It’s About Time

My childhood was spent growing up in C’wealth Crescent, a subset of Queenstown.  Where my home was located, we could access Chip Bee Garden, Holland Road estate very easily.  Incidentally it is one of the oldest housing estates in Singapore. 

The block of flats where I lived is situated on a slight “hill” and that plateau was two other blocks of similar design. Together the three blocks formed a nice triangle.  Interspersed between the blocks is a field (in those days we have lots more spaces). Kids used to play football literally downstairs.  No fancy jerseys; boots. Most of us played barefooted.  No need for government’s involvement to foster racial harmony. We kids simply join in and get to know one another. In fact, I learned Malay through such activities. 

One time the folks from some govt agencies planted trees (don’t know why they need to do that), so they started digging pits so they could plant instant trees.  Once they did it then the kids came out and played war games. Actually we were simulating the scenes from the TV hit series “Combat” (Vic Morrow).  Then came rain and we played in muddy water.   Those were the days. 

During those days when firecrackers was still legal for celebrating Chinese New Year, I’ve always been fascinated by the sound, smell and sights of it all.  But the highlights is always the 15^th day of CNY. Many families would string long chains of firecrackers. Some as long as 10 stories high.  Individuals would lit the firecrackers from the ground floor while their family members would be holding the bamboo stick from way up high. It was very noisy as you can imagine when so many household firing firecrackers simultaneously. This occasion occurs in the evening. By next morning, the field would be bright red in color. It was cool!  But alas with the firecrackers outlawed such things were thing of the past. It was real and I can still picture the scene vividly in my mind.