Stories of the pioneer generation

THEY WERE THERE AT THE BEGINNING
The stories of the pioneer generation are told in this weekly series leading up to National Day. Here is a look at where they live and what they do.

ANG KUM SIONG | BUSINESSMAN
'This is my bedroom, and also my factory'
By Yeo Sam Jo And Joanna Seow, The Straits Times, 19 Jul 2014

EVERY morning and night, without fail, a rhythmic whirring emanates from Mr Ang Kum Siong's bedroom. The mechanical song of his Butterfly sewing machine is familiar to his neighbours and two sons who live with him.

At the age of 87, Mr Ang still sews batik products like cushion covers, bags and dresses, and sells them from his shop in Holland Road Shopping Centre.

The dedication to his craft continues even after he retires to his four-room flat in Serangoon Avenue 3 at about 7.30pm. After dinner, he cuts and sews right up to when he goes to bed three hours later, and again when he rises at 6am until he leaves to go to his shop at 9am.

"It's a habit. Sometimes customers have orders. I'm very punctual in delivering them," said Mr Ang in Mandarin.

So thin is the line between work and rest for the grandfather of 15 that his home workstation stands just beside his bed, surrounded by heaps of colourful batik cloth, which he buys from warehouse wholesalers in Redhill.

"It's my bedroom, but also my factory," he quipped, breaking into one of his frequent chuckles.

There, the octogenarian can sew about 10 cushion covers in three hours, and a dress in 20 minutes - a dexterity that comes only with decades of experience.

Born in Singapore in 1927 to Chinese immigrants, the eldest of nine children helped his father sell second-hand clothes in Arab Street, near their shared two-storey shophouse in Queen Street.

Among these old clothes bought from pawnshops, he discovered batik - a beautiful Indonesian patterned fabric commonly used in sarongs - and noticed how popular it was with buyers.

Inspired, he began hawking ready-made batik apparel at pasar malam (night markets) in places like Katong and Clementi.

It was only as a middle-aged man in the 1970s that he began sewing batik products himself.

"Nobody taught me. I tore apart ready-made clothes to see how they were sewn," he recalled.

"Handmade things are better to sell because you can mix a variety of patterns and fabrics," said Mr Ang, whose two great-grandchildren wear clothes made by him.

But life as a street hawker, earning about $200 to $300 a month as the sole breadwinner for his younger siblings, wife and nine children, was not smooth sailing.

"I was bullied really badly by hooligans. Every night, they would come and extort money," he said. "It was only later in the 1970s, when the Government started catching them, that they stopped."

On April 11, 1978, a day he remembers vividly, Mr Ang poured his entire life savings of $5,000 into a shop in Holland Village - Wellie Batik.

"It was tough. I spent it all on the deposit, rent and renovation. Even my pockets were empty," he said, adding that he did not earn any money for three months.

But it was a gamble that paid off. Today the business is still around, with his youngest son, Eric, 44, running it with him.

While the place is never crowded, it retains loyal customers and draws tourists, who often take photos with Mr Ang, as well as his trusty Singer sewing machine, in use for 34 years.

He has a third machine, a Ranleigh he bought in 1972 for about $200, but which stopped working last year.

Years of sewing have taken a toll on him. A handshake reveals the coarseness of his right thumb, which is gnarled and twisted. "It's from so many years of using the scissors to cut cloth," he said.

In 2006, Mr Ang's wife of 56 years, who would accompany him to the shop every day, died from chronic lung problems.

"He would cry when customers asked him where she went," said his eldest daughter, Pauline, 61.

But the financial consultant said she and her siblings feel fortunate that their father is still independent and healthy.

She recounted how in 2003, after surgery to remove a growth in his colon, Mr Ang was told to rest at home for a month. "After one week, he was back at work because he couldn't stand doing nothing at home," she said.

When his hands are not sewing, they are busy with other passions of his, like Chinese calligraphy and gardening.

Outside his flat, two lovingly raised rows of potted plants line the common corridor.

Mr Ang also tends to the plants at the nearby Paya Lebar Methodist Church, where he attends services every Sunday before work.

If his trade and shop appear anachronistic, he does not seem to feel it, though he does see the country evolving around him.

"If you don't visit a place for one or two years, it will have changed already. It's not a pity, it's just development," Mr Ang said, shrugging.

