Chinatown

Different Exposures

Andrew Yip

Exposed in this book are the mysteries of Chinatown with its

dinghy death houses, pipa girls, leisure houses and tea girls
and intimate accounts of the personal lives of those sheltered
there from the winds of hardship, and vicissitudes of life. The
book also gives fascinating flashbacks with candid close-ups
of the sad plight of the people during and after the war years
and sordid details on communist subversion, intrigues, atroci-
ties and violence, as seen through the sharp eyes and lenses
of a Chinatown photographer, internationally acclaimed as the
“Outstanding Photographer of the Century.”

National Education Series

 Contents
About the Author 3

Preface 4

1 Chinatown - In Perspective 7

2 Chinatown: A Flash in it Shade 10

3 The Spring Festival 17

4 One day when we were young 23

5 Festivities & Celebrations 33

6 Love & Marriage 42

7 The realities of life 52

8 The War Years 58

9 The Post War Years 69

10 Those Turbulent Years 87

11 China re-visited 103

12 Photography as a creative art 119

 About the Author

The author is a psychologist and educationist. He was

educated in Edinburgh, Malaysia, Singapore and in
Pennsylvania. Holder of a Master Degree in Education
and an Honours Degree, and a specialist in Advanced
Psychology, Counselling and Guidance, Geography, and
Economics, he had held various academic and
professional appointments. He had worked as a
psychologist in a Scottish clinic, head of guidance and
counselling department, and a director of various
educational institutions, including the Nanyang
University, the American College , the ISS International
Schools and the IBM Education Centre in Singapore.
In the private sector, he was the executive director of
various groups of companies, including the Tong Eng,
Yeley, Land Resources and Asiawide. A former Chief
Education Officer of the Singapore Armed Forces, he
launched the National Education and Leadership
Training Programme for officers and men in the armed
forces in 1966. An accomplished poet, he wrote
poetry both in English and Chinese under
different pen names, including Andre W.
Keye and Zhou Tian.

3
 Preface
What makes a great story? Nobody can really give a full
answer to this simple question. But obviously, certain ele-
ments must be there. Firstly, the story must be real or at
least, believable. Secondly, the major character must be a
man or woman of substance. Thirdly, the drama and action
must be exciting, interesting or thought-provoking. Finally,
the background or the place where the events occur must
arouse interest.

This is a true story. In fact, it is a biographical ac-

count and a candid close-up of the life and times of
someone who lived through the gray and grim years
in Singapore’s Chinatown, and was able to rise above
the surroundings to become an international icon in
photography.

This is a remarkable story of a Chinatown boy who

struggled against all odds, leading a modest life, and
eventually became a photographer of world fame and a
proud son of Singapore. Before his death, he was
honoured by America, Britain, Switzerland, Italy, France
and Singapore and various countries and internationally
recognized as one of the best photographers of the
twentieth century.

One of his prizewinning picture was entitled ‘Rowing

At Dawn’. The stunning photograph of a lone boatman
rowing his sampan in the light of dawn won him several
4
gold medals and a string of top prizes in international
salons.

This accolade was soon followed by other achievements:

Associate of The Royal Photographic Society of Great
Britain in 1957; Fellow of The Royal Photographic
Society of Great Britain in 1961; The Honorary
Fellowship by The Photographic Society of Singapore
in 1974; The Honorary Excellence Distinction by the
Federation Internationale de L’art Photographique.

Among the many world awards, he won top prizes in

international salons for portraiture and seascape.
International salons hailed him as the photographer who
mastered the art of child portraiture. In 1980, the New
York Photographic Society conferred on him the title of
“The Outstanding Photographer of the Century.” In 1984,
the Singapore Government conferred upon him the
Cultural Medallion in recognition of his contributions to
cultural development locally and abroad. Today, some
of his prizewinning photographs were kept for permanent
display in the Dongguan Museum in China.

The background of the story is Chinatown , a shelter

and shade for the struggling immigrants from China, and
a place noted in the past for its dinghy death houses,
and leisure houses. Revealing in this book are true ac-
counts of British rule, the war years, Japanese Occupa-
tion, and life in postwar years, communist subversion and
the riots and strikes in Singapore. They serve as the
background in the true story of the life of a great pho-
5
tographer from Singapore’s Chinatown. It is a moving
story about his struggle through the groans and grinds
of life, the fears during the wars years and the tragedies
that occurred at different stages of his life.

How do you tell someone what it’s like to live in

Chinatown during the Japanese Occupation? Or about
life during the war years in Chinatown when bombing
started, and there were no air-raid shelters in Chinatown.
The drama and moments of danger cannot be described
dispassionately; these are experiences involving deep
emotions, which can only be shared through the me-
dium of a story, and with personal disclosure.

This is a story of hope, not despair. And there are some

important messages in the anecdotes. For those who
are interested in Photography, there are many good pic-
tures and a wealth of information on the subject, which
the master photographer has left us as a legacy in the
book.

This has been a book for fearful souls, depicting a diffi-

cult environment and a dim past where we stand mes-
merized and perplexed facing the stark realities of life
and the looming shadows of death and destruction. But
it is a timely reminder to our young that they must never
forget their roots and never take the present peace and
prosperity for granted. It is a book written for national
education, which could be useful to all those who did
not really know what real hardships were.

6
Chapter One

Chinatown - In Perspective
V ery often, we come across dramatic accounts of
Singapore’s Chinatown, and inevitably, such accounts
are accompanied by dreadful images of dinghy death
houses and leisure houses in this place in its distant past.
The uninitiated may have the impression that in the old
days, Chinatown was a picture of filth and squalor,
something akin to a slum. This impression should be
dispelled once and for all.

The Street Stalls in Chinatown in the early Fifties

7
The Singapore Chinatown is unique in its tradition and
heritage. Far from being a slum or having a muddy past,
it was a haven for struggling immigrants from China
and those who survived the atrocities of the world wars.
For those living in Chinatown in the past, apart from the
daily struggle to earn a livelihood, they had to face the
blustery winds and storms that ripped off everything of
value to them, including their loved ones. In such a
harrowing time, life was a matter of survival, individually
and collectively as a community. Permeating throughout
was a community spirit of mutual support, tolerance and
understanding, and avoidance of acrimony and conflicts.
With this spirit and the social structures that emerged,
Chinatown was more than a place to live and die; it
became a shade for the many who went there to stay
and earn a living either by chance or by choice. In this
shade and through the community support system,
however crude this might be, the people were able to
weather the storms, and the ravages of the long war
years, and the painful aftermath.

Some of us tend to look at Singapore’s Chinatown with

jaundiced vision. There are people who regarded the
Majies working in leisure houses as evil people forcing
young girls to go into prostitution. They tend to have a
greater respect for those Majies who worked as
domestic servants. But actually both groups took their
places in this shade to weather from the ravages of
storms, and to them, a job was a job. Who would cast
the first stone? The sanctimonious and those with the

8
holier-than-thou attitude from another era and living in
different circumstances, shielded from the storms of the
wars and bad times, really have no business to frown
upon others, to criticize, to find fault and pin sinful labels
upon them. Just look again at the dinghy death houses
and the houses where those critically ill were placed. In
those days, government planning was poor or
nonexistent. Concomitantly, hospitals and facilities for
the dead and the dying were unavailable. People in
Chinatown evolved their own system to support
community life, and cheaply too. Take another look at
the cubicles where the singles lived. They represented
a makeshift system of community housing for the poor
who could not, otherwise, afford better types of housing.
In the winter of despair for the dislocated and the
destitute, there was still hope, because the spirit of
community living was there to care for them. In a sense,
Chinatown is a microcosm of Singapore’s past writ large.

Card for the registration of Chinese immigrants

9
Chapter Two
Chinatown - ‘A Flash in its Shade’

Once we got the perspective right, we can then go on

with the story. It is a story of Chinatown itself, a
wonderland for the early immigrants from China, a shade
and shelter for storms of adversity that hit them. In this
shade, people grew strong, despite the fact that the winds
might have blown cold and strong, and possibly, their
possessions and their loved ones might have been ripped
off from them. They still dared to dream the impossible
dream. Some of their dreams might have been outgrown
and discarded, and sometimes turned into nightmares.

The story here is, however, one of hope, not of despair.

It is the story of an early Chinese immigrant, who lived
in Chinatown from boyhood to the point when he took
his last breath in the Chinese Garden MRT station after
a photographic session that started in the afternoon and
ended at midnight at the Chinese Garden’s Lantern
Festival. He collapsed while waiting for the train at the
MRT station on that fateful day on 16th September 1989.
He died at the age of 86.

10
Like other early immigrants from China and Hong Kong,
Yip’s parents left China to have a better life. They were
by no means poor. They had a house in Dongguan in
Southern China, a two-storied brick house, which still
stands firmly but unoccupied today at a corner of a
narrow winding road called Gongchai Street in a small
town called Cha-Shan (meaning “Tea Hill”). An adopted
son was left behind in Cha-Shan under the care of a
relative. The couple stayed in a small room in the
Wanchai District, where Yip was born in 1903. Life was
a struggle for the couple in Hong Kong. Unable to make
ends meet, even the mother had to find work. For the
couple, the only recourse was to send the two-year-old
boy back to China in the care of their relatives in Cha-
Shan. Yip’s father had to change jobs every now and
then, taking on anything that came his way from working
in the harbour to working in groceries and in machine
shops. Despite their difficult circumstances, they brought
the boy back to Hong Kong when he was six. Later, the
couple had a daughter. It was indeed a blessing to the
family. Their joy was complete.

