9:38 a.m. - 2007-04-11
Conversations with my mother - 28th feb 2007
28th Feb 2007.
I went to AMK central with mom. We were there because I wanted to use my $10 Polar Puffs voucher before it expired. We got several little cakes and then walked to the nearby hawker center for dinner.
On the way home, at the underpass to AMK mrt, mom met an old acquaintance from the Kampong in Bendemeer. They had a brief exchange of words about children and waistlines, a conversation punctuated by silence and tension-reducing smiles, the awkwardness of meeting unexpected people from the past.
Later on, as me and mom were waiting at the bus-stop for our bus, I asked mom about the Bendemeer Kampong.
�I didn�t know you used to live in a Kampong at Bendemeer.� (Apparently, there are a lot of things I don�t know about my mom.)
My mom replied, �Yes, I did� I grew up there� the houses were built on stilts, because we were near the sea - �
�There�s a sea in Bendemeer?�
I never recalled seeing the sea there, and even the Kallang River was several kilometers away.
�Yes, the government reclaimed all the land and built factories there, thus enabling us to work.� She said.
I found it amazing that land was reclaimed and the factories built within such a short time, a period of about 10 years, and that my mom was there then.
We got onto the crowded bus, full of Singaporeans going home, and we stood by the large windows, holding onto the horizontal hand bars as the bus moved off.
Mom continued, �I used to work in a coffee factory with your aunt last time. We had to separate the coffee seeds into 3 different categories according to their quality; we were only paid 75 cents for a day�s work. The factory was far, we�d walk there from our house, carrying a stool in our hands, for us to sit while we work, and the journey took 45 mins. And because lunch wasn�t provided, we�d walk home during lunchtime to have our meals and then walk back again. The whole thing was tiring, and after 3 days, I told your Grandma, �Ma I don�t want to work already.��
�How old were you then?� I asked.
�I was about 13 or 14 years old then. It was 1963 or 64.� She said. �I came to Singapore when I was 11.�
My grandma gave birth to my mom in 1949, Singapore, and then brought her back to live in Hainan Island, China, where she had a childhood made up of attending primary school, singing communist songs, running around the village and visiting everyone�s houses. She often told me that she was the fastest runner in primary school and during my own primary school days, my little brain reasoned that I am able to run fast too because she�s my mom.
�Your grandma and her friend, they cooked some red bean and green bean soup and went around to the construction sites, there were a lot of construction sites and workers then, and so she managed to sell her drinks. Your grandma found that she could earn quite a bit of money by doing business and so she got a license from the JTC for a hawker stall and we started selling porridge.�
That was the hawker center in the estate of factories in Bendemeer.
�The first day was funny, she didn�t put any salt in the porridge, so it was quite bland, but the customers ate it all up anyway, they added the salt and soy sauce themselves.�
�In 1972, your grandpa went to hospital because of his stomach illness, and then he died after an operation.�
�He used to work in a timber mill and he�d drink these huge cans of water,� she said and held her hands a distance apart to show me, �because it�s so hot, the heat from the weather and inside the factory.�
�Why did he come to Singapore?�
�To eke out a living loh.�
�Because selling porridge didn�t earn much, your smart Grandma started selling chicken rice in the afternoons. Your grandma cooks very tasty chicken rice, us hainanese usually sell chicken rice anyway.
Porridge is hot, isn�t filling for the stomach and takes quite a while to cool down, and the workers they had short lunch hours and they needed to eat something more filling for their stomach so they have energy to work.�
A few years later, your second aunt and me, we�d already gotten married and had your brother and your cousin sis, so Grandma switched to selling sweets, because it�s easier for her, because we had to take care of the kids, so there�s no one around to help your Grandma with the stall, she can�t possibly cook and deliver the plates at the same time, so we started selling sweets.�
I remember going to the Bendemeer sweets stall with my mom when I was about 6 years old. We had to wake up in the wee hours of the day, at about 7am when orange and pink hues were streaking the clouds in the sky. We�d take a long hour plus bus ride to the factories estate and then walk through a factory building to reach the hawker center.
Sometimes, Grandma would already be there, pushing the wooden pallet used as a door for the stall or opening the cabinet locks with a heavy bunch of keys. Grandma lived about 2km away from the stall, at Bendemeer Housing Estate, in a small one-room flat, that I remember had a bed, a fridge with weird smells, a tv set, a blackened stove and a dark bathroom.
I usually visit Grandma�s place about once or twice a week and I always wanted to go home because I was scared of Grandma�s wizened face and getting to the flat, you had to pass by long dark corridors that sometimes smelt of urine and was filled with the sounds of desolate afternoon tv shows and the whirring of rusty fans coming out from rows of small little doorways along the walls.
Of course, I feel sad now, thinking about how Grandma lived there alone.