But the pioneer takes comfort in the fact that his creations, like him, have stood the test of time.

"The things I make are very durable. Customers like them," he said, his face lighting up with simple pride.

* Ang Kum Siong: Batik seller -RazorTV

In the neighbourhood: Serangoon is the only home he has ever known
By Joanna Seow, The Straits Times, 19 Jul 2014

A SHORT walk from Mr Ang Kum Siong's block is the home of Hariharann Ravindran, 17, who has lived in the area since he was a baby. He tells The Straits Times about Serangoon.

WHO HE IS

I'm an aerospace electronics student at Singapore Polytechnic. I've lived at Block 258 Serangoon Central Drive with my family all my life.

WHY HE LIKES THE AREA

It's very convenient. We have a shopping centre, gym and MRT station nearby. I go jogging at the park and stadium.

My extended family also lives in Serangoon Central.

My family of five, grandparents and two cousins' families live in four of the blocks here. It's good because we can take care of one another.

For the World Cup final, 10 of us met at my grandparents' place to watch the game.

HIS GROWING UP YEARS

I used to play at the playground under my grandparents' block, which was a sandpit then.

In secondary school, I played a lot of soccer at the street soccer court next to Braddell Heights Community Centre. When I take off my spectacles, some people ask whether I am (national footballer) Hariss Harun's brother.

WHAT HAS CHANGED

Growing up, I had a lot of close friends here, but now, as we all grow older, we have our own paths and meet new people.

Things have become more convenient since they opened nex mall and the Circle Line.

Before, we had to go to Bishan to watch a movie, but now, the cinema is just a short walk away. You can also travel to a lot of places easily.

WHAT HASN'T CHANGED

Visiting my grandparents after school and staying over sometimes.

If I moved away, I would miss this neighbourhood a lot.

TAN CHEE KIANG | RESTAURANT AND PROVISION SHOP OWNER
'We don't close doors, there are no thieves here'
By Melissa Lin And Linette Lai, The Straits Times, 26 Jul 2014

TOWKAY Tan Chee Kiang runs a busy restaurant and a shop in a prime location, serving up fried squid and sambal kangkong to visitors hailing from South Korea to Germany.

But the 66-year-old is no boss of businesses in Orchard Road, or even an HDB town centre.

Instead, he owns a provision shop and one of the largest eateries on Pulau Ubin, an isle the size of Tampines.

Born and bred on Ubin, Mr Tan is one of the popular island's last 30-odd residents.

Home for Mr Tan is a single room at the back of the provision shop that has been in his family for nearly 100 years, back when Singapore was a British colony and when policemen wore shorts.

The shop is a short walk from the main jetty, where bumboats drop off visitors, past a dusty road lined with bicycle rental shops and weathered old men whiling their time away.

Here, there are no traffic lights, no shopping malls, no clinics even, but residents are all the happier for that.

"It's quieter, more peaceful and the air is definitely better," Mr Tan said in Mandarin.

"We don't need to close the doors in our homes. There are no thieves here."

A queen-size bed sits in the corner of the room he shares with his wife. The wall is bare save for a framed photograph of his youngest daughter as a toddler.

The corridor that links to the shop is lined with stacks of cartons of canned drinks. A cool, salty breeze blows in from a single window facing the sea.

Mr Tan, the middle child of a family with five children, took over the shop from his father.

His father, who died three years ago at the age of 103, was in his 20s when he moved to the island with his younger brother.

Mr Tan's uncle ferried people to and from the island as a bumboat pilot; Mr Tan's father started the provision shop.

"Nine or 10 years ago, I started this seafood restaurant," Mr Tan said, gesturing at the business adjacent to the shop, now one of the island's largest eateries.

The village of his childhood in the 1950s and 1960s is very different from today's Pulau Ubin, or Granite Island in Malay.

Back then, thousands of people called the island home, working at its granite quarries, fish farms and in agriculture.

"We used to grow some vegetables for ourselves," Mr Tan recalled.

"Neighbours would also grow them, and we would buy some from them."

The wooden "wayang" stage in the town centre, where Chinese opera performances were put up, held fond memories for him.

"They used to have shows here, and there would be a lot of people. Nowadays only a few people watch such shows."