Yip’s early education started in a private school in the

Wanchai district in Hong Kong at the age of six. On a
cold wintry morning, he followed his mother for a special
ceremony at the school. They climbed the steps of a
shop house at the junction of Hennessy Road and
Wanchai Road. It was six in the morning. The sky was
still dark. As they entered the school, a lady teacher
greeted them. The teacher made the boy kneel in front

11
of a portrait of Confucius. The chanting of prayers
followed this. It was a brief ceremony done in ritualistic
style, but for the boy, the ceremony for the start of his
education was most significant and memorable.

In the meantime, Yip’s father was in poor health, and

the hard work took a toll on him. He died when Yip was
ten years of age. Unable to cope, his mother decided to
emigrate to Singapore to join some friends residing in
Sago Lane in Singapore’s Chinatown.

Sago Lane – the name of the road conjures up several

images in the minds of Singaporeans. In the forefront is
the image of the dinghy death houses along certain
portions of this road some fifty years ago. Interposing
on this are images of the houses for the living dead.
These were houses to accommodate those who were
critically ill, and they had no relatives to care for them.
Many of them were discharged from hospitals for being
terminally ill, and they were left there waiting to die.
There were a number of brothels at Smith Street and
Sago Street at that time. Clearly this was no place to
bring up kids, but then what choice was there for Yip’s
mother, a widow, who just arrived from Hong Kong.

At nine in the evening, several teenagers, including Yip,

gathered at the staircase entrance of a shop house along
Sage Lane. They were tough kids but well behaved.
They decided to take a slow walk along the portion of
Sago Lane where the funeral parlours were located.

12
Their parents had forbidden them to walk along that
dreadful stretch of the road. But then this was a challenge.
Who would like to be called ‘chicken-hearted?’

From a distance, the kids could hear the sound of

mourners sobbing and crying, amidst the blaring sounds
of Chinese flute, the clang-clang beats of the brass gong,
and the endless repetitious chanting of prayers by priests.
They could see the mysterious shimmering lights amidst
the dark shadows of trees and buildings, and occasionally
tongues of flames that leaped up and down, spraying
out tiny dancing sparkles of light in different places.The
atmosphere was electrifying for these kids. They
watched in rapt attention the process of burning of joss
papers, and the way the priests and some mourners who
were walking round and round in circles as part of the
funeral rituals to seek protection for the dead in Hell.

Taoist Priest - ‘Crashing throught hell’

13
 Burning offerings to the dead

The kids could see more sparkles and dancing flames

and flickering lights as the burning continued to offer
paper houses, cars and dollar notes to the dead for their
use. Then came the challenge. None of the kids wanted
to chicken out. They walked together as a group in a
brisk pace. It was like a dash to hell and back. They
held each other’s hands for comfort as they walked along
this street of death. Trembling with fear and with sweat
pouring down their foreheads, they walked on. From
the corner of their eyes, they could see the coffins, most
of them uncovered, showing the cadavers inside. They
turned their eyes away to avoid this ghastly sight, but
they walked on – their faces pale and their hearts
throbbing with fear. Such was the daring of these
teenagers.

14
 Praying to the dead

At midnight, the lights at the death houses were still on,

but the din and prattle had stopped. This part of the
Chinatown began its quiet slumber. Once in while, the
silence was broken when a car went past. Voices could
be heard occasionally from the death houses, as there
were still some family members keeping vigil at funeral
wakes. Another hour passed, and soon quietness
enveloped all the buildings.

Early next morning, the young Yip got up early to attend

school. The school located at Kreta Ayer Road was a
private school. The teacher was an old lady. Yip recalled
on one occasion, he had to hide under a bed with some

15
students, when an official came to check the school.
Most likely the school was not properly registered.

Studying Chinese was a challenge. There was a lot of

emphasis on rote learning and Chinese calligraphy. He
enjoyed writing with a small brush. To write well, he
had to develop a steady hand, and avoid spilling the black
ink for use with the Chinese pen-brush. It was the same
type of pen-brush and the steady hand that he used in
his later life to touch up the negatives of photographs
that made him famous.

Going to school in Chinatown

16
Chapter Three
The Spring Festival

W ith the approach of Chinese New Year or the Spring

Festival, there was excitement everywhere in
Chinatown. For Yip and his family, there was also much
to do at home. Much of what was required to be done
before and during the New Year was symbolic - symbolic
of good fortune and omens, and avoidance of bad luck.

The first act was spring-cleaning. Apart from just

cleaning up the house for the celebration of a festive
occasion, this would be an exercise to clear away
anything bad or evil. For this reason, it would be an
occasion to discard the junks in the house. Yip’s mother
kept on reminder her son to clear the cobwebs on the
walls and ceilings. Yip also had to help her to clean up
ugly patches on the walls and ceilings, and if they could
not be removed, he would have to paint over them.
Once the fever was on, it led to the replacement of almost
anything that looked old with something new, be it

17
curtains, furniture, altar, electrical appliances or even
toys. Ironically, this good practice was power-driven by
superstitious fears.

Yes, there had been fears before ushering in the New

Year - fear of bad luck which might follow if inadvertently
one walked under somebody else’s laundries, especially
under garments, or broke jars, bowls, cups, especially
mirrors, or being cursed, reprimanded or beaten by
others. These fears were not the result of gross
ignorance or lack of education; they were entrenched
as symbolic things that guided good behaviour. For sure,
Yip’s mother, like other parents, meant well in passing
them on, from one New Year to another, and they were
quite harmless. Unlike superstitious beliefs such as fear
of number thirteen or Triskaidekaphobia, which has its
roots in early Christianity, some of the Chinese
superstitious beliefs during the New Year serve a useful
social purpose. At least, they help to ensure good
behaviour during the New Year season.

The superstitious fears stretched beyond New Year’s

Eve for fifteen days, which represented the duration of
the New Year celebration. For example, sweeping the
floor with a broom was strictly prohibited. The logic of

18
this taboo was not clear. It might have something to do
with bad luck that might ensue, if one was accidentally
came into contact with the broom. Or perhaps, there
were mystic powers in the broom. In Western mythology,
some people, well glamorized in Western movies, could
travel from place to place in the air, with the aid of brooms
or broomsticks.

There was a sense of expectancy as the New Year

approached. Kids like Yip became more excited with
each passing day. Yip remembered counting weeks and
then days in anticipation. Naturally, on New Year’s Eve,
the spirit of the festivity arrived, when the family and
relatives sat together for a family dinner after prayers.
Again, the symbolic significance of the family reunion
dinner deserves some mention. One special dish was
raw fish. The word “fish” in Cantonese sounds like
“having something extra.” No doubt, this was the fervent
hope of everyone. It is a pragmatic philosophy. There is
no point hoping to be a multimillionaire, unless God
endowed you with the “extras,” hopefully the extra cash
for one to wheel and deal. Then, of course, another
“must” is the mixed vegetable dish with seven different
types of vegetables. Be rest assured, the dish tasted
heavenly with the seven luck-generating vegetables.

Yip was told that the important thing in the New Year
would be to get rid of any bad luck in the past, at least
symbolically. The act of destruction of the old must begin.
This is not mere superstition. It is in fact an echo of

19
what Pablo Picasso had said: “Every act of creation is
first of all an act of destruction.” The Chinese did this
symbolically by firing crackers on the eve of the New
Year and during the fifteen days of celebration..

Fire Crackers

It probably happened to everyone in Chinatown – at

midnight on the eve of the New Year, Yip was awakened
by the sound of firecrackers. The deafening noise of
the firecrackers echoed in the streets. It ushered in the
New Year. There was excitement and a sense of
exhilaration. Some children joined in the fun, throwing
firecrackers onto the streets. The smaller kids played
with sparkles. It was a magical transition to a new year.

20
On New Year’s Day, Yip got up early in the morning, at
5 a.m. Having changed into his new clothes, he kneeled
in front of his mother to wish her a happy new year. He
received a big red packet (Ang-Pow) after this. This
was just a start, as he would receive the red packets,
every time a visitor turned up. He had also learnt what
to say to these visitors as auspicious greetings for the
New Year. His mother took both children in a rickshaw
to the Tua Peh Kong Temple for prayers. The place
was packed with people. Yip remembered the burning
of joss sticks and red candles. There was smoke and
noise everywhere, amidst the shouts by large hordes of
beggars who yelled for money.

Chinese Temple in Chinatown

21
After the prayer session, which last for about an hour,
the family took another ride on the rickshaw home. As
they travelled along the streets with the cool morning
sun behind them, they could feel the gaiety in the air.
The sporadic bursts of firecrackers and the rockets
heralded the arrival of the most important day in the
year.

Excitement filled Yip’s heart. Just the thought of seeing

so many relatives and friends and visiting their homes,
receiving gifts and red packets, going to the park and
the cinemas, enjoying sumptuous meals at fine
restaurants, and a host of other things, was enough to
cause his emotions and a sense of elation to run wild.
As he listened to the New Year songs over the radio
and gramophones everywhere, his heart was filled with
joy and hope for better days ahead.

