Do You Want S$11,600? While Frannxis was shocked with his recent experience with a bank, I was elated. No, I am not 幸灾乐祸 (gloating over someone else's misfortune). You see, yesterday I received 3 signed cheques from UOB - one for S$7,000.00 and two for $2,300.00 - making a total of $11,600. I just can't believe my luck! Nobody has ever given me so much money before.Make no mistake, the cheques are not specimens; they are real. They come with the banks' authorised signatures. I was really tempted to bank them into my account until I read the accompanying letter properly:"Transfer your outstanding balances... to us... or get cash drawn... at this special rate of 2.88% p.a. for 6 months by banking in the cheques into your non-UOB account... The prevailing interest rate will apply thereafter."Phew, lucky thing I know English... and a bit of Maths. ;)With such easy credit available, it is little wonder why the number of bankruptcy cases is rising in Singapore. How Singapore Got Its Name Since today is our National Day, it is appropriate to blog about our country.The following passage about the origin of our country's name is extracted from a Wikipedia entry on the Asiatic Lion:"The island nation of Singapore (Singapura) derives its name from the Malay words singa (lion) and pura (city), which in turn is from the Sanskrit िंसह siṃha and पुर pura. According to the Malay Annals, this name was given by a 14th century Sumatran Malay prince named Sang Nila Utama, who, on alighting the island after a thunderstorm, spotted an auspicious beast on shore that his chief minister identified as a lion (Asiatic Lion). Recent studies of Singapore indicate that lions have never lived there, and the beast seen by Sang Nila Utama was likely a tiger."Indeed, in the movie Saint Jack which I blogged about in my last post, the lead actor Jack Flowers (played by Ben Gazzara) was heard telling his friend William Leigh (played by Denholm Elliot) a similar story about the Lion City. Jack ended the story with the following statements: "The dummy couldn't tell a tiger from a lion. So what can you expect? A place that got started like that?"My reply to Jack would be: "Well we didn't expect a lot but our country has certainly come a long way from where we started. Luckily we didn't call our country "Tiger City". If we had, it might have been added to the long list of outstanding contentious issues that we have yet to iron out with our nearest neighbour. (In case you didn't know, its national symbol is the tiger.)Nowadays, even our primary school children know the difference between a tiger and a lion. However, when asked questions about our history and our national flag, some of them gave rather amusing answers. (The following questions and answers appeared in the Jul/Aug 08 issue of the Spring magazine which is published by the Northeast CDC. Portions enclosed within [ ] are my own tongue-in-cheek comments.)Q: Why is Singapore called Singapore?A1: Because Sir Stamford Raffles named it that way. A2: Because there was this man from somewhere and he came and he named Singapore "Singapore".Q: Who is Sang Nila Utama?A: I think he is the man who escaped prison.[Hello, I know it's a hot topic but does his name sound anything like "Mas Selamat"? There's a difference between a prince and a prisoner, ok? Is it really harder to tell them apart than for a tiger and a lion?]Q: Why is Sir Stamford Raffles considered Singapore's founding father?A1: Because he found Singapore.A2: Because he liked to travel from country to country.A3: Because he is a European man.Q: Why is the National Flag red and white, with five stars and one crescent?A1: Because they represent something.A2: Because red is for good luck. There are five stars for five working days. And because the cresent looks like a banana.A3: The five stars represent the five races.[Hey, "foreigners" is not considered a race, hor?]Alright, I understand that children can get away with almost any thing and that they, unlike adults and princes, should be quickly and easily forgiven.For the record, the right answer for the last question is:Red symbolises universal brotherhood and the equality of man, while white signifies purity and virtue. The crescent moon represents the rise of a young nation and the five stars stand for the nation's ideals of democracy, peace, progress, justice and equality.Happy 43rd National Day, Singapore! Second 2nd-Shot - North Boat Quay In 1979 And Now This is my second attempt at a "2nd-shot". (The first one is in the last post.) I hope that you find this effort a better one.I have blogged about North Boat Quay here before (although at that time, I mistakenly called it Clarke Quay).The following 2 photos show the same view of the Singapore River from Read Bridge. The first one is a video-grab from the movie Saint Jack which was filmed entirely in Singapore in 1979. (Chun See blogged about the movie here.)As you can see, before the 80s, Singapore River had a lot of bumboats. These bumboats carried all sorts of goods - rice, flour, beans, copra, coffee, sugar and other dried goods. The goods would be unloaded from the bumboats typically by Chinese bare-bodied coolies. Each coolie usually had a towel hung around his neck for two purposes - one was to wipe off perspiration - unloading 100-kati sacks is certainly hard labour in Singapore's hot and humid weather. In fact the word "coolie" came from the Chinese words "ku li" (苦力) which mean "hard labour". Do you know what is the second purpose for the towel? (The answer will be revealed by next weekend.)The bumboat would be moored next to the river bank. Two long planks, each about 10-foot long and 6-inch wide would be placed side-by-side in such a way that they span the gap between the bumboat and the river bank. The coolie would walk skillfully over these planks to get to the boat, lift a heavy sack onto his shoulder and then walk back over the planks to the bank again. You could see the planks bending and vibrating more when the coolie was carrying a heavy load.In the early 80s, I used to stay overnight quite often at a very good friend's house which was one of the old houses you see on the left of the photo. During those days, one of the coffeeshops in the row of old houses on the left sold very good bak chor mee (minced pork mee).Many things have changed since then. Comparing the 2 photos, it should be quite obvious to you that the old buildings have mostly been rebuilt. (So much for the conservation of our old buildings.) The fact is that our nation has undergone many changes in its landscape in just under 30 years. And it is not only on the banks of the Singapore River that you see renewal and development - you see them everywhere on this tiny island. But just from the second shot, you can tell that there are many more buildings in the background now. In 1979, you could only see Hill Street Police Station (now MITA Building) and Peninsula Hotel. Today, you could also see (from left) Raffles City Tower, Excelsior Hotel, Peninsula Plaza, Swissotel the Stamford (the tallest building in the photo and formerly known as Westin Stamford), The Treasury, 3 of Suntec City's 5 towers, among other buildings.I am not going to do a review of Saint Jack as you can read very good reviews of the film on the Internet, one of them here.Update on 5 Aug 2008:Two of my readers seem confused over the names and locations of Clarke Quay and North Boat Quay. Perhaps a map of this area from my 1963 "Singapore Guide And Street Directory" will help clear up this confusion. (Unlike the buildings, the roads in this area and their names have largely remained unchanged till this day.)The road in front of row of houses on the left of the photo is highlighted in yellow in the map - it is North Boat Quay. The camera was on Read Bridge and its lens was pointing in the direction of the red arrow. Clarke Quay is on the left hand side of the map while Boat Quay is on the other side of the Singapore River.Update on 6 Aug 2008:Here is another shot of the bumboats on the Singapore River. Judging from the view - Asia Insurance Building in the background - the photo was probably taken from Elgin Bridge in a south-easterly direction. It looks like an image on an old postcard. I got the image from a (mass?) email sent by a friend some time ago.Hmm... maybe this will be my third 2nd-shot? :) Behind Capitol Building - Through The Years I got the idea for this post from Icemoon.I have no idea whether Icemoon is a gentleman or a lady. With a gender-neutral nick like "Icemoon", it could be either. However, from the highly investigative and analytical style which the blog is written in, I believe that Icemoon is very likely to be a man. Call me sexist if you like but implicit in that statement is that I think men are naturally better investigators and analysts. You may agree or disagree with me but I think that a man is better in reasoning and logic. (Here, I am using the same reasoning and logic to guess Icemoon's gender.) So I shall assume that Icemoon is a gentleman unless someone produces irrefutable evidence to prove that I am wrong.Icemoon calls his blog "Second Shot - Same Place Just Different Time". In some of his posts, like this one, he uses the following technique (in his own words) - "find a source, scout the location today and snap the second shot". He even has a name for it - "precision heritage photography".The effect that he created is absolutely stunning, I must say. The 2 photos in the post were of the same scene but taken more than 60 years apart! They look so similar and yet so different. Very clever.Inspired by what Icemoon has done, I am trying my hand at "precision heritage photography". I took a photo of Capitol Building today from a similar angle as that of the two photos (taken in the 1950s and 1960s) in my earlier post, and here are the results:I am sorry if my photo is not as precise as it should have been - I am a newbie and this is my maiden effort after all. (Pardon me for using the word "maiden" although I am a man but hey, that's a saying which I can't change, can I? :p)Anyway, the point is that you could see that everything behind Capitol Building has changed throughout the years. The tall building in the last photo is Peninsula