The "theatre" sometimes doubled up as a classroom, when the nearby Bin Kiang School ran out of space.

Mr Tan, who attended primary school there, said the island had many children in those early days.

"The school had six classrooms but sometimes those weren't enough and we had our classes on the stage," he recalled.

There were no cars and villagers went around on bicycles.

The roads were wide enough for only one cyclist to pass at a time; the bridges were so rickety you had to get off your bike and push it across, he said.

But the Ubin quarries started closing down - the last one shut in 1999 - and the islanders begin to move out in search of other livelihoods.

The number of residents on the island has since whittled down to fewer than 40.

The wayang stage now stands silent in the village square and some of the houses scattered across the island are abandoned.

Bin Kiang School closed in 1985 and was demolished in 2000.

Mr Tan's two daughters and a son, now aged between 26 and 38, went to schools on the mainland. They would wake up at 5am to catch the 6am boat to school.

The house he grew up in, opposite the provision shop, was turned into a storeroom.

His children moved into an HDB flat in Tampines, and he and his wife moved into the room in his shop.

Although he bought the flat more than 20 years ago, it was only after his father died that Mr Tan could spend nights at the flat, relieved of the responsibility of taking care of the old man.

But he still prefers his home on idyllic Ubin, where he spends most of his days.

"Living on Ubin is not so hectic, not like on the mainland," he said.

Here, life operates at a different pace.

Crates of beer and other heavy goods are delivered a few times a month, depending not on the traffic on the roads but on the tides.

"If the tides are too low, the boats can't come," he said.

These days, his rest days, Tuesdays, are spent meeting his group of old friends from the island for coffee near his Tampines flat.

He said wistfully of the past: "I had friends everywhere, no matter where I walked to (on Ubin). I grew up here, played here and went to work here.

"But everyone has gone his own way."

* Tan Chee Kiang: Born and bred on Pulau Ubin -RazorTV

In the neighbourhood: In search of a simple life
By Melissa Lin, The Straits Times, 26 Jul 2014

MR SIM Kim Seng, 50, did not grow up on Pulau Ubin but rents a room from his good friend, Mr Tan Chee Kiang. Mr Sim tells The Straits Times about the home he has adopted.

WHO HE IS

I am a contractor on Ubin who does repair jobs. I live in a rented room on Ubin four to five days a week, and have been doing so for the past eight to nine years.

I have a daughter, who works as a teacher, and a son studying in university, who live on the mainland.

WHY HE LIKES THE ISLAND

Singapore is very "cramped". On Ubin, there are fewer rules and no traffic lights, zebra crossings, and ERP (Electronic Road Pricing).

I like the air and sunshine here. When I take walks in the morning, there are many surprises. I get to see different animals and birds. It is never boring.

The road is the same but every time you take a walk, it is a different experience.

When you say "hi" to people here, they respond. But if you do that on Orchard Road, people will wonder what you are doing.

WHAT HAS CHANGED

Pulau Ubin used to be like an "orphan" last time, nobody cared about it. Now, more people are interested in it and there are tourists of all nationalities who visit.

Schools also hold their camping trips here. But most of the young people who lived here have left.

WHAT HASN'T CHANGED

The nature here. On the mainland, the floors are made of concrete.

The people who live here, if their feet do not touch the soil, they are not used to it.

Is it inconvenient to live here? No, as long as you get used to it and live a simple life, it is okay.

ABDULLAH OMAR: HAWKER
'It took me 3 years to buy my pushcart'
By Melody Zaccheus And Pearl Lee, The Straits Times, 2 Aug 2014

GORENG pisang hawker Abdullah Omar can rattle off the 15 types of bananas commonly imported from Malaysia into Singapore.

Of the lot, the 66-year-old said Singaporeans are crazy for pisang raja - a sweet and creamy breed which complements the deep-fried fritter's savoury shell.

It is this in-depth knowledge about the fruit and his customers' taste that has made him one of the more popular goreng pisang sellers in Singapore.

His stall has been listed in travel magazines and got him featured in a 2013 exhibition and book titled Not For Sale: Singapore's Remaining Heritage Street Food Vendors.

Mr Abdullah picked up the tools of his trade as a young boy from his mother, who used to sell goreng pisang in Jalan Eunos, a Malay settlement village.