An old temple
22
Chapter Four
“One day when we were young”

During his school years, there were only a few

important events to mark them. True, the First World
War was on, but in Singapore, it was relatively safe. He
heard about the bombings and fierce fighting in Europe,
and the Japanese attacks in China. Young though he
was, he understood what war and aggression meant.
He understood how a million people died when Germans
and French soldiers clashed. But then these things
happened far away, and they did not affect Singapore.
Perhaps the most significant thing that affected him at
that time was the shift to a shop house at Kreta Ayer
Road, where his mother, Mak started a small grocery
shop.

The shop house was unusual in that the back portion

was used as a dwelling place for Chinese women, all of
whom were unmarried, and most of them worked as
maidservants. The dwelling place set up by Mak
followed a pattern adopted in many places in Chinatown,
and known as Kuli Fong, or literally translated from
Cantonese as the “Coolies’ House”. They were actually

23
cubicles rented out to the large number of immigrant
Chinese who flocked to Chinatown at that time. The
cubicles were actually two-tier or three-tier wooden
platforms used for sleeping. Mak’s cubicles could
accommodate thirty people at a time, and these people
paid a rental for the sleeping space. In practice, each
cubicle space represented a home to these Majies or
maidservants, as they had no place to turn to, when they
became unemployed. It also meant that they had a
gathering place to meet friends, or to take a rest on their
“off days.”

It would be a mistake to regard the cubicles as gloomy

overcrowded places, without understanding how they
operated. In the first place, Mak treated all the women
lodged with her as “sisters”. They went through a “hair
combing” ceremony to become sworn sisters to one
another, and pledged their sisterhood. The hair combing
ceremony in its variegated forms, represented different
things to the immigrant Chinese. For those women who
became Majies or maidservants, the ceremony
represented a pledge to stay single. Even for men and
women who were getting married, the hair combing
ceremony performed at the night prior to the wedding
day was a wish for good fortune for the marriage and
the bringing up of large numbers of children. The origins
of this practice were obscure. Interpretations of the
meaning and significance of the ceremony differed. It
was possible that the differences reflected the way they
were adopted for use in different parts of China.

24
Hair Combing

The way the “Coolie House” was run followed a pattern

common to many places within Chinatown. Yip’s mother,
Mak was not particularly shrewd, nor was she an
entrepreneur extraordinaire. Mak made everyone who

25
rented a cubicle space from her to join her mutual aid
group. Each person would have to make a monthly
contribution to a mutual aid fund. These “sisters” could
also introduce their friends to join the group. Members
of the fund could tender for a loan and pledge to pay
monthly contributions to settle the loan. In the event of
the death of a member, the payment for funeral and
other expenses would come from this fund. But apart
from such financial support, a departed member could
pass away in peace, knowing that her dear “sisters”
would be there to mourn for her. Moreover, Mak also
arranged for prayer sessions on several occasions in
the year for the departed members and for the worship
of the Goddess of Mercy and the Monkey God, for which
money would be collected to cater for special lunches
or dinners and other necessities. Mak also started the
Seven Sisters Club for the celebration of the Seven
Sisters Festival each year. Even modern management
gurus could not come up with a more ingenious scheme
to attract these single Chinese immigrants, take care of
them and earn money from them at the same time.

A young boy growing up in Chinatown had to be quite

independent, capable of handling situations on his own.
The social environment was unique in that the centre of
social life of a teenager was not in his home, but on the
streets. On the street where he lived, he spent his time
with his friends. His own house was usually in such a
mess that he would not invite them in; neither would he
introduce his friends to his parents in case they

26
disapproved of them. This was the pattern of things for
young Yip. He spent part of his time helping his mother
to mind the shop, and studying at the same time, but
much of his leisure hours were spent in the
neighbourhood with a few friends. Once a day, they would
gather in a coffee shop to talk and sometimes to play
chess. They sometimes travelled further to meet other
friends on bicycles.

Yip was thoughtful as he waited impatiently at the coffee

shop for Hong and Chee. He ordered a cup of coffee.
Although he was happy to join his friends for a swim at
Mount Emily Swimming Pool, he was wondering whether
he should tell his mother first. He decided against the
idea of telling her, because she always refused to let
him go near water. ‘There are water ghosts. They might
pull you down, and you can get drowned.’ Mak believed
evil spirits lurked everywhere; it would be best not to
tempt them. It is for this reason that she prayed daily to
the Gods for protection and for good fortune.

Impatiently tapping on the round marble table, Yip turned

his head to glance at passers-by on the street and the
beautiful ladies riding on rickshaws, a covered two-
wheeler vehicle, powered by human strength. Then he
saw them - Hong and Chee arrived in their bicycles.
Their bikes, like the one owned by Yip, were huge two-
wheelers, similar to those used by some hawkers to
transport goods.

27
They parked their bikes outside the coffee shop along
the pavement. They did not bother to lock them. They
were tough kids in a tough neighbourhood. This was
their turf. Who would dare touch things belonging to
them? Both were young, tall and good looking, but their
unsmiling faces took on a haughty expression. Hong, a
burly teenager, dashed into coffee shop first, clumsily
upsetting several wooden chairs before he sat down in
front of Yip. His face muscles tightened slightly to
produce a boyish grin. He looked around and saw some
boys standing at the corner in a nearby shop. He flashed
a sign with his fingers at them. The group of boys
immediately disappeared. Hong laughed and yelled some
expletives at them. Chee smiled but looked
disapprovingly at Hong; he took out a chess set and
challenged Yip to a game of Chinese chess as it was
still too early to leave for the Mount Emily pool where
they would meet a few other friends, including girls.

As Chee and Yip were playing, Hong became restless.

He took out a piece of cloth and started wiping his
bicycle. Just then he heard the sound of a motorbike
thundering past. He glared at the rider and continued
with his work. A short while, later, he heard the
thundering noise of the motorbike again. He stopped
wiping his bike. His temper began to flare. He stood on
the road with a paper box, like a fierce ravening animal
stalking his prey. He could hear the sound of the noisy
machine approaching. He waited. As the rider came
nearer, Hong jumped across the road culvert and flung

28
the paper box at the rider. The rider swerved and
managed to dodge the flying paper box; then he regained
his balance and disappeared. He never dared to ride his
motorbike along the same stretch of road again.

Here is a tongue twister, but it is sound advice. It is a

Persian proverb:

He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not,

is a fool; shun him.
He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is a
child, teach him.
He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep,
wake him.
He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise,
follow him.

All these four types can be found in any neighbourhood,

and Chinatown is no exception. Growing up in a tough
but challenging social environment called for individual
discernment. It called for ability to read character, and
some wisdom to identify the truth and falsehood that
would surround the person. It also required the ability to
take a helicopter view of things and to see things beneath
the surface and correctly size up the situation.

Yip was playing a chess game with Chee. But he was

alert and noticed the antics of his friend, Hong who was
acting like a superhero in Chinatown. He was not
impressed. Tough guys like Hong – there were hundreds

29
of them, or even thousands. His mother had warned
him about the gangsters at Craig Road. What Hong had
done could result in a gang clash. Hong did not seem to
know the consequences of his dangerous antics. The
British Government at that time passed laws against
gangsterism. Gangsters could be detained indefinitely
without trial as Criminal Law Detainees. Yip decided
to shun gangster-like characters from that point on.

His mother Mak had taught him a simple rule on

Discernment – know who is righteous; shun the
unrighteous. Life in Chinatown involved close contact
with people on the streets. For this reason, discernment
was important. One had to be able to observe, think and
notice things, and in social situations keep good company.
Mak could be seen at home every now and then during
prayer sessions, using a pair of slippers to beat paper
effigies of the unrighteous spirits or small people before
burning them. Amazing as it may seem, this act has a
message for everyone in modern society. True, Mak was
just an old lady who did this prompted by Chinese
superstitions, but she knew the wickedness of small
people, and time and time again, she had reminded her
son to avoid meeting the small people in life.

As one walks along the long and difficult journey of life,

one may not have encountered ghosts or spirits, but it is
certain that at every cross-road or turning point, one
will stumble upon someone or something that will have
an impact upon one’s life. Deep into the silence of the

30
night, one may be able to ponder or reflect on those
encounters with the righteous or unrighteous, the big
or the small people. And some of the small people might
have brought harm or danger to one’s life, because one
has failed to close the doors to them, or heed the soft
gentle warnings in one’s head, in one’s soul.

Yip heeded his mother’s warnings, notwithstanding the

independent life he led as a teenager. He chose Chee,
the quiet gentleman and Chinese scholar, as his bosom
friend, and avoided Hong. They soon joined a social club
known as Tamfa at Keong Saik Road, and spent their
leisure hours learning musical instruments. Both of them
soon mastered the Violin and the Yeong Kum and became
members of the Orchestra. They also took up
photography as a hobby. Yip’s mother partitioned a small
room at the rear of the shop house for use as a dark
room.

But Tamfa was not really the ideal sanctuary for good
souls. In essence, it was a social club in a locality called
the Blue Triangle, a triangular neighbourhood, flanked
by Kreta Ayer Road, Keong Saik Road, and Neil Road,
where there were many leisure houses with Pipa girls
entertaining rich clients. At Tamfa, people gambled the
night away, and Pipa girls kept them company while
they gambled. At the entrance of Tamfa, the boys
sometimes amused themselves watching the Pipa girls
arriving at night in Rickshaws. When it was dark, the
rickshaw pullers lit two oil lamps to adorn the rickshaws.