Plaza. The shorter building behind it is Peninsula Hotel/Shopping Centre and further behind is Funan Centre (a famous computer and IT hub) and The Treasury. Even the trees have grown quite a bit and the one on the right is obscuring part of the Capitol Building.If the Capitol Building were to be torn down, then it would not be an exaggeration to say that this place would be totally unrecognisable. My Second Book This post is about a month late but still, it's better late than never. The book I co-wrote with Wee Kiat (main author) and Noel has finally rolled off the press.I blogged about the book before here and if you are interested, you can read the e-copy of the whole book starting from this page.The cover of the book is in purple. I think it's more refreshing than the maroon colour of the previous book, don't you think?Oh yes, you can also read the e-copy of the previous book starting from this page. Those Who Know Buy National Singapore's National Day is around the corner and I am reminded of a tagline "Those Who Know Buy National". No, that's not a call for you to be patriotic during National Day. (Shouldn't you be patriotic every day?)National was a very popular brand of electrical products in Singapore from the late 1950s till 2003 when the brand name was changed to Panasonic. Did you know that the tagline for National used to be "Those Who Know Buy National"? (Now it's "Panasonic Ideas For Life".)The following information about the history of the National brand name was obtained from the company's website:The company that started the National brand name in 1927 is Matsushita Electric, Japan. The brand became a very popular household name in Japan as well as in overseas markets. The new brand name Panasonic was first introduced in 1961 in the US where the National brand name had been registered by others and therefore, could not be used. The company started using the new brand name in Europe in 1979 and in other regions in the late 80s for products other than home appliances for which the National brand name continued to be used. The brand name for all home appliance products in Southeast Asia (including Singapore), the Middle East and China were changed to Panasonic by the end of March 2004. The National brand will, however, continue to be used in Japan where the brand was originally born.I remember my family bought our first electric rice cooker in the 1960s. It was a National, of course, and it looked like this:The rice cooker was the first National product to be introduced in Singapore in 1958. The inner pot was made of aluminium and was not teflon-coated. (Teflon probably had not been invented then.) There was also no inner lid but there was a 4-inch concave (or convex, if you look from inside) piece of glass in the centre of the lid. If you had nothing better to do, you could look through the glass and watch the rice bubbling beneath. (I don't know why we kids liked to do that then. Isn't it just about as exciting as watching paint dry?)The lid had a plastic black-and-white handle. This handle cracked up quite often (maybe due to the heat) and had to be replaced. Luckily, you could find many neighbourhood shops selling spare handles and it was easy to replace the handle yourself.There was also a prominent landmark along North Bridge Road, just behind Capitol Theatre where a car park now stands. I could see it from the balcony of my 4-storey SIT flat in Cheng Yan Place every night. From where I was looking, it was located just behind the Empress Hotel at the Middle Road and Victoria Street junction.Circa 1950s - The steel structure was not erected yetCirca 1960s - The prominent structure behind Capitol Theatre was upAn aerial view of the structure from Empress PlaceA closer view of the structure in 1965- the tagline "Those Who Know Buy National" is visible. (Photo courtesy of Peter Chan.)It was almost a 10-storey tall steel structure which was lighted up with red and white neon lights at night. (Hmm... was that by sheer coincidence? Those are also the colours of our national flag.) At night, the National red neon logo looked very prominent against the white vertical sweeping neon lights. It was indeed a powerful and attractive advertising structure.The National signboard at night. What's not obvious from this photo are the vertical sweeping neon lights of the signboard which I remember very distinctly. (Photo courtesy of Peter Chan.)Now I bet readers below 30 years' old didn't know that the steel structure once existed.I can't remember this but according to my friend Peter Chan, at the bottom of the steel structure was a National showroom. Peter said that steel structure and showroom was torn down in the mid-1970s.A National advertisement in the newspaper at that time using the same tagline. (Hagemeyer was the local agent for National products.) The 2 products in the picture - a transistor radio and an open-reel tape recorder - are now considered as collectible items, if not antiques.Peter said that the showroom also exhibited black-and-white TVs. (TV was introduced in Singapore in 1963.) Every weekend, the showroom would be crowded - people turned up to watch free TV because not many could afford to buy one. The typical TV at that time looked like this one:Our nation certainly has come a long way since then. Now our nationals not only watch Nationals but dozens of other TV brands as well. We even have a true national brand for electrical products now - Akira. The tagline of Akira to Singaporeans could well have been "Those who know buy national". But instead, its tagline is "Akira makes life better".Happy 43rd National Day, Singapore! Another One Bites The Dust I just read an article in yesterday.sg about the destruction of an old landmark in Tiong Bahru. (The original article appears on Tiong Bahru Estate blog and is about the destruction of the red gourd burner in Tiong Bahru estate.)Oh soooo sad... sob, sob.In the article, Noel laments:"Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be any pictures of the red gourd burner before it was destroyed. Perhaps someone has an image that can be shared on yesterday.sg or the Tiong Bahru Estate Blog?"Well, fret not, Noel. I have had the foresight of taking a photo of the burner in January last year. Here it is:Another old Singapore landmark that will soon disappear is The New 7th Storey Hotel. (The word "new" in the hotel's name is actually quite a misnomer - the hotel is 55-year-old as it was built in 1953. Even the order "7th" is inaccurate - I will tell you why later.) It has just been announced that the hotel will make way for a Downtown Line MRT station. According to the Land Transport Authority, the owner and occupants of the hotel, who will have to move out of the building by end December, will receive "compensation pegged at market value". (Note, not "nostalgic value" hor.)So you (not just Noel) better go take some good photos of the hotel before it disappears from our island forever. I have already done so. (Please see photos below.) And if someone asks me for the photos again, I am going to charge. :pThe hotel was the tallest building around that area at that time. I counted the number of storeys - there seems to be 8. Hmm... can you count again for me? According to the hotel's website here, it actually has 9 storeys. Oh dear, now we are short of one, unless you count the rooftop as well.Ah okay, if you look at the backside (pardon the language), it indeed has 9 storeys.And if you peep at the right side of the backside, a very exciting feature is revealed - a quaint and retro-looking spiral staircase!The very inviting hotel entrance.An even more inviting restaurant entrance. Hmm... does anyone know if Ban Leong & Co was the original owner of the hotel?Inside the restaurant. Erm... why there were no diners present was because it was...10.40 in the morning lah. (A clock frozen in time, just like the hotel. Haha.)The very warm receptionist. (No, not that he's feeling warm - the hotel is air-conditioned.)They are also computerised and even have BIG LCD screens that obscure faces.The last surviving cage-lift in Singapore but it would soon be gone too.Isn't the hotel cute? Instead of just taking photos, it would be even better if you could stay a few nights in the hotel. I bet you'll never ever have the chance again to have the same experience after this December.Footnote about blog title:Another One Bites The Dust is the title of a 1980 funk-rock hit song by British rock band Queen which you don't expect people of my age to know. But hey, I do. ;) You can refer to the song's lyrics here. Rediffusion I don't know how many of you read the bilingual tabloid called My Paper. I always try to get a copy each of Today and My Paper every weekday morning. As many of you know, they are given out free. As they say, you don't get many free things these days anymore, other than the air that you breathe. So enjoy it while it lasts, alright?And should copies run out before you could get hold of them (as they always do), you can still read them here - Today and My Paper.The 1st July 2008 edition of My Paper carried a nostalgic article on Rediffusion. Reproduced below is the English portion of that feature:64-year-old Liew Kim Foong has a 40-year long lasting relationship with one of the oldest broadcasters in Singapore, which is Rediffusion.As Rediffusion celebrates its 60th anniversary with an upgrade to Digital Audio Broadcasting + (DAB+) service, offering better sound quality and 13 more channels, My Paper spoke to long time subscriber, Madam Liew, who shared with us fond memories of her life with Singapore's only subscription-based cable radio.She was introduced to its broadcast when she married in 1967, and had to visit her in-laws daily. "There was a Rediffusion set at my mother-in-law's house and it was never switched off."Dialect programs spanning from Chinese operas to tales narrated by famous storytellers Lee Dai Sor and Ong Toh, soon became her favourites.In its heyday of the 1970s, Rediffusion had 100,000 subscribers. However, moving into the 1980s, Rediffusion faced a ban on dialect programs, and coupled with the loss of the privilege to wire up new and upgraded HDB flats, its subscriber numbers dwindled to the current 10,000.Though