By the age of 18, he decided that he wanted to set up a stall of his own. To start out, he needed $500 to buy a pushcart, which was a big sum in the mid-1960s.

"It took me three years to save money from the commission I made helping my mother and a curry puff man to promote their stalls. My friends also chipped in," he says.

For almost a decade from 1969, Mr Abdullah plied his trade outside Rex Theatre. Each fritter was sold for 10 cents.

While business was good, it was also illegal in those days and he always had to be on his toes.

He says: "Ministry of Environment officers used to chase illegal hawkers like us away. Each summon was $20... That was a lot of money in those days."

These days, he starts work at 11am and ends at 6pm, selling 30kg of the snack every week at his stall, Noor Asian Food H.S. Abdullah, in Tekka Market. The stall was allocated to him by the Government.

With the onset of old age, Mr Abdullah's eyesight is failing him. He could do with more days off, he admits, but says that he continues to operate his stall for the sake of his customers.

"I wouldn't want a customer who has come all the way from Jurong to leave empty-handed and disappointed," he says.

"It's not the recipe that is particularly special but the technique. The oil must be at the right temperature," he says, adding that he also takes into account customer feedback.

Today, his goreng pisang sell for between 60 cents and $1.20 each. He makes about $1,100 every month.

Keeping the stall running and slaving over a hot stove have taken their toll on Mr Abdullah.

"I'm not as strong as I used to be," he says.

He handed over the frying of the fritters to his wife, Madam Samijah Bakri, in 2005. And it is unlikely that their four grown-up children, who all hold professional jobs in various industries, will join the trade.

After work, the husband- and-wife pair return to their home, a three-room flat in Marsiling where they have lived for 30 years.

Mr Abdullah and his family moved into their flat in 1984 - after spending the previous decade living in a four-room rental flat nearby. It was a move that many of their friends had thought was "crazy".

He says: "Friends thought we were crazy to want to live in such an ulu place."

Back then, Marsiling was a rural area cut off from urban Singapore. It was home to farms, hilly terrain and even a jungle.

"It was inconvenient to get around. Getting out of the estate required us to take an illegal shortcut through the jungle on motorbike... We would encounter snakes and monkeys along the way," he says.

Today, the jungle has been cleared and replaced by tall concrete buildings filled with amenities such as coffee shops, hair salons and bakeries.

"It's a quiet and nice neighbourhood. Everyone is friendly with each other," he says.

The couple trust their neighbours, who are Chinese, enough to leave their keys with them.

"We have known them since we were here in 1984," chimes in Madam Samijah, 62, who shares her homemade kueh with them.

Their children have urged them to move to a newer flat. But for Mr Abdullah, Woodlands is home.

"If we get a new place, we will be in debt again. And we don't want that," he says.

Every night after dinner, Mr Abdullah - who understands Mandarin, speaks a smattering of Hokkien, Cantonese and Teochew and is fluent in Malay and English - reads the Malay newspaper to his wife as her eyesight is weak.

At 11pm, they watch the news together in quiet companionship.

He says: "We want to know what's going on in the world. We think we're having it hard, but in comparison, our lives are good."

* Abdullah Omar: Pisang goreng hawker -RazorTV

In the neighbourhood: Baker went to school here, did his NS here - now he works here too
By Melody Zaccheus, The Straits Times, 2 Aug 2014

ANOTHER long-time Marsiling Rise resident is Mr Leoh Teck Chye, 46. He tells The Straits Times what he loves about the area.

WHO HE IS

I'm a baker and I've lived in Marsiling Rise for decades. I grew up in Block 131, and I now live with my wife in Block 104, Woodlands Street 13, just seven minutes away from my childhood home.

WHY HE LIKES THE AREA

I grew up here and studied at Woodlands Primary School.

I even did my National Service at the Yishun and Sembawang camps. These days, I work at a bakery nearby.

After spending nearly 30 years in this neighbourhood, I'm really attached to it. When I got married in 2006, I decided to buy a resale unit that's only a stone's throw from my old home, where my mum still lives.

It was a no-brainer - I didn't have to consider other estates because I'm so comfortable with this one.

HIS GROWING UP YEARS

When my family moved from a kampung in Kranji to our HDB flat here, I missed the fun of catching guppies in longkang (drains) and spiders in trees.