31
They usually arrived in a group at night. It was a colourful
display of lights and beautiful ladies with attractive make-
up and ankle-length cheongsums. The Pipa girls were
usually brought up by Majies as their foster daughters,
and were taught the fine art of entertaining men from
young. They were also taught to play the Pipa, a Chinese
lute musical instrument. The Pipa girls would pose a
real challenge to the Japanese geishas.

“A lady with a rare Pipa

In a vision once I saw.”

32
Chapter Five
Festivities and Celebrations

Seven Sisters Festival

For teenagers like Chee and Yip, watching the young

girls at the Seven Sisters Festival was more interesting
than watching the Pipa girls at the Blue Triangle. The
Festival falls on the seventh day of the seventh lunar
month of each year, and was celebrated in Chinatown
in a grand style. The Festival has its origin in Chinese
folklore dating back more than 1,500 years. The legend,
features a weaver maid (with six older sisters), who led
a lonely life working at her loom throughout the year.
Her father, the Heavenly Emperor, felt sorry for her
and allowed her to marry a cow herder from across the
Milky Way. After the wedding, she neglected her
weaving duties and the Emperor ordered her to return
home and visit her husband only once a year - on the
seventh day of the seventh moon. The celebrations
centre on religious rites and feature needlework
competitions. As part of the worship, young women make
offerings to the night sky and the two stars that represent

33
the cow herder and the maid. They usually present fruit
and burn joss sticks and incense in the open air, chiefly
on rooftops, in backyards and gardens or at back lanes.
For Yip, there was a great deal of activity at his mother’s
shop house, since his mother operated a Seven Sister
Club with contributions from the Majies staying there.
Members would receive roast pork and other valuables
on that day and gathered for dinner at the premises. At
the back lane of the shop house, Mak would hang on the
wall a big Seven Sisters Plate. Below this was an altar
for prayers, displaying roast pork and other things used
as offerings to the seven fairy maidens.

With so many activities during the evening, naturally large

groups of young girls in their beautiful samfu flocked
the streets of Chinatown to watch the display of the
Seven Sisters Plate everywhere. Some of these were
very imaginatively designed in three dimensions, and with
offerings like jade bangles and other valuable items
attached to them. The streets were packed with people.
The boys like Chee and Yip also spent the entire evening
watching the street hawkers and the celebrations, as
well as the maidens who thronged the streets. It was
indeed great fun. At midnight when things became
quieter, the boys would sit on wooden benches at the
Hilltop in Chinatown to gaze at the moon and the twin
stars in the night sky that represented the fairy maiden
and the cow herder.

34
Hungry Ghosts Festival

There were many other festivals celebrated in

Chinatown. For example, during the Seventh Lunar
Month, the Hungry Ghost Festival was celebrated, when
paper cloth and gold and silver ingots made of paper
were burnt as offerings to the homeless souls that
wandered around in the spirit world. Some households
would distribute copper coins to the poor; others might
toss the coins to the crowd of beggars, teenagers or
gangsters watching the proceedings.

Hindu Worship

35
 A Hindu devotee at a Hindu Temple

Thai Poosam or Thaipusam - This day is

celebrated to hnour the birth anniversary of
Karthikeya or Subramanya, the second son of
Lord Shiva and his consort, the Goddess
Parvati.

36
Awesome is the word. The spectacle of Hindu devotees
assembled with their kavadi at the Hindu Temple in
Chinatown and the solemn religious procession that
followed, created a sense of awe in young minds like
Yip, but he was ready to capture the spectacle with a
camera, since the temple was just a stone’s throw
away from his house.

Kavadi

37
 Penance
Thaipusam

Each year at Thaipusam, the temple located at the

corner of Kreta Ayer Road and Keong Saik Road, was
packed with Hindu devotees, who later joined other
devotees from the Hindu Temple at Tank Road to form
an awesome but colourful procession. Thousands
thronged the streets to watch the procession. It was
indeed an exciting time for the kids in Chinatown around

38
 the two Hindu temples. They watched with fearful hearts
as the devotees carrying the kavadi passsed by .

The devotees offered the kavadi to Lord Muruga as

their penance and devotion. The kavadi was carried on
the shoulder. It consisted of a semicircular structure,
decorated with flowers, peacock feathers and palm
leaves. Some devotees endured pain by having a number
of hooks pierced into their bodies as an act of devotion,
and they chanted “Vel-Vel” repeatedly, an emotionally
charged cry to Lord Muruga for his blessings. Others
yelled in anguish the word “Arohara” for Lord Shiva’s
blessings.

Chinatown and Multi-racial living

This is just a sprinkling of Hindu culture in Chinatown,

but for multi-racial and multi-religious Singapore, it has
its significance. In essence, it became part of the story
Penance of a boy growing up through intermingling with another
culture in a Chinatown flanked by two Hindu temples.
Young minds were moulded in the process of multiracial
community living. The impact was there, whether it was
through a friendly gesture or smile or through watching
the distribution of food or alms to Chinese people. The
two temples had made it a tradition to distribute rice and
essential food items and some alms in difficult times.
They also did this on special occasions, such as the

39
celebration of Thaipusam, Deepavali or other religious
ceremonies like fire walking, or the offer of the first
coconut to dignitaries. Deepavali or Diwali is a festival
of lights. On this day, the entire nation gets together
with the Hindus in celebrating the victory of good over
evil.

Mid-Autumn Festival or Lantern Festival

Another important festival is the Mid-Autumn Festival

or the Lantern Festival, which is celebrated on the 15th
Night of the First Lunar Month. As it is celebrated on
the first night of a full moon, it is also known as the
Yuanxiao Festival. The full moon night is also called the
Lovers’ Festival. It features the distribution of moon-
cakes and pomelos and lanterns. All over the streets of
Chinatown, young children could be seen carrying their
beautiful lanterns of all shapes, sizes and descriptions
and enjoying themselves singing at the same time. Some
played sparkles to add to the mystic charm of the
occasion. It was a joy to watch the facial expressions
of the children with their lanterns and sparkles.

There was beauty in the dark streets of Chinatown with

the shimmering lights of thousands of lanterns, the
occasional flashes from the sparkles and the flickering
lights from the rotating lanterns that were hung outside
the shop houses. It was to capture the facial expressions
of the children and the beauty of the thousand of lanterns,
that Yip was seen with his cameras in Chinatown. It

40
was to capture the same beauty that he spent his last
six hours on the fateful evening on 16th September 1989
taking pictures of the lantern festival at the Chinese
Garden. It was his passion as an artist to try to capture
such beauty to perfection.

Lantern Dance

Of the festivals mentioned, it was not the Lantern

Festival that was of significance to Yip’s life, as it only
marked its end, not the beginning. Strangely, it was the
Seven Sisters Festival, a festival meant for young girls
praying to the seven fairy maidens for blessings that
became significant to him, as on this occasion, he met
the love of his life. Indeed, it is every young girl’s dream
to meet the love of her life during the Seven Sisters
Festival.

41
Chapter Six
Love and Marriage

A chance meeting

The shop house was packed with visitors. There were

tears in Yip’s eyes, as the smoke from the burning of
incense and joss sticks, irritated his tear glands. His ears
were bombarded by noises everywhere – people chatting
and laughing loudly, and some Taoist priests chanting
away prayers incomprehensible to him. And there were
clang-clang sounds of gongs and tock-tock beats
accompanying the prayers.

It was a cacophony orchestrated by his mother to

celebrate the Seven Sisters Festival with her club
members. Yip could have walked away for peace and
quiet, but he stood there. He was glued on the spot when
his eyes were riveted on the face of a young girl brought
to the celebration by one of his mother’s good friends.
No words were spoken. They just stared at each other.
But his mother was quick to notice his interest, and
introduced the girl, Lin to him and asked them to help
prepare the altar at the rear of the shop house. It was
the first occasion for the two young people to do things
together, but it was the beginning of a partnership that
stretched over seven decades.

42
Modern Marriages - some reflections

Love and marriage could just be simple like this. But it

could be complicated as experienced by many couples
in modern society. The complications young people face
nowadays manifest in the intricate patterns of social
relationships inherent in modern culture. Depending on
perceived roles and individual expectations, life is no
longer the same, no longer simple or carefree; the
moment marriage is contemplated or realized.

The sad fact is no longer surprising – love and marriage

may not always go together like horse and carriage once
the honeymoon is over and social relationships are frail
and fragile at whatever level. It’s easy to kid ourselves
that this won’t happen if there is commitment in
marriage. Two persons in matrimony must love and
respect one another. A simple rule! But this is easier
said than done. There’s bound to be problems and
irritations in the river of life. The husband cannot expect
the wife who may be working always to remain the gentle
and sweet, ever smiling sedate darling of his heart. Even
if she remains a housewife, there is bound to be situations
and problems at home that could upset her equanimity
or composure. When that happens, the husband feels

43
that he has to face a barrage of complaints every time
he returns from a hard day’s work at the office.