Madam Liew and family had remained loyal listeners throughout these years, Liew's married children admitted that they have not subscribed to Rediffusion in their own homes. "The PC is a much more powerful source of entertainment," said her youngest son.Moving forward, CEO of Rediffusion, Leong Kwok Seng has plans to attract more young subscribers below the age of 45."Rediffusion has a very unique branding that means a lot to Singaporeans. We hope to maintain its legacy." You can refer to the photos and the Chinese portion of the article in the PDF files here and also here. (There are several nice photos showing how the Rediffusion "speaker box" has transformed over the years, from 1950s to date. Definitely worth a look.)1950sAs for me, my parents were subscribers of Rediffusion even before I was born (in 1956). When we moved into our new flat in Haig Road in the mid-70s, we stopped subscribing to Rediffusion altogether because there was no line available there.You can read other articles about Rediffusion in this blog via the following links:1. I Remember Rediffusion2. "Grandfathers Telling Stories"3. Big Fool Lee Before The Multiplex The New Paper on Sunday 29 June 2008This nostalgic article appeared in the New Paper on 29 June 2008. It was written by Elysa Chen (elysac@sph.com.sg). I am posting it here as it has very good nostalgic, entertainment and information values. There are many details related by the 3 senior gentlemen which I didn't even know. But then again, what do you expect - I am decades younger than any one of them.Memory lane: Mr Lee Kip Lee, Mr Narayanan Narayanan andMr William Gwee, looking at a folder of cinema programmesthat Mr Gwee had collected over the years.Three movie fans recall when cinemas didn't even have air-conThe seats were bug-ridden, there was no aircon, no system for seating, and you had to sing the national anthem at the end of it.Yet retiree William Gwee would give anything to watch a movie in the cinema of yore.The man was so in love with movies that he even jotted down notes on the shows he had watched in a notebook.The 74-year-old former senior pharmacist recalled: "The cinemas last time were dirty. There was litter everywhere and the screens are much smaller than what we have now."But I still prefer going to the cinemas in the past. We were young, and so noisy, we knew the life stories of the actors and actresses. They would appear in almost every other movie. Stars today do not appear in as many movies as before."Mr Gwee's sudden rush of nostalgia did not come out of nowhere.Last week, it was reported that Capitol Theatre, one of Singapore's earliest cinemas, was earmarked for development.The report drew a response from fellow movie buff Lee Kip Lee, 86, who wrote to the Straits Times Forum page pointing out that there were other cinemas that came before Capitol.He also wrote about what it was like to catch a movie during Singapore's pre-war years.To get a better picture of the cinema-going experience before Internet booking, fresh popcorn and air-conditioning came along, The New Paper on Sunday invited Mr Lee, Mr Gwee, and their friend Mr Narayanan Narayanan, to reminisce about their days as students catching an afternoon matinee.Picture courtesy of NAS - Alhambra Theatre on Beach Road circa 1950ST file picture - Marlborough Theatre: On Beach RoadMr Lee, a former businessman, said that there were three earlier cinemas: the Pavilion on Orchard Road, the Alhambra and the adjoining Marlborough Theatre on Beach Road.ST file picture - Black tie: A charity event at Pavilion CinemaThe Earliest CinemaMr Lee said: "The earliest cinema I can remember is the Paladium. It was renamed the Pavilion. I lived on Emerald Hill, so it was quite near my home."The Alhambra and the theatre next to it, the Marlborough, were on Beach Road. At the back was the sea."According to the Book of Singapore's Firsts, by Kay Gillis and Kevin Tan, the first cinema was the Paris Cinema built in 1903 by an Indian jewellery company at Victoria Street.Mr Narayanan, 80, a former share broker, said: "There were two main cinema groups pre-war: Cathay and Shaw. When Shaw. When Shaw first started out, the brothers Runme and Run Run Shaw came with just a projector from Shanghai. They operated a travelling cinema, and went around the estates, where they would draw crowds of 100 to 200 people."After that, came the Roxy at East Coast Road, Mr Gwee said, where it cost 40 cents for a seat in the first few rows, and 80 cents for the middle rows.There would be a "mad rush for tickets" the moment the box office opened, he said, but he had a way of securing his tickets for a movie, decades before there was Internet booking.He said: "My friends and I knew the ticket seller at Roxy. So half of the tickets would be in our possession even before the box office opened! We would then sell the tickets on the black market for 60 cents each, instead of 40 cents."Mr Gwee also had tricks up his sleeve to make sure they got the best seats in the house.He said with a mischievous smile: "They didn't have numbers for the seats then, so we would reserve seats for our friends using our handkerchiefs.""Once we saw a pretty girl coming along, we would untie the handkerchief and ask her to join us."Sex MoviesIn the 1950s, Mr Gwee recalled, there were a few "sex movies" that were screened. One of them, he said, was titled Sins Of Our Fathers.There was an uproar, Mr Gwee said, and the prefects of catholic schools such as St Joseph's Institution, Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus and the then St Anthony's Boys' School were even stationed at the cinemas to catch students who wanted to watch the films.He added: "A group of us went to Capitol to watch the film, but despite its mystifying title, it turned out to be nothing. It was actually more educational than pornographic."The censors would also include a notice at the beginning of each film, telling moviegoers how long a movie would last. A two-hour movie would usually have around 10,000 feet (about 3km) of film.But it has been "a long time" since the three of them have seen a movie because they can now watch television shows.Mr Narayana explained: "Previously, we had to go to the cinema halls for our entertainment. Today, our living rooms have become our cinema theatre, especially with all those huge screens now available."Going out just does not appeal to me as much as it did during my younger days."Bug bites and Mickey Mouse ClubIf you thought finding leftover popcorn scattered on your cinema seat was bad, think again.Mr Narayanan Narayanan said: "When you went to the movies those times, you would have to get ready to come back with bug bites, because the seats were wooden."An animated Mr William Gwee added that before sitting down, if you "ketok" the chair (and here, he makes a motion of raising a chair and knocking its legs), bugs would fall out.Mr Lee Kip Lee said: "They would also show news clips before the movie, and at the end of the show, everyone had to stand to attention as the national anthem, God Save the King - because it was still the King then - was played."Mr Gwee said he went to watch Tamil movies because Western movies were not screened during the Japanese Occupation: "I liked watching the Indian movies because you could see the hero fighting 20 villains at the same time, while talking to the girl he was saving."Tamil StarsThese movies were so popular, Mr Gwee said, that children would imitate the Tamil stars.Going to the movies was also a good way for boys to meet girls, Mr Gwee said.The cinemas started a "Mickey Mouse Club" in the 1930s to attract students. The club would not only offer tickets at special prices to its members, it would also organise picnics and outings, and screen free cartoon shows once a month."Times have changed, but it was not easy for boys to meet girls then. So, we would go to these activities to meet girls," Mr Gwee said with a chuckle.Mr Gwee said: "There would be intervals during the movie, because the film would 'burst' (stop), and they would have to put in the next reel of film."When this happened, everybody would whistle and go 'Boooo'." What Kind Of Insect Is This? No, I am not scolding the people involved in the recent illegal kidney transplant fiasco. Neither am I admonishing the alleged 26-year-old killer of the aged transvestite nor the wife of the Slipperman who was alleged to have fatally knifed her brother-in-law and critically injured his wife during a violent argument. I am referring to a real insect.Today in the New Paper, there is a feature on Mt Pleasant colonial bungalows which are popular among expatriates. One British national who has been living in there for two years remarked， "I absolutely love it - the space, the house, the garden and especially the wildlife... This place is close to nature; we get monkeys, monitor lizards, skinks (small, shiny lizards) and even snakes here, and it's lovely."I guess there must have been insects as well. This monstrous one was found dead in Peter Chan's house, although Peter lived no where near Mt Pleasant:Peter found it dead inside the house during the day. It must have come in through the window because it was found below it. The insect's body was about 2-inch long while its wing-span was about 4-inch. It had a huge thorax, at least half-inch in height and its backside had yellow stripes on black.Do you know what insect is this? This is a quiz for which I don't know the answer. I must confess that I have never seen anything like this before, not even in Sentosa Butterfly Park and Insect Kingdom. Maybe my entomology-trained friends Walter and Sivasothi can? Hurry, identify it before someone else does! Fighting Spiders I wrote this post to provide some answers for Mr Andrew Ngin, a scriptwriter currently working on an upcoming drama about friendship amongst 3 boys who lived through the 60s. Andrew studied at the same secondary school as I but is 8 years my junior. As he is doing some research on spiders, he left a comment here and there, asking several questions about spiders.Q1. Did you catch any spiders back in the 1960sA: Although I have never played with or caught any spider in my childhood before, I have seen my neighbours' kids play with