I learnt as a kampung boy that if the leaves of the coconut tree were sticky, a spider was probably hiding in between.

I played marbles with friends at the void deck of the new flat, but I still missed the wide open spaces I used to run around in.

WHAT HAS CHANGED

Woodlands has come a long way since its rural days. There were few bus services then, and it was hard to get around. The feeder bus would take a very long time to come.

It's different now. The MRT station and bus interchange are nearby, so getting around is more convenient.

WHAT HASN'T CHANGED

I'm familiar with the stallholders here - all the hawker uncles and aunties. I know the two neighbourhood doctors too. Sometimes, I stop by to chat after work. There is a strong sense of neighbourliness, and I would never think of living elsewhere.

VIOLET NEO: BEAUTY QUEEN AND NAVY VOLUNTEER
'One medic kept a calendar of me for three years,' says beauty queen and Navy volunteer
By Lim Yan Liang And Lee Jian Xuan, The Straits Times, 5 Aug 2014

A RADAR plotter, a beauty contestant and a trainee amateur pilot at one point, Madam Violet Neo was always a bit of a rebel as a young woman.

In 1963, the self-professed tomboy and youngest of three children saw a newspaper ad and decided on a whim to join the fledgling Singapore Naval Volunteer Force, the predecessor to today's Republic of Singapore Navy.

Once a week after work, the 18-year-old would take a bus to the naval base in Woodlands. With a group of secretaries and bank officers, she learnt to march and fire a Browning T-bolt rifle.

"They brought us down to the rifle range to practise," recalled Madam Neo, now 69 and a housewife. "I remember the rifle recoil was like a mule's kick."

That same year, she was mobilised for full-time duties as a trained radar plotter when Indonesia embarked on Konfrontasi, or "confrontation" against the formation of Malaysia with the merger of Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak. She was later deployed as a clerk in the Central Manpower Base at the old Kallang Airport.

But the tomboy also blossomed into a stunner.

Against her parents' wishes, she later signed up with a modelling agency, trading her military uniforms for midriff-baring outfits to become a pin-up model in ads for Fraser & Neave and ICI Dulux, commanding an impressive pay of $300 per hour.

"An officer told me that one of the medics kept a calendar of me on the wall for three years," she said with a laugh.

It was again this adventurous spirit that took Madam Neo to the Miss Singapore Universe contest in 1968, where she placed second. She represented Singapore at the inaugural Miss Asia Pacific International in Philippines that year, where she won the Miss Friendship award.

"It was unforgettable - I sang the National Anthem on stage and I met Ms Imelda Marcos," she said of the Philippines' former first lady, a fellow pageant queen.

In 1970, she made headlines for being Singapore's first woman to learn flying at Seletar Airport, though the hobby did not take off.

"I stopped after four lessons - I found out I preferred having my feet on the ground," she said.

Madam Neo mellowed only after she married her husband, Mr Martin Tay, in 1970. He was a fellow army clerk she met during her volunteering days.

Leaving the runway behind, she settled down in a four-room flat, where she still lives, raising her three boys, Nicholas, now 34, Noel, 37, and Dominic, 42.

She remembers being one of the first few residents at Yishun Ring Road in 1995. "I much prefer the old Yishun. It was quieter, less crowded then. The MRT ended at Yio Chu Kang and we didn't even have a proper bus stop then and everything we needed, we got from a small wet market."

But while she has made a life and home for herself in Yishun, her happiest days were spent growing up with her two siblings at a terraced house on Still Road.

Playing by the verandah back in the 1950s, they would often see a train of elephants pass by their home, led by a mahout.

Invariably, at least one would find their mother's sugar canes irresistible, make a detour onto the lawn and tug a few out of the ground as a juicy treat.

"We would see the elephants break the sugar cane before tramping off," she said with a chuckle. "My mother got so fed up, she dug them all up and planted flowers instead."

It was also a time of fresh produce: Madam Neo remembers an Indian man who would go door to door with his cow selling milk that was squeezed on demand.

Hawkers slinging big pots of piping hot pig organ soup and wheeling kolo mee carts would call out their wares from the road.

Today, her perspective on life has changed somewhat.

"Now, home to me is family, where my children are. The place doesn't matter so much," said Madam Neo, whose husband died of lung cancer this February.