Take a different scenario in which the wife expects her

man to be an instant success in life. After all, she is
human and she lives in an “instant” get-rich-quick society
with “instant tea,” “instant noodle,” and so many “instant
buttons” and the likes of them. She also lives in an
“affluent” society, where roadside plants are watered
with “effluent” water. Naturally, she expects to have a
good life with the five capital “C’s” and she wants to
keep up with the Jones’s. But the husband is just a simple
guy. He may not be rich or getting richer. He may not
be dynamic or charismatic. He may not even be doing
well in the office or factory.

Shed a tear for this average working man. Warfare and

deadly battles in the steaming human jungles calls for
shock troops in super shape. Making millions calls for
rare gifts of business acumen and shrewdness, keen
business strategy, sweat, guts and sometimes tears, an
unbending will and indomitable courage and
determination, and what God sometimes does not
provide, ample financial reserves and capital. Check this
out. This applies to Jimmy Brown, but it applies to any
honest average working man as well.

Shed a tear for Jimmy Brown

Poor Jimmy is no more
For what he thought was H 2 O
Was H 2 SO 4

44
So, it is not surprising that the average working man
feels unhappy at home when he faces a daily dose of
complaints from his wife. He may choose to keep quiet.
If he opens his mouth, every word he utters could meet
with a sharp retort, often laced with poisonous
belittlement, ridicule and scorn.

The River of Life is a River of No Return

In the river of life, there is bound to be constant attrition,

corrasion or erosion along its narrow winding course.
There is bound to be rapids or sharp falls and a great
deal of sedimentation. There may be confluence with
other lives, as the river meanders along joined by other
tributaries, and one might just get confused or lost,
because in this river of no return, there are few guiding
lights. Much depends on how strong are the riverbanks
and what forms the bedrock of the river valley. How
things will turn out with love and marriage in modern
life depends on the bedrock of character of the
individuals involved.

The old Sedan Chair with one destination

For young people like Yip and Lin in the old days when
the world faced the great depression, and when life was
a constant struggle for survival, love and marriage might
not go completely together like horse and carriage, but
the “carriage” represented either by the “sedan chair”
or the household in marriage in its literary or symbolic

45
sense, was real, strong and enduring; and it took couples
to their destination. The “carriages” in modern marriage
have wheels - will travel, and have spare tyres.” They
could take each partiner to different destinations and
can move in all directions on the long road of life. That
is the difference.

Sedan Chair Bridal Car

The respective roles of husband and wife in the old
days were clear and simple – fatherhood and
motherhood; the man to be head of the household and
the woman was expected to follow, comfort and support
him, and both to live in harmony through the twilight of
their years. There were no great expectations. The two
couples must be happy with each other, and their families
accepted the union as a good match.

46
For some families, consulting the book of astrology and
determining that the respective dates and hours of birth
would be matching and could bring good luck and good
fortune to the respective households would be most
important. The marriage ceremony often intertwined with
praying to ancestors and to the Heaven.

For the man as well as the woman, marriage was for

life as part of the tradition in oriental culture. Western
concepts like divorce had not crept into old Singapore
society. There was no need for divorce even for the
man with wandering eyes at that time, as legally he could
take a second wife. Divorces and broken families were
uncommon in the old days, but there were cases of
women being abused in such a polygamous situation.

But newly independent Singapore needed a system to

protect women and children, and in 1967, the government
adopted the rule of one man, one wife with the enactment
of the Women’s Charter, with its stated purpose of
“disciplining the man and securing the woman and the
home”. By replacing customary marriages with the
practice of monogamy, champions of women’s rights
and feminism naturally hailed it as a quantum leap in
social reform. But there have been doubts in the minds
of some people who felt that the country might have
discarded a time-tested system in favour of a practice
that did not seem to be working well in western societies
with many marriages crashing onto the rocks of divorce
and infidelity, and worse still, creating the ugly and socially

47
disruptive phenomenon known as broken homes and
displaced or broken children or juvenile delinquency. The
issue is controversial and is best left to politicians,
sociologists and reformists to continue with their
arguments.

The Matchmaker

Marriage in the old days often started with the

appointment of a matchmaker. Choo, an old lady who
knew Lin’s family was duly appointed. Armed with a
photograph and the date and hour of birth of Yip, she
went to see Ah Kow, Lin’s brother as both Lin’s parents
had passed away. Her mother died during childbirth,
while her father died in a tragic accident while working
as a coolie in the harbour. The matchmaker formally
presented the proposal to Ah Kow. She asked for Lin’s
birthday and birth hours. She then made sure that the
couple’s birthdays and birth hours did not conflict
according to astrology.

The Three Letters and Six Etiquettes in Marriage

The matchmaker followed the basic principle of Three

Letters and Six Etiquettes, which were deemed to be
essential to a marriage. The three letters included
Betrothal Letter, Gift Letter and the Wedding Letter.
The Six Etiquettes include Proposing, Birthday matching,
Presenting Betrothal gifts, Presenting Wedding Gifts,
Picking a Wedding Date, and the Wedding Ceremony.

48
Choo then presented the betrothal gifts to Ah Kow,
enclosing the betrothal letter. The gifts included tea, lotus
seeds, longan, red beans, green beans, red dates, nutmeg,
oranges, pomegranate, lily, bridal cakes, coconuts, wine,
red hair braid, and a money box. Later a wedding date
was picked after consultation with both families.

The Wedding Ceremony started off with both bride and

groom dressing up for the occasion. At dawn, Yip put
on a long gown, red shoes and a red silk sash with a silk
ball on his chest. Then he knelt at the ancestral altar,
and put on a cap decorated with cypress leaves on his
head to declare his adulthood and his family responsibility.

At her home, Lin also started dressing up at dawn. She

took a bath in water infused with various grapefruits.
She then put on new clothes and a pair of red shoes. A
woman helped her to comb her hair in the style of a
married woman. Then her head was covered with a red
silk veil with tassels or bead strings that hung from the
phoenix crown. She then waited for the bridegroom to
escort her to his home. Gathered in the house were a
number of bride’s aides or da jin jie whose duties
included dressing up the bride and helping with her make-
up. Some of the Majies who were experienced in
marriage rites were chosen for this role. The bride’s
aides were expected to be quite vocal and articulate in
saying auspicious things during and after the wedding
ceremony. On this day, the family made red and white

49
glutinous rice balls or tangyuan using glutinous rice flour,
and offered them to the bride’s aides as a customary
gesture of thanks.

Yip came later with some escorts and musicians playing

all the way to Lin’s home. At the doorstep of Lin’s house,
he found the entrance blocked by the bridesmaids and
other ladies. They gave him a difficult time, including
asking him to sing a song, before he was allowed to
meet the bride. He also had to give them red packets
with money.

A red sedan chair was used to carry the bride. On her

way to the sedan chair, the bride was shielded with a
red parasol. Someone also threw rice at the sedan chair,
at the back of which hung a sieve and a metallic mirror
that were believed to protect he bride from evil. Then
came the firecrackers to drive away evil spirits, as Lin
sat on the sedan chair.

On reaching Yip’s home, firecrackers were again set

off. She stepped on a red mat before entering the house.
At the threshold, she had to step over a flaming stove.
Then the bride and bridegroom were led to the family
altar where they bowed to Heaven, Earth, the family
ancestors and Yip’s mother in that order. After that, they
bowed to each other, and then they were led to the
bridal chamber.

50
In the evening there was a grand feast for the relatives
and friends. At the dinner, the couple had to toast to the
guests to pay their thanks. There was some good-natured
ragging of both bride and bridegroom after the wedding
feast, but such bridal ragging was well handled by the
experienced majies, who were paid about a hundred
dollars each for their services.

Chinese wedding ceremony

51
Chapter Seven
The realities of life

A humble start

From that point on, after Yip married Lin, the grocery
shop had a new shopkeeper, a shrewd businesswoman
who kept a steady hand over the various business
ventures in which they became involved.

The first bold move made by Lin was to set up a home

on the top level of the shop house. The newly married
couple stayed in one room. Two other rooms were rented
out. The remaining space on the third storey was
partitioned off as a cubicle space for another fifteen
women to stay. Lin’s idea was to get extra income for
the family in this way.

In the meantime, Yip started work as a technician with

the United Engineers, leaving Lin and his mother to take
care of the grocery business. Being Chinese educated,
it was not possible for him to get a tidy job in a tidy
office. His brother-in-law, Ah Kow, who had moved into
his flat on the third storey with his two daughters and a
son, had the same problem. He managed to find work in
Chinatown, as a tailor.

52
English education or Chinese education?

Under the British Administration, the key to a successful

career was English education. At that time, British
personnel filled administrative and managerial posts. The
locals only aspired for clerical posts. To have a son or
daughter working as a clerk was regarded as a great
honour for any Chinese family.

Forget about the tolerance of British superiority in the

society at that time. Forget about the shame of the
minority who displayed obsequious manners to the sons
of colonial masters. Harking back to old times often bring
such painful memories, but the average Chinese were
shrewd, astute and capable of exercising self-control,
characteristics which often masked their strong will.
They had not failed to notice there were rules in certain
British controlled social clubs disallowing locals from
patronage. With the end of Empire and retreat of
colonialism, such rules had of course been cast out of
many club windows. When it happened, quipped one
chap with a heavy cockney accent to a Hainanese cook
at the club restaurant, “So, I will not pull your pigtail
anymore from today!” The retort from the cook was
swift and sure, “And I will not spit into your soup
anymore!” However, this should not be taken seriously,
as the British Administration brought many good things
into old Singapore, and generally, there were few serious
problems in Chinatown, and flare-ups were infrequent.