them before. Below is a brief description of a typical spider fight. I also did some research for you by googling and also asked a self-proclaimed "spider expert" called Moo. (I call that "moogling". Haha.)The spider owner, usually a boy, will house a lone spider in an Elastoplast box. It is a rather flat (about 1 cm thick) rectangular metal box that is red in colour. (Elastoplast, as you probably know, is a brand of plaster or self-adhesive bandage as you would call it now. This brand may still be available today but the packaging is probably different.)The boy will put a leaf or two in the box, probably to make the spider feel "at home". It also gives the spider some places to hide.For boys with in-born gambling instinct, they will wage bets on a spider fight. The stake could be anything from a 10-cent ice ball for poor kids like me or up to a dollar or two for well-to-do kids.When it is fighting time, the outside surface of the closed box will be the fighting arena. One kid will hold the box with one hand while another spider belonging to another kid will be placed on the same box. The 2 spiders soon see each other because the space on the box is quite limited and each spider has several eyes to see with, so it's hard to miss an opponent.They will then face each other and start their "fighting dance" routine. Both will hold out their arms and move from side to side. They will make contact every now and then.After a few minutes, the winner and loser will have been decided. The loser will run frantically around the box with the winner chasing close behind it. That's when you know that the fight has ended and it's also time for the winning owner to chase the loser frantically round the block for payment. ;)There are usually no fatalities but sometimes injuries are sustained. Although a spider is too small to be examined for minor injuries and it doesn't bleed red blood, you can certainly tell when an arm or two have fallen off and the spider is limping.Fighting spiders are usually male. If a male meets a female, they will probably not fight but do the other "f" thing, quite naturally. Fraternising that is, what were you thinking?According to this website, females also fight each other, but "the combat does not show the same degree of vigour as in the male-to-male fray". They probably just pull at each other's hair.Q2. What were the best methods and techniques you used in catching them?A: According to this website, "the spider builds a nest by binding two leaves together with vertical strands of silk, perpendicular to the leaf surfaces". So look for leaves that are stuck together, peel them open slowly and be ready to catch any escaping spider.Q3. Where did you find them in Singapore?A3. Certainly not in city areas where I live. Maybe in countryside kampongs like Lorong Kinchir.Q4. What do you feed them with?Any small live insects that are made half-dead by a little squishing with our fingers. Click here for more information from a real spider expert on how to properly rear spiders.(Moo says that you also have to cater to their sexual needs, i.e. catch a sexy female spider and let it spend some quality time with your top-ranking fighter. If you are lucky, you may be blessed with hordes of baby fighters. If you care for your prized spider properly, it will live happily for several months and die not in battle but from old age.)Q5. What were they called?Thiania bhamoensis of the Salticidae family... Oh you mean the colloquial name? I heard one species was called Orh Pao (Hokkien for "black panther".)Q6. Do you know anyone who was/is a spider expert?Yes, more than one. Besides the real expert Mr Joseph K H Koh, there is the self-proclaimed one, Mr Moo. If you would like to interview Mr Moo, please let me know how I can contact you. (If you would rather interview the real expert, I will see what I can do.)There, I hope I have answered all your questions satisfactorily, Andrew. In return, I would like to ask you just one:Do we get to have our names mentioned in the film's credits as "spider consultants"? The Mama Shop (3) A 1962 Mama Shop - Photo Courtesy of the National Archives of SingaporeThe Mama Shop story continues with items that the mama shop sold half a century ago which you could still get today. Believe it or not, some of the items are still sold under the same brand names!1. Hacks sweets. (Known as "cough drops" then). There were 2 flavours - the regular type (those in the left bottle in the photo below) and the lemon type (you can see them partially in the third bottle on the right). Five cents could buy you 2 sweets - you could choose to have one of each flavour. As you can see, my neighbourhood provision shop is now selling 5 of them for 20 cents - not a very hefty price increase after more than 40 years, I must say.Hudsons cough drops were also available then at the same price. These mostly came in red wrappers and were strawberry-flavoured. Hacks and Hudsons were a bit too minty for my liking. Of course, there were also other mint sweets - those that looked like a miniature block of ice in shape and form. I also fondly remember the oval-shaped milky-mint sweets that were beige in colour. They came in transparent plastic wrappers and were one of my favourite sweets.2. Pon-Pon cuttlefish. (Now you could only get Ken-Ken cuttlefish. However, the wrapping still looks similar to Pon-Pon.) The smallest packet cost only 5 cents. Bigger packets costing 10 cents and 20 cents each were also available. The recent Ken-Ken packet you see in the photos below costs me $1.20. However, the amount of cuttlefish inside is even less than to what I got in the 20-cent Pon-Pon packet in the 1960s. Inflation certainly makes the balloon bigger but the cuttlefish packet smaller. Haha.Notice that the 1960s tagline "chewing gum of the orient(als)" is still in use today.3. Prawn crackers. The small packets were priced at 15 cents each, if I remember correctly. We loved to eat this snack because it was very tasty. Of course, there was a lot of aji-no-moto (mono-sodium glutamate or MSG) in it and we felt very thirsty after polishing up a whole packet.4. Treets chocolates. These were round and had nut centres. They came in plastic packets of about 10 chocolates each. The tagline was "melts in your mouth and not in your hands". Hmm... it's similar to that of today's M&M chocolates. Anyone knows whether they are products of the same company?5. Bic ballpoint pens. Can't remember how much the mama charged for these pens which are still sold today. I recently bought 3 for $1 but not from a mama shop. Bic comes in 4 ink colours - blue, black, red and green. The old Bic had a nib that was made of brass. It was attached to a translucent ink tube hidden in the pen casing. We liked to pull it out every now and then to check how must ink was left. Some years later, the nib was replaced with brass-coloured plastic and now it is in same colour as the pen's ink colour, as you can see in the photo. The rest of the pen looks very similar to the 1960s version though. "Writes to the very last drop" was Bic's tagline, as if ink was so precious then.6. Paper balls. These were sold at 2 pieces for 5 cents. They are still being sold at some toy shops today but I don't know what is the current price for one ball. You blow through a tiny hole to inflate it and then kick it around or hit it with your hands. When it looks deflated, you simply blow it up again. When you are tired of playing with it, you deflate it and then wear it on your head like a hat, acting like a traditional Chinese kid.Effectively, you have two different toys for the price of one! Not bad at all, eh?7. Blowing balloons. These were favourite toys of many fun-loving children in the 1960s and they are still available today, both the balloons and the children. (Laokokok bloggedabout it before here so I needn't say more.)8. Cigarettes in cans of 50's. At today's cigarette prices, a 50-stick can will cost more than $20 each. No wonder they disappeared altogether - no one could afford them! Haha. Actually, the mama shop sold them by the stick. Maybe it was 5 cents for a stick or two. At those prices, you could afford to be a chain smoker. It certainly won't burn a hole in your pocket. Don't know about your lungs though. :p9. Finally, there was one item which I couldn't identify when I was a kid. It looked to me like chocolate gold coins.They were placed in a transparent glass container just like the Hacks sweets were. When I was about 10-year-old, I couldn't hold my curiosity any longer. So I asked my elder brother (who is 7 years older than me) what they were. His Confucius-like answer was, "You will know when you grow up."Well, I have more than grown up now and indeed I know the answer. They are gold-coin condoms.The traditional mama shops have largely been replaced by supermarkets, department stores, neighbourhood provision shops and 7-Eleven convenience stores now.Some mama shops have transformed into what I would call "oiki" shops. You may be wondering, "What is an oiki shop?" Well, here is the answer:It is a convenience store set up in the void deck of an HDB block. Because it is located on the ground floor, it is on the 1st storey (or #01). It is called a kiosk (shortened to K). Since there is usually at most 1 kiosk at any HDB block, it follows that they always have the address "01K1". Hence "oiki". QED, not "quite easily done" but quod erat demonstrandum or Latin for "that which was to be demonstrated. ;)But don't be surprised if you find that your oiki shop is not manned by a mama. Nowadays, it is common to find oiki shops being manned by Chinese as well. What will become of the oiki shop in 50 years' time? I wish I know. The Mama Shop (2) Just in case you missed the answer to the question in my last post, the mama shop in the photo is located in Kampong Kapor Road, along the stretch between Desker Road and Rowell Road. Better quickly go take a look as no one knows when it might slip into oblivion forever. Due to a reason which I would rather not elaborate here, you are advised to visit this area during the daytime. For those who would not be caught dead in this area, day or night, here is the photo again:Mama shop in Kampong Kapor RoadThe mama shop is a