She now spends her days at home cooking for her children sometimes, and tending to her hibiscus plants and pets: She has two mixed-breed dogs, seven hamsters and four tanks of fish.

While it is a far cry from her younger, crazier days, she said with a smile: "I've seen and done things, I've experienced it all, so it's okay. I have no regrets."

* Violet Neo: Beauty queen and Navy volunteer -RazorTV

'Even a black dot is hope'
Trauma still fresh for survivor of 1971 shipwreck
By Pearl Lee, The Straits Times, 29 Sep 2014

EVERY other day for more than a fortnight, Mr Tee Eng Kui woke up ready for his gruesome morning rites.

A friend and fellow sailor, thoroughly soaked, would have died of hunger or hypothermia. Mr Tee, the makeshift undertaker, would neaten their clothes, comb their hair and bid them farewell.

The corpses were slipped off the lifeboat, disappearing into the Indian Ocean.

"There were 39 of us, only 30 came back," he said in Mandarin.

He was 35 and drifting on the ocean in a lifeboat packed with his fellow seamen after his ship sank in June 1971, one of Singapore's worst shipwrecks.

For 16 days, he wondered if he would be the next to die, he recalled, sharing his story as Europe suffered its most deadly migrant shipwreck earlier this month, when as many as 500 migrants were believed to have died after human traffickers deliberately rammed their ship.

The trauma of such tragedies does not ease with the years, said Mr Tee, now 78, as he rattled off the names of the men who did not come back.

"I think of those days and those friends a lot," he said in an interview at an Upper Cross Street coffee shop.

He was in a cargo ship sailing from Singapore to Visakhapatnam in eastern India when it sprang a leak.

"It was a small leak at first. We got the carpenter to mend it, but the hole got bigger until it started sinking."

The crew then split into two lifeboats - 34 in one, which Mr Tee was on, and five in a smaller one. It was then that they lost their first sailor.

"We were lowering ourselves to the lifeboat and two fell into the sea. I threw out the rope and only one caught on. The other one didn't, and then the waves came," said Mr Tee.

"When the waves settled, he was gone. When you are thrown into the ocean like that, no one survives. Not even if you are a champion swimmer," he said.

While lifeboats should be well-stocked with supplies, he said the one they were in was old and had only a few packets of biscuits and a handful of sweets.

"The lifeboat was so small that we couldn't sit and had to squat. The water in the lifeboat was up to our belly buttons," he said.

There was no point scooping the water away, he added, for the next strong wave would fill the lifeboat up again.

When it rained, the men collected the water in a bucket and drank sips from it. Each person was given a few pieces of biscuits and two sweets each day.

"How can anyone possibly be full from that? But it was all we had. We even soaked the biscuits in water so they would expand."

The younger of two sons, he was then just four years into the job. He did not complete primary school and became a seaman to "see the world".

But he did not bargain for the near-death experience. As the seamen battled hunger, cold and fear, more started dying.

"In the morning, you would nudge the person next to you to pass him the biscuits, but he wouldn't move. Then you knew he had died."

Mr Tee believes it was by divine intervention that most of the crew survived. He recalled that they were down to their last packet of biscuits.

"We all knew that after we finished that packet, it was ting tian you ming," he said, using a Chinese saying that meant to resign oneself to fate.

But that morning, he noticed a small black dot in the vast ocean. "Every day it was just you, the sea and the sky. Even a black dot is hope," he said.

It was hope indeed, for the black dot turned out to be Burma. There, the crew reunited with the five sailors in the other lifeboat, and the Singaporeans were eventually flown back here.

He lost some 5kg from the ordeal, but it did not rob him of his love for adventure. By the next year, he was out at sea again, despite pleas from his brother to stop.

"He could not stop me. I still wanted to sail and go places," he said, sailing until he retired in his 50s.

Mr Tee, who remains unmarried, cheerfully said he has no family left now and nothing to his name. He lives in a three-room Housing Board flat belonging to his late brother, and gets by on social assistance.

But he speaks fondly of his sailing days, proudly listing the places he had been to.

"I've been around the world - Britain, the United States, China, Indonesia, South Africa.

"Most of the other survivors have died; others, I've lost contact with. Now, it's just me alone," he said.

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