53
But due to the existence of overcrowded working class
quarters, secret societies, and brothels and against the
background of rising nationalist sentiment in and from
China, Chinatown was not always peaceful.

The Kreta Ayer Incident

In Chinese schools, young children were taught to revere

Dr. Sun-Yat Sen, whose portrait hung in all such schools.
Sun-Yat Sen’s death in 1925 sparked off a great deal of
anti-imperialism and Chinese nationalist sentiment. Dr.
Sun-Yat Sen visited Singapore several times up to 1911,
and his residence could still be found in a villa along Ah
Hood Road, near Balestier Road. Dr. Sun’s death evoked
mixed feelings, but these feelings were intense.
Everybody in Chinatown expected an imminent clash
between local Kuomintang party members and leftist
unionists. It started off with small incidents but eventually
it culminated in an ugly clash between the groups. This
was then referred to as the Kreta Ayer Incident of 12
March 1927.

This could be deemed as a blunder by the British

Administration, which under-rated the sensitivities of the
issues and the strong feelings associated with Dr Sun-
Yat Sen’s death. The Administration allowed on that
fateful day a group of mainly respectable Hokkien
organizers for a meeting to commemorate the second
anniversary of Sun Yat Sen’s death at the Happy Valley
Amusement Park. The conditions: no speeches, no China

54
flags, and no procession. But on the day, things went
out of control. There were groups of activists at the
meeting. They started making speeches and turned the
meeting into a procession. Large crowds joined the
procession and when the procession reached the Kreta
Ayer area, trouble started.

It started off with a trolley bus trying to force its way

through the crowd. The police tried to make an arrest.
The huge crowd comprising largely of young men
including some students, then stormed the Kreta Ayer
Police Station. The police responded and started to fire
some warning shots. The crowd did not yield and
continued with their storming of the Police Station. In
desperation, the police fired for real. The clash between
the police and the crowd left 2 Chinese dead, 4 lay
mortally wounded, 11 others injured.

The Kreta Ayer Incident left a festering wound in the

social fabric at that time. It had fanned the rising flames
of anti-imperialism and nationalist sentiments and
allowed the cinder of incipient communist sentiments to
burst into flames among a section of the people. It was
fortunate that such sentiments and forces were kept
under control by the British until the outbreak of the
war. But then, this was achieved with a heavy price, as
the British had to clam the people down and deal with
such problems with an iron fist, using detention without
trial and banishments liberally,

55
The Depression years

The world depression in 1932 affected an international

seaport like Singapore greatly. There was widespread
unemployment. Construction was at a standstill. The
activities at the harbour slowed down, and many able-
bodied young men who depended on work as coolies,
were laid off. Only those working in government offices,
including Indians who worked in the uniformed services,
were spared from the scourge of depression.

People in Chinatown, unable to find work, turned to street

hawking. Street stalls filled many roads day and night.
It created some problems for the authorities. The British
took little action against the hawkers. So did the
Japanese. But with self-government, the problem could
not be ignored. The inexperienced Lim Yew Hock
government tried to deal with this problem bluntly and
brutally by trying to drive the hawkers off the streets,
instead of tackling the root cause. Meanwhile, the gap
between the English educated and the Chinese educated
widened. It was this disparity and the insenstive way
the Government handled the hawker problem that led to
political troubles later on.

Yip’s brother-in-law, Ah Kow lost his job as a tailor during

the depression years. He tried to find work but none
could be found. He remembered his father earning a
few dollars, working as a labourer and made to carry

56
heavy bags of rice and other things in the harbour and in
the godowns. One day, he did not return home. The police
reported to the family that he was crushed to death when
several heavy boxes fell on him.

Ah Kow naturally steered clear of harbour jobs. He

became a street hawker. Squatting along Smith Street
in Chinatown, he yelled and yapped to attract patronage
to his noodle stall. Now and then, he looked around him,
to see whether the mata-mata would be coming to arrest
the unlicensed hawkers. It was a game of hide and seeks.
He had to stay put there to eke out a meagre living.
What alternative was there for him? He had to feed his
family of three – two girls and one boy.

Fortunate for him, Yip provided him and his family with
a shelter. He was given free board and lodging, living
with the Majies in a cubicle at Kreta Ayer Road. He
helped Lin once in a while at the grocery shop, bringing
goods to customers’ homes, a chore he disliked very
much. He considered himself a Chinese scholar of sorts.
The job appeared to be menial to him. Frustrations and
disappointments continued to build up in his heart.

Yip’s nephew, Mun found some casual jobs as a coolie.

Sometimes, he was required to work at Keppel Harbour;
occasionally he was sent to work along the Singapore
River and the River mouth, carrying goods from the boats
and barges to the shore, and later on to the godowns.

57
Chapter Eight

Chinatown: The war years

People in Chinatown were preoccupied not only with

their plight in the depression years; they also had fears
about war, though the drums of war were beating in
distant lands. The crowd that gathered on the hilltop at
Banda Street might be there to listen to storytellers, but
sometimes the story telling sessions resulted in dialogues
about world events.

There was uneasiness in the air when people talked about

Germany’s role in the First World War and the shaky
peace that was brokered to end the War. Yip and his
friends listened attentively. They absorbed the details.
They marvelled at the rapid rise to power of Adolf Hitler
and his Nazi party. Even those humble folks at the
Chinatown hilltop realized that Germany could disrupt
the fragile peace in Europe.

But what people were more concerned were the things

that happened in China. At that time, the Japanese
invaded Manchuria. They gathered in large numbers at
the Hilltop and in coffee shops when news of the eruption
of war between Japan and China were heard in July

58
1937. No one really expected that soon war would engulf
him or her. Singapore was so safe; and the British forces
were so strong. Moreover, the British had built a huge
naval base, which was deemed to be an impregnable
fortress.

Then came a series of invasions of European countries,

which toppled like ninepins to German aggression. This
culminated in the declaration of war by Britain and
France against Germany in September 1939.
Singaporeans knew that they were not so safe after all.
Things certainly got worse when France fell in 1940,
because with the fall of France, Britain was left to face
the German menace alone.

The Japanese Invasion

What people did not expect was the Japanese menace,
even after the Japanese Government fetched large
groups of Japanese civilians back to Japan.

The Japanese menace became real with the invasion of

Peninsular Malaya and the taking of Kota Bahru a few
hours before the bombing of Pearl Harbour on 7 th
December 1941. The invasion of Malaya continued with
little opposition as Commonwealth troops defending
Malaya were expecting invasion by sea, not by land.
Hoping to intercept any further landings by the Japanese
fleet, the Prince of Wales and the Repulse headed north,
unaware that all British airbases in northern Malaya

59
were now in Japanese hands. Without air support, the
British ships were easy targets for the Japanese air force,
which sunk them both on December 10.
The main Japanese force moved quickly to the western
side of the peninsula and began sweeping down the single
north-south road. The Japanese divisions were equipped
with about 18,000 bicycles. Whenever the invaders
encountered resistance, they detoured through the forests
on bicycles or took to the sea in collapsible boats to
outflank the British troops, encircle them, and cut their
supply lines. Penang fell on December 18, Kuala Lumpur
on January 11, 1942, and Malacca on January 15. The
Japanese occupied Johore Bahru on January 31 and the
last of the British troops crossed to Singapore, blowing
a fifty-meter gap in the causeway behind them. On the
night of February 8, using collapsible boats, the Japanese
landed under cover of darkness on the northwest coast
of Singapore. By dawn, despite determined fighting by
Australian troops, the Japanese had two divisions with
their artillery established on the island. By the next day
the Japanese had seized Tengah Airfield and gained
control of the causeway, which they repaired in four
days.
Within two months, the Japanese conquered Peninsular
Malaya, and ready to march down the causeway to
Singapore. Meanwhile, Japanese airplanes started air
raids, bombing Singapore and killing about 2,000 people
daily

60
By this time, fear and pandemonium gripped every
household, and fleeing refugees from Malaya caused
panics with their stories of torture and massacre. It was
sad commentary to see large numbers of whites,
especially white bosses scrambled for safety, the moment
they heard news of Japanese attacks. Some from Penang
and other Malayan towns fled to Singapore in the middle
of the night on 16th December 1941, but they found to
their chagrin that they had to leave Singapore because
of imminent attacks by the Japanese. The locals did not
flee and had to face the Japanese stoically, after their
white leaders left them to their fate.
It was bad enough for the people to know that Japanese
attacks were imminent. But in Chinatown, the British
government decided not to build air-raid shelters,
believing that the streets were already too dangerously
crowded. Instead, residents were encouraged to take
shelter away from the city. That was hardly practical
for people who needed to carry on earning a living. So
when Japanese bombers arrived in December 1941,
Chinatown suffered very badly with plentiful deaths and
destruction.

The government also hardly did anything to organize civil

defence. Perhaps on their own initiative, and perhaps
with some help from the China National Council (Chung
Kuo Council) formed with the approval of the Governor,
the people started to organize themselves for civil defence
work as volunteers.