grocer, stationer, pharmacy, toy shop and snack shop, all rolled into one. As a kid in the 1960s, I couldn't resist patronising the mama shop opposite my flat daily, sometimes even several times a day!Yesterday's mama shop (photo courtesy of National Archives of Singapore)So what merchandise did the mama shop sell which got kids like me all captivated? I remember quite a few things - some are no longer available while some are still sold today albeit the packaging and the manufacturers may be different.Here are a few things that we used to buy and are no longer available now:1. A game of tikam tikam for 5 cents a try;Photo taken from Laokokok's blog on tikam tikam2. "Five Rams" batteries. Can't remember how much these cost per piece but they were definitely cheaper than EverReady ones. The former were yellow in colour with a picture of 5 rams (what else?) printed on the battery while the EverReady ones were silver in colour, I think, and had a black cat jumping through the loop of a blue figure "9";3. Ready-made paper kites which were sold at 5 cents each;4. Powdered drink satchets which cost 5 cents each. Sold in plastic packs of about 2x4-inch size, they came in orange, lime and melon flavours. Each pack was accompanied by a thin plastic straw. The sugar powder in the satchet was intended to be dissolved in a cup of water and consumed as a drink. However, most of the kids preferred to suck the powder straight out of the packet. As the powder melted in our mouths, it produced a very cooling and shiok (pleasant) feeling. We relished it so much that we usually finished the whole satchet this way; and5. Chewing gum or rather, what was more appropriately known at that time as "bubble gum". I usually bought those packed in a tiny box containing 2 half-inch sugar-coated balls of various colours. Although Wrigley's chewing gum was available then, I preferred the balls to the long one (pardon the language). As the name suggested, I blew bubbles with them and made loud "tock-tock" sounds while chewing them. To me, it was fun but the noise irritated anyone who happened to be nearby. As almost every Singaporean knows, bubble gum disappeared here not so much because of the passage of time but more due to the passage of a law banning it in 1982. Hmm... I can't seem to remember how I disposed of the bubble gum after I have chewed them. Maybe it ended up in the hair of my neighbour's kid. Haha.Wrigley's Spearmint chewing gumSigh, 5 cents could certainly go a long, long way in the 1960s - there are just so many ways to spend it! In comparison, with 5 cents today, you can't even visit toilets that charge a minimum of 10 cents, regardless of whether your "business" is a big or small one.If you are around my age, could you remember some other things sold by the mama shop which are no longer available today? The Mama Shop (1) I have blogged about the mama shop before.When I visited the Singapore Philatelic Museum last year, I was pleasantly surprised to find a mock-up of a mama shop:The explanatory notes accompanying the exhibit was as follows:Indian Mama Shop - A sundry shop or general provision stall traditionally operated by Indians, especially the Tamil ethnic group. Colloquailly refers to as "Mama Shop or Stall", the word "Mama" means "uncle" in Tamil.Such stalls were commonly found in Little India, the enclave of the Indian community in Singapore. Operating in very small and tight space, it is amazing that these stalls could sell a wide range of products - cigarettes, sweets and tidbits, fruits, toiletries, drinks, films, batteries, medicines, and lottery tickets. These stalls were indeed the convenient stall of early days.With barely a metre depth of shop space, the stalls were usually stashed away at street corners along the five-foot-ways or along side alleys. It is however hard to miss the stalls because the display of colourful magazines and newspaper, strung across the stall with strings and cloth pegs, are very eye-catching. This display method has also become the trademark of the mama shops.Urban redevelopment, introduction of modern convenient stalls and escalating rental fee are some of the causes that lead to the vanishing of mama shops in Little India. Today, very few mama shops are still in operation.To pre-empt my philatelist friend Wee Kiat who never fails to point out relevant stamps, there was even a Singapore stamp issued in 2006 which featured the mama shop:It was one of ten stamps issued in the "vanishing trade" series.Today, there are probably less than 10 mama shops still running their trade in Singapore. I managed to hunt one down yesterday with my camera:Can you guess where this mama shop is located? International Museum Day Is Here Again International Museum Day is here again! There are many exciting activities lined up for you including free admission to museums. Do check out the events by clicking on the banners below. Some Unusual Food Warning/Disclaimer: This article may be shocking to some people. If you hate watching shows like Survivor or Fear Factor, you are advised not to read on. The writer absolves himself from all responsibility. You have been warned.For the brave-hearted, I dare you to scroll down....................................I have blogged about unusual food before, e.g. dog meat being served in a hotel in China. This post is about more strange food found around the Asian region including Singapore.We all know that live frogs are abundant in urban Singapore. No, not in ponds in the countryside but in fish tanks in coffeeshops, usually alongside tanks of live crabs.Some people relish eating frogs. Their (usually the frogs') most fleshy parts are their legs. Hence we have stalls selling an assortment of dishes cooked with frog legs - porridge, claypot stew, stir-fried with spring onion and ginger, etc.Eating frogs, even if the whole frog is eaten and not just its legs, is considered cruel by some people. It is just like eating turtles and tortoises - these creatures usually have a long life, if they didn't end up prematurely on our tables, that is.Yet what is so different about eating these creatures compared to eating fish, prawns and crabs? One colleague told me that fishes do not feel any pain because they don't have nerves. Well, that may or may not be true but it did make me feel less guilty about eating my favourite yu sheng (raw fish) dish.What I have narrated so far is still quite tame when compared to the exotic food you could find in this region. If you have been to China, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam or the Philippines, you may have seen even more unusual street-hawker fare.Like scorpions and locusts(?)A few weeks ago, a colleague brought back a box of snacks from Thailand. The price tag on it said 150 bahts or about S$6.40, not cheap by any standard. I was expecting a savoury treat but when I opened the box, I got a nasty surprise.They looked deceivingly like french fries especially those cut by a curvy knife but on closer examination, I realised that it was actually a box of crispy fried maggots! Only my bravest colleague dared to eat them. He claimed that they tasted like fried anchovies and were actually quite delicious. (In fact, he nearly finished the whole box!)"Nice, try?", he said while offering the last few pieces to me. I screamed squirmed and replied, "Nice try". Despite the title of this blog, this is one challenge that I will never take up.Yet when you compare the above snacks with what one blogger tried in Cambodia, they all seem quite mild.Photo taken from www.weirdmeat.comIt's a fried spider! Mind you, not your average "next-door spider" but the "large American tarantula" type, okay?It makes the recent story of a man who found a cooked spider in his kai lan sounds quite uninteresting, doesn't it?While we are on this topic, Chun See's article about itinerant food vendors of yesteryears reminds me of a roadside hawker who sold a rather unusual dish in Singapore in the 1960s.The closest modern-day food I could think of is the balut, a fertilized duck (or chicken) egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell. It may sound gross to you but it is considered a delicacy in Asia especially in the Philippines, Cambodia, and Vietnam.The version sold in Singapore in the 1960s was cooked differently. It was called gai chai dan in Cantonese (鸡仔蛋) meaning literally "foetal chicken egg". The embryonic egg was not cooked in its shell. Instead, the contents were cooked in soup contained in an enamelled metal basin. I don't know what else went into the soup but having tried it once or twice before, I remember that it smelled strongly of ginger and actually quite tasty. Your order would probably include a whole chick carcass (with newly-formed feathers, beak and all) and some yellow stuff that looked like poached egg, probably the chick's "leftover dinner". :pThe stall was located at the same spot in Queen Street every night, i.e. it did not move from place to place. It would be business as usual when there was no rain. Customers sat around the stall on small 8-inch-tall wooden stools and devour their gai chai dan in the dim flickering light provided by a Milo can contraption. (When you are eating such a dish, perhaps it is better that you couldn't see so clearly.)Photo by courtesy of National Archives of Singapore, showing a roadside hawker and customers sitting on little wooden stoolsFortunately for some, this dish somehow didn't catch on in Singapore. Otherwise, today it could have been more common than chicken rice or chilli crab. Some Unusual Sights At East Coast Park (3) Those of you who happened to be at Tiong Bahru Market on 7 May 2008 (Wed) morning would have feasted your eyes on Joanne Peh and other young pretty MediaCorp actresses doing some marketing in their bikinis. (The "marketing" that they were doing was the buying of items like live frogs and squids and had absolutely nothing to do with Joanne Peh's so called "newly grown" assets and their attractive bodies.)Well, I certainly missed out on that tantalizing display of assets by the bevy of young beauties. All I saw was the rather mild and disappointing photos in the New Paper report the next day. I said "disappointing" because as you probably know, everything