graduated to the reading of more serious and "deeper" subjects. For instance, I like to read the works of thinkers and writers from the Renaissance and the Enlightenment periods in the West. And for the past 36 years or so, as I now look back at my reading experiences -- at first as a random and uncritical and unselective reader of books of all kinds and now, as a thinking and experienced Senior Citizen (having just become one a few months ago), I have, in this most significant year (2008), expanded my range and depth of reading -- into disciplines such as humanistic psychology, modern literature (especially European and American), political science, modern philosophy and modern science (and technology) -- and also into ideas, subjects and ideological/cultural/political movements such as existentialism, modernism, postmodernism, democratic socialism, globalization and modern surveillance technologies (as employed by modern governments) -- with an absolutely new discovery and realisation of how far the world has travelled, and of how different it has become now -- when compared with, or in contrast to, the world as I once knew it, back in those days while I was graciously growing up in that beautiful, peaceful place (not just of residence, no!, more than that!) -- yes, a place that I can now still remember as Tasek Utara Estate.......

We were poor but we were happy. Although my father was a British colonial government officer, he did not earn much--as he was just a minor and low-ranking employee. But he usually brought home late supper for my family every night when he returned from work. In later years, he would regularly brought back secretly smuggled Chinese-language movie magazines from Hong Kong and Taiwan for us to read. I would read with great interest, enjoyment and pleasure about the many Chinese movie personalities -- especially the beautiful female movie stars and actresses from Hong Kong.

My mother was a very hard-working housewife. She dutifully took good care of our household and of our needs without complaint. We were reasonably well-fed and well-clothed, even though we didn't spend much on our clothes or food. I was not religiously inclined or superstitious in any way but in those days, I always looked forward to all those Chinese festivals and other traditional rituals or religious celebrations or commemorative occasions (relating to historical events and human stories in traditional China) when we burnt paper money, lighted candles and joss sticks and offered food to the deities or ancestors. We had so much to eat then during such occasions!

I passed my P.S.L.E. in 1965 and joined Victoria Secondary School the next year. During the next 4 years, I became gradually and increasingly more interested in reading books that were outside the school syllabus (and borrowed from the public library) than in prescribed school textbooks. English was my best subject and my favourite classroom lesson was English Composition.

I passed my Cambridge School Certificate examination in 1969 and proceeded to enrol for pre-university education the next year (in 1970) at the same Victoria School. By the time I became a pre-university student, I had already lived through such political or national events as the Hock Lee Bus Company riot (in 1955); Legislative Assembly Elections (in 1955 and 1959); Chinese students' sit-ins and boycotting of school examinations; labour unions' strikes; the politically-motivated arrest and detention, under the ISA, of left-wing politicians (including Barisan Sosialis leader Lim Chin Siong) and professionals (including Poh Soo Kai, a medical practitioner), in Operation Cold Store (in 1963); Legislative Assembly Election (in 1963); the end of British rule and Singapore's merger with Malaysia (in 1963); Chinese-Malay race riots (in 1964); split with Malaysia and national independence (in 1965); the boycotting of Parliament in 1965 by Barisan Sosialis (BS) at a time when it had 13 MPs; Indonesian Confrontation in 1963; and Parliamentary Election (in 1968).

But during the 2 pre-university years (1970-1971), I didn't study hard. I couldn't focus and concentrate on my studies. It didn't help that for me, I realised that I was studying in the wrong stream--Science instead of the more interesting Arts. As a result, I failed miserably in my Higher School Certificate examination in 1971.

On 20 December 1971, I was drafted into the SAF as a National Serviceman for the next two-and-a-half years. Something happened to me for the first time in my life and it changed the course of my autonomous, independent, private and freedom-loving life up till then. What is the nature and cause of that momentous occurrence in my youth? I am still now trying to find the missing pieces in my puzzling life.

To return to those days in 1972 just prior to that major turning point in my life: A few months after my enlistment in the SAF, I went AWOL for a few days from my camp in SAFTI, where I was undergoing training as a potential Section Leader. I wanted, then, in my youthful naivete and budding political idealism, to protest -- in a symbolic gesture but with practical implication and moral significance -- against all the military establishments in the world (for their participation and engagement in violent and aggressive and destructive conduct -- in what I perceived then as pointless wars and futile conflicts). I had protested -- and made my point. Whether or not others understood what I was trying to prove, to demonstrate, to indicate and to express -- in that youthful, naive and idealistic way of mine in those days of (what I can now clearly see as) understandable ignorance, of inexperience, of immaturity and of the sheer lack of exposure to the many events, happenings and, in general, realities that have had, since those early days, informed and counselled my adult mind.

I surrrendered myself to the camp authorities in SAFTI after 2 days of thoughtful wanderings and was warded at the Medical Centre for observation.

NOTE:

It was while I was there as a patient that I discovered, for the first time in my life up to that stage, that I was being placed under governmental surveillance (for my alleged "subversive" behaviour and activity as an anti-military personnel purportedly engaging in subverting the SAF)! Henceforth, I became a resistant and anti-government citizen. That was the major turning point in my life, and the beginning of my "imprisonment" -- having lost my autonomy, freedom and independence -- as a victim of governmental surveillance. Subsequently, after I had left the SAF in June 1974, having completed two-and-a-half years of National Service, I became determined to be freed from the controlling reins and powers of the Singapore Governmernt! I planned, to put it simply, to be an oppositionist writer and political critic.