61
In Chinatown, Yip volunteered for civil defence work
as an ARP (Air Raid Personnel). Others formed medical
support and fire fighting groups. As the shop houses at
Kreta Ayer Road were not fire-safe, Yip sent his family
off to a flat in Tiong Bahru, which was a relatively new
housing estate, and the buildings were made of concrete.
He remained behind in the Chinatown shop house with
his brother-in-law, Ah Kow.

There was not much news over the radio in Singapore.

They had to listen to the All India Radio and other radio
stations to find out what happened in the war situation.
Even in such critical hours, they listened to the radio,
which still broadcast story telling by one of Yip’s
neighbours, Lee Fook Hoong, who was better known to
the Singapore audience as Li Dasha. This brave man
continued to tell stories over the air and on cable
broadcasts even during the Japanese Occupation.
Another neighbour, Choy Weng Seong joined Li in
another entertainment programme. Listening to them,
particularly Li’s interesting narration in Cantonese about
ancient swordsmen and other classic tales, helped to
relieve a person’s tension and anxiety. It appeared that
each one in his time bravely played a part.

On February 8, 1942 the Japanese crossed the causeway

and entered Singapore. Singapore was ill prepared for

62
this rapid invasion as all of their guns and cannons had
been permanently mounted pointing out towards the
ocean. By February 20 the Japanese had seized Bukit
Timah, the highest point on the island providing a good
view of the island and access to other parts of Singapore.
It soon led to the British surrender, and the beginning of
a long nightmare for people living in Chinatown.

The story teller, Li Dasha

“And each in his own time plays a part.”

The Japanese Occupation

Once Singapore became Shonan, the Light of the
South, there was no light in the life of everyone in
Chinatown. The Chinese were to bear the brunt of the

63
Japanese Occupation, in retribution for support given by
the Singapore Chinese to China in its struggle against
Japan.

From the start of the occupation, a Sook Chin exercise

was launched to eliminate anyone suspected of being
anti-Japanese. All over Singapore, young men, above
the age of 18, were taken away for screening at Sook
Chin centres set up in locations where the majority of
the people were Chinese. Lorries were seen parked on
some of the streets, ready to transport those suspected
of being anti-Japanese to remote locations such as
Changi, Bedok and Ponggol, where they were
massacred. Others who were freed had the word
“examined” stamped on their faces, clothing, arms or
even just pieces of paper.

Other than Chinatown, there were screening centres at

Jalan Besar, River Valley Road, Tanjong Pagar Police
Station and Kallang Road. According to some reports,
there were some other centres at Java Road, Arab
Street, Telok Kurau English School and St. Joseph’s
Institution.

It was estimated that 5,000 to 25,000 people were killed

in the Sook Chin exercise. Most of those executed were
alleged to be anti-Japanese, meaning those who were
singled out by informers or who were teachers,
journalists, intellectuals or even former servants of the
British. But many of the leaders of Singapore’s anti-

64
Japanese movement had already escaped. Some were
reported to have fled to peninsula Malaya where they
formed the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army.

Even after the massacre, the Japanese continued with

their atrocities. Near the corner of Smith Street and New
Bridge Road, they established a Kempeitei headquarters.
Daily they herded young people there for screening at
this place, which the locals referred to as “Jin Lung”,
meaning “Golden Dragon”. There, the Japanese applied
various methods of torture, including the notorious “Guan
Chui” or water torture method.

Somewhere at Bukit Pasoh Road, the Japanese set up a

Recreation Club. There Japanese officers amused
themselves. Often they went round the streets of
Chinatown to hunt for young girls to entertain them at
the Club or elsewhere. Such practices appeared to be
frowned upon by senior officers, and there had been
occasions when their superiors slapped the offending
Japanese soldiers publicly for their breach of conduct.
On rare occasions, one could see senior officers
travelling in cars with the red or yellow flags stopping at
roadside stalls to see the goods or food being sold. People
had to bow to them, but these senior officers appeared
to be quite civilized and reasonable in their behaviour
and mannerism.

Hunger and malnutrition cast looming shadows of death

over Chinatown. Those who survived the Sook Chin

65
exercise and the atrocities were strong enough to
struggle on. Fortunately, the communal spirit was there.
People helped one another. The Japanese issued ration
cards for collection of rice or noodles made from palm
oil and other food items at the People’s Park market.
They also allocated plots of vacant land for cultivation
of tapioca and vegetables to the local people to enable
them to survive.

But some Javanese men were not so fortunate.

Obviously, the Japanese brought them to Singapore to
do work and abandoned them later. They had no one to
turn to for help and were left on the streets. Many of
them died of hunger and sickness, and their bodies could
be found on the roadside. It was indeed a ghastly sight,
but more ghastly when the smell of death hit one’s
sensitive nose.

The nightmare lasted three long years. During those

years, the shadows of death haunted Yip every hour of
the day. The mantle of fear covered him while he slept.
Each morning, as he awoke, he received news of
someone missing, or someone being taken away.
Occasionally, he could see dead bodies of those who
had been shot, especially on the Hilltop at Banda Street.
The Hilltop used to be a haven for recreation and leisure
activities, but now it took on a grim and sombre look.
Images of nameless corpses at the Hilltop sometimes
swamped his mind, and there were random thoughts and
flashes of suffering humanity, too miserable to describe.

66
Perhaps it was the picture of a man seen at the Hilltop
one sunny morning. He was found lying in a heap, naked
and bleeding from a deep gash in his throat. His forehead
was badly bruised and he was semiconscious. The
Kempeitei dumped him there to languish or die. Perhaps,
it was a picture of some men shot as spies by those who
opposed the Japanese regime, and some were hung by
the neck on branches of trees at the Hilltop. Those were
haunting images, which sometimes ran wild in his mind.

The fear in everyone’s heart was grim and gripping at

such a miserable time. A knock on the door would bring
tremens and cold sweat. Any sharp noise outside the
house would send temperatures soaring. A son or
daughter coming home late would send a chill down the
spine. There were no longer any world news to hear or
talk about – only stories that people were forced to listen
like frightened sparrows, especially stories about those
who had been taken away by lorries to work in the
Burma-Siam Railway, from which many never returned.
It was an agonizing time, being trapped in the jaws of
hell and unable to see even a glimmer of hope in the
deep dark pit of death and calamity.

Food became scarce as rations were cut when the

Japanese fortune faded. Food scarcity became more
rampant with corrupt businessmen and Japanese
officials manipulating prices of food and other
necessities, and establishing a flourishing black market
for most items, which were sold at outrageous prices.

67
Inflation grew to such an extent that the Japanese notes
became almost useless, and commonly referred to as
“banana notes.” Shonan became a miserable pit for
despairing souls, a place where speculation, profiteering,
bribery, and corruption were the order of the day.

The Japanese Defeat

There was some dim light shimmering between the
cracks on top of this dark dismal pit of hopelessness, as
news of Japanese defeats filtered in. The people
anxiously awaited the return of the British. But they were
afraid that war might drag on, and there might be a bloody
and protracted fight to reoccupy the island. The situation
was still tense in November and December in 1944 when
the allied forces started bombing Singapore. With the
dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, and more news about Japanese defeats, people
knew that the end was near. The Japanese surrendered
unconditionally to the Allied forces on 15th August, 1945.
On 2nd September, they surrendered formally to General
Douglas MacArthur on board the USS Missouri in a
ceremony witnessed by representatives of the Allied
Powers. On 5 th September, Commonwealth troops
arrived in warships, and they were greeted
enthusiastically by a huge crowd that lined the parade
route. On 12th September, the Japanese led by General
Itagaki Seishiro, formally surrendered to the supreme
Allied Commander in Southeast Asia, Lord Louis
Mountbatten at the Municipal Building, now known as
the City Hall.
68
Chapter Nine
The Post-War Years

One would have thought that with the return of the

British, there would be an immediate transformation of
the Chinatown scene. Law and order would return. Peace
and quietness would reign supreme. It was not so. A
combination of anger, hatred, apprehension, fear, greed
and envy suddenly reared its ugly head in a place noted
for harmonious communal living.

The signs were there – right from the beginning. People

in Chinatown awoke one morning to see dead bodies
hung on branches of trees at the Hilltop. Slips of paper
were pasted on tree trunks. Scribbled on them were
words condemning the dead people as spies, traitors,
informers or collaborators? It was a sort of public
execution, done in a dramatic style.

Elsewhere, at the former social club at Bukit Pasoh

Road, others were shot and their bodies were left at the
pavement. Gangsters occasionally turned up like heroes,
beating up people for whatever reasons, claiming that

69
they were meting out justice like self-appointed heroes.
It’s like the aftermath of the French Revolution.

Was this lawlessness or justice? Was it vendetta, revenge

or punishment? People in Chinatown were indifferent.
Heroes or villains – the perpetrators of these heinous
killings were faceless, and their acts were soon forgotten.
Earning a living was top priority. Soon street stalls
mushroomed everywhere. These sometimes led to
conflicts in the rush for places and business, and
gangsters emerged creating more havoc in their
intervention and in their demand for protection money.
During the Japanese Occupation, lawlessness and
gangsterism were suppressed; fear of being instantly
shot by soldiers and the inhuman torture methods used
by the Japanese had kept thieves, gangsters and other
antisocial elements under firm control.