looks flat on paper, even Mount Fuji.So when I saw what looked like someone flying her oversized bra at East Coast Park last Saturday, I thought to myself, "Ah, every dog has its day".I did a quick scan of the surroundings to see if there was any top-heavy woman gone topless. But all I saw was this dark-complexion man:He was flying his Revolution kite (Revo). And if you think he's called a "kite flyer", go fly a kite - pardon the language but he's called a pilot, ok?A Revo is a very maneuverable sport kite that is controlled by a four-line system. With movements of your thumbs forward and backward, it gives you the ability to fly the kite forward, backward, sideways, speed up or slow down, even come to a complete stop i.e. hovering in mid-air like a helicopter. You can even spin the kite like a propeller - you choose whether to spin it clockwise or anti-clockwise - the control is at your finger-tips, literally.Utilizing these unique characteristics, pilots can fly just about anywhere, whether individually or in formation flying with other fliers. They can even pit their skills against other fliers in a competition.Watch the Revo kite-flying video here: (Sorry, as you can see from the video, the kite was so fast that I had trouble keeping it framed all the time. As this is my first YouTube upload for my blog, please be more forgiving.)Believe it or not, the Revo was invented way back in 1989! (Hmm..., how come I only know about it now?) You can read about the history of the Revo here.But get this - if you are interested in flying the Revo, be prepared to have US$269 (S$365) fly away first (sorry for the pun). That amount of money will only buy you a basic Revo, complete with lines. So better start saving S$1 every day for one whole year if you plan to fly the Revo a year from now. That is certainly a far cry from the 5 or 10 cents I used to pay the Ah Neh of the mama stall for my paper kite in the 1960s. And if I made my own kite, it was even free. But then again, my kite was not so fun to play with... and it also didn't look like a pair of bra.FURTHER READINGRead about the many different types of kites here.Earlier Posts In This Series:1. Some Unusual Sights At East Coast Park (1)2. Some Unusual Sights At East Coast Park (2) The Blame Game Like it or not, whenever something goes wrong that affects the public, the government often ends up getting the blame. When Mas Selamat escaped, some people called for the Minister for Home Affairs to take responsibility and step down.The LTA (Land Transport Authority) is another government agency that is often blamed when accidents happen. When the trailer transporting concrete slabs skidded, fell on its side and blocked all 4 lanes of the PIE, some people felt that LTA should not allow such heavy vehicles on the expressways during busy hours. Some even thought that heavy vehicles should be banned from using the expressways at all times.When the driver stopped his car abruptly in the fast lane of the CTE to insert his cash card thereby causing a motorcyclist to collide into another car, he thought that he was totally blameless! He didn't say this but while grinning in court, he must be thinking that if the LTA didn't erect a ERP gantry there, the accident wouldn't have happened at all. And why fine him only $200 if he had committed a serious offence?When 8-year-old Russell Koh died after being flung out of the mini-van taking him to school, it was because LTA didn't heed earlier calls for safety belts to be installed in all school buses. And so the blame game goes on.Some ask accusingly, "Why does the government always have to wait for something tragic to happen before it does something?" Yet when the LTA recently banned taxis from stopping anywhere else except at taxi stands in the CBD, the public asked if there was any precedence of accidents caused by taxis not stopping at taxi stands. The LTA was also accused of being insensitive to the needs of the elderly and the disabled people.But if the government doesn't take the blame, then who does? After all, the government runs the country and therefore it is reasonable to assume that it is ultimately responsible for all the flaws in its systems as well as in the civil servants who run the systems. Of course, it is understandable that systemic and human failures do happen every now and then, and not all of them are preventable or even foreseeable.Having said that, in the case of Mas Selamat's escape, it is sad that nobody saw the whole picture except Mas himself. He certainly made very good use of all the systemic and human weaknesses for his very dramatic and successful escape. It all looked very complicated but it was actually very simple.The WRDC superintendent probably thought that window grilles were not crucial because the area outside the window was still a guarded area. But why install doors to the toilet cubicles at all when the guards were supposed have line-of-sight of the prisoners at all times? Oh, so the toilet was supposed to be used by visitors and hence toilet doors must be in place? Okay, then don't allow prisoners to use that toilet for heaven's sake! Make them wear diapers if you can't construct another toilet for them.Also, why put a female officer in the team that guards a dangerous male prisoner? Not enough MANpower? Afraid that prisoners get MANhandled? Lame excuses.Finally, why was the old CCTV system switched off when the new ones weren't even operational yet? We all know that for any crucial system, there should always be a parallel run to ensure continuity. For goodness sake, if it is not already done, please remember to install motion detectors as well, if there is not going to be anyone watching the CCTV monitors 24x7. And don't forget to link the motion detectors to a very loud alarm system. Test the systems regularly to ensure that they are working. Have exercises and dry-runs frequently to make sure that procedures and processes run smoothly when required. Solving Rebus Puzzles Makes Mee Hungry A rebus puzzle essentially consists of little pictures, often made with letters and words, which cryptically represent a word, phrase, or saying. It has nothing to do with mee rebus, a favourite local hawker fare.Many years ago, a colleague would make us solve rebus puzzles without fail during Christmas celebration each year in the office. Maybe she thought that we had not been thinking hard enough at work so she took great delight in giving our brains a good workout even during a time of good cheer. You guessed it right - solving such puzzles didn't give me a lot of good cheer. Perhaps it did help work up my appetite a little as I was always thinking of the mee rebus they had prepared for the Christmas makan.So to whet your appetite for the weekend meals that you will be having, below are some rebus puzzles for you to wreck your brains over. The answers will be given in the comments here on Wednesday. Alright, a little clue to help you get that perfect score - puzzle no. 7 is something I thought out myself and is topical. The rest of the puzzles are quite easy and you should have no problem solving them. Have fun! How I Won From All The Mahjong Kakis In case you are wondering about the meaning of the word kakis in the title of this blog, someone who plays mahjong is known locally as a mahjong kaki. Kakis is simply the plural of kaki. It is a Malay word that means "leg" or "foot". Frankly, I do not see any connection between "mahjong" and "leg" apart from the fact that a mahjong table has 4 legs and you need 4 people to play the game.My late mum loved to play mahjong. She played with like-minded neighbours in a spacious common area next to the staircase on the 4th storey of our SIT flat. This was in the 1960s. I loved to sit beside her to watch the game. There was another reason why I loved to sit beside her. (Read on to find out why.)As a result, like what Kenny Rogers sings in the song The Gambler, I "got to know when to hold them" (the mahjong tiles, that is) and when to throw them away. In other words, I grew up being quite good at the game but being quite bad as well, if you consider playing mahjong as a vice.Each pok (session) of game would last one or two hours on the average. Every player started with $2.90 in chips. If the player lost all the chips, he/she would have to fork out $3.00 in cash to settle the account. Why the extra 10 cents? The answer is that the "missing" 10 cents went into what Chun See mentioned in Peter's mahjong post as "chow soi" (imposing tax).(Don't you ever scoff at the seemingly small amount of mahjong money at stake. $3.00 may seem very little money nowadays as it may not even buy a bowl of noodles in a food court. To put it in perspective, the monthly rent of our smaller than 500 square-feet SIT flat was just $24. It was what my dad could just afford with his monthly salary of about $150 which had to feed a family of 7 people.)The mahjong game usually lasted from morning till late at night. On weekends, it would even be "thong siew" i.e. played throughout the night till the next day, which meant that the players went without sleep for 48 hours or more at a stretch. If that happened, several dollars of "tax" could be collected for that mahjong session.So what happened to the "taxes" collected this way? The funds were used in 2 ways:1. Every year, during 中元节 (Zhongyuan Jie or Ghost Festival) on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month, a portion of the money would be used to buy offerings and food for the spirits. After the festival was over, the food items would be apportioned to all the regular mahjong kakis.2. Every one or two hours during the mahjong game, I got a chance to earn some pocket money. It worked like this:The players would give me 30 cents to buy coffee for them - 10 cents was officially declared as my reward while a kettle of black coffee with sugar from the coffeeshop downstairs cost 20 cents. The coffee was enough to fill 5 small enamelled tin cups. Sometimes, I even got to drink the fifth cup.Even as a young kid, I knew how to maximise profits. I added 3 tablespoonfuls of sugar from my mum's sugar jar and bought only 10 cents of black coffee (without sugar) from the coffeeshop. This way, I earned 20 cents with every kettle of coffee that I bought. Over time, I saved up quite a tidy sum. And that was how I beat all the mahjong kakis and ended up as the ultimate winner. Did You Lose Money Recently? No, I am not talking about losing money in a casino, the share and property markets or even a bad business deal.You see, I was at the food court in basement 1 of the Toa Payoh HDB Hub last Friday at about 6.30 pm. For those of you who do not know the existence of this food court, I am sorry but where have you been ah? You are certainly losing (not money but) out on one of the best rojak stalls in Singapore.(This photo is taken from Tingwo's article on Toa Payoh food hunt)The stall is called Soon Heng Rojak and it dishes up the wet version of rojak. For the benefit of my foreign friends, there 2 kinds of rojak sold in Singapore:One is the dry type. It usually has yu char kuay (curlers made from flour and deep-fried till golden brown), tau pok (deep-fried beancurd) and dried cuttlefish. The ingredients are grilled, preferably on an open charcoal fire for that added "burnt" fragrance. However, nowadays an electric grill is often used instead. The ingredients are then cut up with a pair of scissors and then topped with some hae ko (dark, thick prawn paste) and crushed peanuts. The dish is best served hot and crispy.The other type of rojak is the wet type. For those who have not seen it before, the preparation of this dish is quite interesting to watch. It has many ingredients - mang guang (turnip), tau geh (bean sprout), tau pok, cucumber, pineapple and soaked cuttlefish. The seller has a large clay bowl. He first puts in all the flavourings - sugar, sour plum sauce, hae ko and chilli paste, if preferred. He would mix them all up using a wooden scoop. Then holding a big piece of vegetable in one hand, he would deftly slice it into little pieces. The vegetable slices would all "fly magically" into the earthen bowl. When all the ingredients have been cut up this way, he would then mix them up well using the scoop again. Finally, he would scoop everything up from the bowl and serve it to you or wrap it up if you prefer ta pao (takeaway).This rojak stall is so good that it has an electronic queueing system, not unlike the one used by HDB just upstairs for flat applicants. It is a necessary investment because queueing time is often half-hour or longer. Not only that, there is a second stall of the same name in the same food court! Now tell me, how often does that happen in Singapore?Oops, I think I have digressed too much. When I talk about rojak, my ideas also tend to become rojak (all mixed up). What was this article originally about? Oh yes, it was about losing money.Okay here come the toppings. While I was eating, I noticed some money lying on the floor by the next table where an elderly man was having his dinner. No one else seemed to have noticed the money even after I have finished my meal. Then I walked over, picked up the money and asked the elderly man, "Did you drop some money?" Old man Oh man, he was even more honest than I - his reply was a very firm "no".So if you are the one who lost the money around the date, time and venue specified above, I would gladly return it to you. However, the condition is that you must describe the money as accurately as possible - the amount, the denomination, how it was packaged, etc. From your description, I will be able to tell if you are the genuine owner. (Hello, this is not a contest hor.)And if you don't read my blog, then I am sorry to say that you are a real loser (of the money, that is). If there is no claimant after 3 months, I will donate the money to a charity (not NKF, Teen Challenge or Ren Ci). An End That Leads To A New Beginning Some of you may know that I am the co-author of a stamp-based book. You can read more about it here, there and everywhere.Well, I have good news for you - my second book is out, if only in cyberspace. (The hardcopy is not off the press yet but who cares about the hardcopy nowadays in this Internet age?)My introduction to this book (reproduced wholesale from Wee Kiat's blog) is as follows:We have eventually come to the end of the transport book. But wait… the journey has not ended. As they say, "every road leads somewhere" and "when a door closes, another opens". Or rather, in our case it should be "when a book closes, another opens". ;)Tomorrow, we will start page-by-page blogging of our brand new book, Singapore Stamps: Remembering VIPs. This book is another joint effort by the same 3 co-authors who brought you the transport book, i.e. Dr Tan Wee Kiat, Noel Hidalgo Tan and yours truly.Undoubtedly, most of the hard work involved in writing this book was done by Dr Tan and Noel; I only played a minor supporting role, i.e. proofreading and on-line publishing aka blogging.This book is special in that it is the first time that we are putting it on-line even before it goes to the printers. Yes, that might affect profits somewhat should the book ever go on sale later. However, as Dr Tan would say, the purpose of our books has always been to share knowledge. And when knowledge is shared, everyone profits.We hope that you will find this book an interesting read. I Once Almost Killed A Man The headlines of the 20 Mar 2008 edition of the New Paper reminded me of a recent incident.On 10 Mar 2008 at 6.05 pm, I was driving home along the inner carriageway of the Jalan Toa Payoh stretch of the PIE. I had just picked up my wife and as there was a light drizzle, the roads were wet. Just as I was passing under the Toa Payoh South Flyover, I noticed a small motorcycle turning out from the filter road from Lorong 1. At first he kept to the left side of the road. But just when I was almost passing him on the right, he suddenly skidded and swerved into the centre of the road. Instinctively, I swerved right and braked hard to try to avoid hitting him. However, there was no way I could have avoided a collision. Next I heard was a loud "BANG!" just as my car ground to a halt on the chevron-markings.myspace graphicOH NO!!! OH MY GOD!!! From the driver's seat, I couldn't see where the motorcyclist was after the accident. Could he be under my car's wheels? Would there be a lot of blood and gore?I remained frozen in my car seat for a few moments. When I came to, I finally plucked up enough courage to alight and walk over to the left side of my car. I found the rotund Indian man pinned under his own machine. It was to my great relief when he extended his right hand to me and pleaded, "Help me!"I helped him get up on his feet. (Boy, did I really thank God when he could!) Other than a slight bruise on his elbow, he was alright and could still walk normally. His wallet and money, including a $50 note, were strewn on the road. I helped him to retrieve them. Then I picked up his motorcycle and pushed it to the safety of the road shoulder.I told him that he skidded and knocked into me but he said, "No, you were going too fast."I replied, "But I was going straight and had the right of way whereas you came out from the filter road and should have given way to me."What he said next surprised me. "Are you going to pay me for the repair of my bike?"I retorted angrily, "Pay you? But I wasn't in the wrong. Who would pay for my damaged bumper then? Frankly, I am just so very glad that you are not seriously injured. You could have been killed, you know? There is no way I am going to pay you. If you insist, then we report the accident to our insurance companies and let them handle the matter."He said, "So you are not going to pay me? Okay, never mind, God will know."With that, we exchanged telephone numbers and we both left the scene.The next day, I received a call from him. I was expecting another argument.But he said, "I actually called to thank you for saving my life. Sorry, I was not in my right frame of mind yesterday. Perhaps I was a bit groggy from the accident. I realised that I actually skidded. So I will not be reporting the accident to my insurance company. Have a nice day." Shingled And Swindled About 10 years ago, I was infected with chicken pox. If I remember correctly what my late mum had told me before, I already had a bout of chicken pox when I was a child. If that was true, then according to my doctor, I belonged to a very rare group of patients who got afflicted by chicken pox a second time. (Most people would have had acquired immunity to chicken pox after they have had it for the first time.) Either that or I was particularly jinxed.And boy, was I jinxed! Early this week, I had herpes. No, not genital herpes but herpes zoster or commonly known as shingles.I understand that after a person recovers from chickenpox, the virus goes "undercover" and manifests itself years or even decades later as shingles. This usually happens during a period when a person's immune resistance is low.Fortunately with the abundance of medical information on the Internet, I managed to diagnose myself even before my doctor did. I told my Section Head that I might have shingles and was consulting a doctor. Then I found out from a colleague who had shingles recently that I should consult a GP and that the medicine and consultation would cost from anywhere between $100 to $200.So I was quite pleasantly surprised that my GP only charged me $85 for consultation and a one-week supply of acyclovir (800mg).Hmm... my colleague could have been both shingled and swindled. Haha.Perhaps the best thing that came out of this painful and itchy episode is that I got one week's medical leave. :p No wonder, the Chinese call shingles sheng she "生蛇" (growing a snake) and malingering chi she "吃蛇". Haha.Wee Kiat, on hearing that I was on MC said, "Your shingles and 1 week's MC is scheduled very well - when your MC leave expires, the long Good Friday weekend inspires. Ha! Ha!"He continued relentlessly with this story of his wife who is a retired teacher: "This reminds me of the time when my son was born, back in 1967. He was born in mid-November and at that time mothers were entitled to 6 weeks' maternity leave. Well, being mid-November the maternity leave coincided with the school vacation period. So, when the maternity leave expired so did the school vacation leave. My wife went back to teach on Jan 3. Ha! ha!So, what's the moral of the story?"My reply to him was: "Never try to conceive in mid-February when your wife is a teacher."Hmm... looks like my colleague wasn't the only one who got swindled. Four Wise Monkeys Chun See's blog entry commenting about Peter H L Lim's recent article titled Mistress? Me? No, I'm Ms reminded me of a story.You may have heard of the maxim of the 3 wise monkeys but have you heard of the 4 wise monkeys?As you may know, the 3 wise monkeys together signify the proverbial principle to "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil". So what is the 4th monkey not supposed to do?A friend recently told me the answer. As he is a respectable man, he made me promise not to name him. (In other words, in keeping with the spirit of the proverb, I am supposed to speak no evil of him. Haha.)Anyway, this was what he said: While chatting with a male colleague one day, he asked me if I've heard of the 4 wise monkeys. I said, "No, I've only heard of 3."He proceeded to show me (using actions):See no evilHear no evil Speak no evil(Disclaimer: The photos here are for illustration purpose only. My friend is certainly no chimpanzee and I am quite sure he does not even work with them, whether literally or figuratively.)Before showing the action for the 4th monkey, he looked around to make sure that no lady colleagues were around: Do no evil(Disclaimer again: Photo is for illustration purpose only - my friend and his colleague were fully-clothed then. And I didn't pose for this photo - I don't have such a chiseled body, but how I wish I had. I used this photo merely because I couldn't find one in which the chimpanzee is modest enough to cover his crotch. Also, I don't mean that only men should do no evil - women too - but if I have used a woman's photo instead, I will have to cover more than just the crotch.)Actually, the 3 wise monkeys as well as the 4th monkey are mentioned in this Wikipedia link. So my friend's colleague is not really the originator of this story. (That, I hope, is not speaking evil of him. And I trust that you didn't see anything evil from this blog entry either.) So relax, my friend - your reputation is still intact.May I add that this story holds a special meaning for me as I was born in the Year of the Monkey. Honestly, I cannot claim to have lived by all four "monkey don'ts" but I am not telling which one(s) I ran afoul of. Did Dr Sun Yat Sen Undergo Plastic Surgery? On 23 Feb 2008 (Sat), Wee Kiat and I went to Wan Qing Yuan (晚晴园) in Tai Gin Road to take some photos of Dr Sun Yat Sen's statue for our next book.We didn't know that the Memorial Hall was closed for major repair works since 1 May 2007.We really appreciated that we were allowed inside the compound for a short while to take some photos. If not, our trip to the villa would have been completely wasted.Drilling for oil?I couldn't help but notice this sign erected inside the compound:Hmm... I wonder if an MRT line would be built near Wan Qing Yuan? If so, then Dr Sun might have less use for his horse:We're also a little shocked to see the face of Dr Sun defaced:Wee Kiat called the white stuff "bird sh*t". But I thought it looked more like the stuff which Ah Long kakis (illegal loan shark runners) would throw on people's doors when they fell behind in debt repayments. It was hard to imagine anyone related to Dr Sun or Wan Qing Yuan having anything with illegal loan sharks though. One thing for sure - in that state, Dr Sun did look like a battled-scarred soldier.I told Wee Kiat not to worry about the white streaks on Dr Sun's face as they could be easily removed from the photo using a photo-editing software from Adobe called PhotoShop (PS). This was what I did:So if anyone would like to look 10 years younger, send me a photo and I could do a wrinkle-removal plus a free facelift thrown-in using PS (PhotoShop, not plastic surgery). My fees are much cheaper than those of famous beauty guru Dr Woffles Wu and the results much more lasting.I believe the same technique was also used to "shave" Mas Selamat Kastari's face. (Mas is currently Singapore's most wanted man. He escaped from custody on 27 Feb 2008 using the pretext of going to the toilet. Like many others, I have also wondered how it could have happened in Singapore where security is supposed to be world-class. Well, maybe he flushed himself into the toilet. Haha.)Mas UnmaskedFinally, to answer the question posed in the title of this entry - no, Dr Sun didn't have plastic surgery, only PhotoShop. Like That Also Can Ah? I apologise to all my readers for not having updated this blog for some time. If you are wondering what happened to me, I have been busy doing quite a few things:1. I have been updating this blog daily instead.2. I got a $299 Compaq laptop by recontracting with MaxOnLine for another 28 months and I have been playing with my new toy. No, blogging is not playing.3. I also bought a new Compaq desktop with Windows Vista Premium OS last month. Since then, I had to recover the system twice because some system files were corrupted. The cause? Well, I would like to think that it was due to the instability of the Windows Vista OS rather than because my wife accidentally turned the mains switch off while the PC was still running a program. If you have done a system recovery before, you will know that it is a tedious and time-consuming process.Hopefully, I will be able to blog more frequently henceforth.You may be wondering why this post is titled as such. The answer is because my colleague forwarded this article to me the other day:My reply to him was:"I bet the strokes that he applied on his brush are no ordinary brush strokes.And just imagine what substitute he will use when he runs out of oil paint!" More Chinese New Year Greetings I think this CNY SMS message is quite cute and would like to share it with you. It consists of 12 auspicious wishes, each of them starting with a character of a Chinese zodiac animal. Some of the wishes very cleverly play on the similar sounds of different Chinese characters:给您送上祝福。 原您鼠年开始 - Here's wishing you, starting from the Year of the Rat鼠钱不完！ Count (~rat) money to no end!牛那样壮！ As strong as a cow!虎虎生威！ As powerful as a tiger!兔气扬眉！ Success in everything that you do!龙马精神！ Health!蛇得消费！ Willing (~snake) to spend money!马到功成！ All your endeavours meet with success!羊洋得意！ Live in joy and happiness!猴会有期！ We will meet later (~monkey)!鸡不可失！ Catch every opportunity (~rooster)!狗用就算！ Sufficient (~dog) to spend is enough!猪你发财！ Wish (~pig) you wealth! Early Born Expensive Son For the Chinese, it is not enough that the New Year be happy - it must be prosperous too. That's why you can find this larger-than-life Cai Shen Ye (财神爷) or Wealth God within Shaw Centre.Ironically, I don't have that much wealth to acquire such a large Wealth God but I certainly could afford a 10-inch version which costs me only $13.80:However, don't you underestimate this little plump fellow. He can gyrate his body and head better than a seasoned Indian dancer. Not only that, he does that in synchronisation with disco lights and with the accompaniment of an auspicious albeit noisy song titled Cai Shen Dao (财神到). But I don't know if he will really bring wealth to my family. We shall wait and see.Let me wish you a Happy and Prosperous Chinese New Year with the following wishes:1. Wish Happy Be Rich2. Horse Arrive Work Done3. Step Step High Rise4. Year Year Got Fish5. One Road Smooth Wind6. Heart Think Work Done7. Dragon Horse Sperm GodIf you thought that I came up with the above wishes myself, then you couldn't be more wrong. Believe it or not, they were published exactly 5 years ago in our Business Times!Oh by the way, the wishes mean:1. Wishing you happiness and prosperity (Gong Xi Fa Cai 恭喜发财)2. Wishing you quick success in everything you do (Ma Dao Gong Cheng 马到工成)3. May you rise up the ranks (Bu Bu Gao Sheng 步步高升)4. May you have excess and abundance (Nian Nian You Yu 年年有余)5. May you have a smooth journey (Yi Lu Shun Feng 一路顺风)6. May your heart's desires come true (Xin Xiang Shi Cheng 心想事成)7. Wishing you excellent health and vitality (Long Ma Jing Shen 龙马精神)The article was forwarded to me by a colleague recently. My reply to him was:"May the Sperm God bestow you with Early Born Expensive Son." Oops... on second thought, it sounded more like I was referring to my premature son whose hospital bill came up to more than $30,000 without subsidy.Actually, I meant to wish him to be blessed with a precious baby soon (Zao Sheng Gui Zi 早生贵子) One Ball Missing Weekend lunch for my family is usually chicken rice. There is this stall in my neighbourhood coffeeshop which is quite popular. Usually there is at least a half-hour wait on weekends. While waiting, I sometimes order fishball mee from the stall next to it.This morning, I was at the same coffeeshop to buy lunch for my family. As usual, I ordered fishball mee and went to take a seat. While waiting for the young woman stall assistant to prepare my lunch, I witnessed a most disgusting act. When she scooped out the fishballs from the soup, she accidentally dropped one of the fishballs onto the floor. Nonchalantly, she just picked it up with her hand and threw it back into the pot of boiling soup without even washing it!!! She probably didn't know that I was observing her from a distance.I immediately got up from my seat and approached her. I said, "你把那粒鱼圆放回去啊？我不要吃了！" (You put back the fishball? I don't want to eat anymore!).As if nothing had happened, she replied, "哦，不要吃没关系." (Don't want to eat? It doesn't matter.)Hello, what "doesn't matter"? Well, she did save one fishball and I might have saved myself from a bout of lao sai (diarrhoea). But what she probably didn't realise is that she had not only lost me as a regular customer forever but also others who might be reading this article and recognise the stall. (If you don't, provide me your contact details and I will let you know where this stall is.)Worse, if NEA (National Environment Agency) comes to know about her grossly unhygenic act, the stall's license might very well be suspended. Okay, she probably only works at the stall and is not the license holder. But still, she could very well lose her job.For now, I am happy just boycotting the stall.