Yip started doing business on his own, trying out one

business, then another. Although these businesses were
not very successful, they enabled him to eke out a living,
and more importantly, he had ample time to pursue his
hobby. He converted the back portion of his shop house
into an engineering workshop. He employed a few
mechanics and lathe-operators, including Ah Kow’s son,
his nephew, Mun and Ah Chai, the son of one of the
neighbours.

Both Mun and Ah Chai were Chinese-educated

secondary school graduates. They had become

70
frustrated and angry because they could not find suitable
jobs. Mun worked for a while as a coolie in the harbour,
like his grandfather, but he could not stand the physical
strain of having to carry heavy loads, every day of the
week. As an intellectual, his disillusionment in life led
him to seek the company of other discontented young
people in the neighbourhood. With good jobs offered to
them as apprentices, the two young men should have
become less frustrated, because the engineering industry
offered them good prospects at a time when
industrialization geared up in the postwar years.

Yip’s niece, Ah Mui worked as a mai-cha-mui or drinks

waitress at a drinks shop in the People’s Park market.
In the old days, such drink stalls or shops were common.
They were usually patronized by male customers seeking
the companionship of the drinks waitresses. Ah Mui was
an attractive young lady. Dressed up in the traditional
oriental attire of blouse and long pants of silk or satin
materials, she was a picture of exquisite beauty. Her
Chinese blouse was unusual in that the buttons were
placed on one side of the blouse from the neck down.
At that time, low cost rubber slippers had yet to be
manufactured. Ah Mui wore very colourful wooden
clogs, bought from one of the many clog shops found
along New Bridge Road.

At the coffee shop, as one of these girls sailed towards

you, the slow and alluring flaps of a beautiful
handkerchief hung out from a button, would be enough

71
to make your heart flutter. Your heart would go throbbing
wildly as you heard the unmistakable ketok-ketok
sounds from the wooden clogs getting nearer to you.
Some Chinese men and women still wear wooden clogs
at home in the kitchen, but it was common for the mai-
char-mui to walk in wooden clogs to serve customers.

Of course, they expected tips from them. However

customers did not expect to be entertained in the same
way as what some regulars could get from modern
bargirls in clip joints or sleazy bars. These girls were by
nature shy and reserved. But they would keep the
customers well entertained chatting gaily with them for
long hours. But there was no hanky-panky - none of the
sexual liberties common with the sleazy bars of today.
For one thing, unlike the modern clip joints or bars that
operated in dim light or no light, the drinks stalls or shops
operated in the open and often in broad daylight or under
bright lights. Hence, the virtues of these girls were
maintained or assured.

From the account, even a casual reader would know

that Ah Mui was never loose or immoral. She was just a
poor girl who had to earn a living in those difficult days.
It was a decent job, serving decent people in an open
drinks stall within a well-known food market. This
market was located on the site where the People’s Park
Complex now stands with the newly opened Chinatown
MRT station.

72
 Aerial view of Chinatown with the
People’s Park Market on the right.
Fire destroyed the market in 1966.
To everyone at the engineering workshop, it began as
an ordinary Monday morning. Mun started the day
slowly, chatting with some of the mechanics. His friend,
Ah Chai was drinking coffee at the kitchen. The first
sign of disturbance came at 10 am when Yip dashed in
to use the telephone. Something horrible had happened.
Mun heard some loud moaning noises. He rushed into a
room, and found his father cradling his young sister, Ah
Mui. He looked closer and found her foaming in the
mouth. Everyone was standing there, watching the dying
girl writhing and turning in pain, with tears streaming
down their faces. After a while, an ambulance came
and took her to the hospital.

73
Ah Mui was in the Operation Theatre for a long time.
Ah Kow, Mun and Yip were there. They were startled
to learn that the girl had swallowed caustic soda. They
knew at once that there was little chance for her. She
had left a suicide note indicating that her boy friend had
forsaken her. She had chosen to die for unrequited love.
It was in this note that she recorded the specifics of her
anguish, tears and fears. She spelt out details of her
desperation, loneliness, sleeplessness, and pangs of
heartaches and pain and moments of despair. No one,
near and dear to her, had known her suffering, sorrows
and affliction. No one knew about her love affair, or the
name of her boy friend. Ah Mui had been reticent. She
kept everything to herself.

A few hours later, she was pronounced dead. Mun was

emotionally affected and brokenhearted. He cried and
cried for days for this sad loss. He was in a state of
despair as the loss of his sister was a blow to him and
his sick father.

Heartaches and disappointments – they come in

different forms, and constitute part of the life force that
affects us. The bruising, crushing and melting process
is part of life’s experiences that reshape us, making us
stronger, and preparing us to meet future challenges with
greater resolve. It is pain and sorrow that draw the
qualities of greatness in a person, but to withstand them,
there must be faith, hope and persistence in our hearts.

74
In Ah Mui’s case, it may be love lost or not reciprocated.
But it is inane and useless to treat love between
individuals, as though it is the highest form of love. Agape
love, or the love reflected in biblical teachings is the
supreme form of love. Human life is transient; so is
human love. It is futile to place romantic love on a
pedestal of virtue and righteousness, because human
nature is unpredictable and weak and even close human
relationships are fragile and frail, when the chips are
down.

Death is not the glorious way out for anyone, however

helpless or useless he or she feels and whatever the
circumstances – unfulfilled romances, an unachieved
goal in life, a broken home or marriage, a lingering illness,
an untimely death, a severed friendship, a terrible
mistake, a crippling depression, failures in studies, work
or business – whatever. These things are part of the
groans and grinds of life. Ah Mui should have realized
this, and let God’s hands be placed on her heartaches
and pains, instead of resorting to suicide.

Both Yip, Lin and Ah Kow mourned Ah Mui’s death.

But Mun was most affected by his sister’s tragic death.
He was no longer the cool and calm young man and the
shrewd, detached and reticent intellectual. He became
very confused and disoriented. Sometimes he muttered
to himself. He felt very lonely. He needed someone to
talk to.

75
It was a cool day. Instead of going to work, Mun walked
around the streets of Chinatown. He went into a coffee
shop and ordered a cup of coffee. Then he bought the
newspapers and started reading it. News of communist
advance in China covered the front page. The KMT
forces retreated to Taiwan. There was excitement in
his veins, and images swamped his mind. Painful
memories of his dead sister bombarded him like shrapnel,
piercing his mind.

He left the coffee shop and walked with the newspapers

under his arm along Kreta Ayer Road. He then sat down
by his favourite roadside eating-stall to take some
porridge and noodles. The familiar faces of a young
couple with their baby greeted him with polite smiles.
Mun poured his heart out, talking at first about his sister’s
suicide and about the situations in China and politics in
general – not knowing he was talking to top Special
Branch officers of the British Government.

Next day, the Special Branch arrested both Mun and

Ah Chai. They were incarcerated in the St. John’s Island.
Later, they were deported to China. At that time,
communist-inspired subversion was a serious problem
to the British. People like Mun and Ah Chai, suspected
of being communist sympathizers, whether they had
contacts with the CPM and other groups or not, could
be detained indefinitely under tough security laws to cope
with the communist threat.

76
 The story of the arrest of Mun and Ah Chai and other
communist sympathizers did not end there. Soon after
their arrests, the two Special Branch Officers who
disguised themselves as hawkers disappeared. It was
rumoured that they had been killed, and their bodies were
found at the bottom of a staircase.

There is a Chinese proverb that says, “Fortune does

not come in pairs. Misfortune does not come alone.”
With the death of a niece and the repatriation to China
of a nephew, it was already a big blow to Yip and Lin.
But in the ensuing months, they noticed that the health
of Ah Kow had deteriorated. True, he was getting old,
but old age was not the problem He seemed to be
suffering from depression, and became neurotic. He
could be seen talking to himself, muttering something
about his daughter and son, and sighing all the time. He
had not been able to cope with the sorrows that affected
his mind.

Trapped by the pangs of pain that resided in his heart,

and traumatized by a sense of helplessness and rage, he
fed on the filth of his imagination. He refused to eat,
and refused to take medicine even when one of his legs
started to bloat up. It was possible that he developed
gangrene, as a result of his diabetic illness. He then
started to smoke opium to relieve his pain. His conditions
became worse, and within a few months, he passed away.
It was indeed very tragic.

77
Lin cried and mourned for him in anguish for weeks, but
she was able to pick herself up and continue to look
after the grocery shop and do the household chores.

Tragedy struck again the following year. It was ironical

that just when everyone expected good years and good
fortunes under British rule, that the series of tragic events
occurred. It began one evening at dinner. Lin cooked a
good meal. Members of the family were all seated around
the dining table. So were the cats, but they were under
the table. It was a mistake for Mak to feed the cats
under the table and give meat to them. The cats fought
with one another, and in the course of the melee, one of
the cats scratched Mak’s leg. Infections set in and soon,
she had to be hospitalized.

Shed a tear for Yip whose mother, Mak, in the twilight

of her years, had to be hospitalized in the Kwong Wai
Siu Hospital in Serangoon Road. Infections had set in
from the festering wounds on Mak’s leg, and she suffered
from great pain. The grim faces and red eyes surrounding
the sick bed were telling. There were tears and sad faces
that spoke of hearts being stabbed by sharp anguish.
Everyone felt the deep pangs of pain when it was learnt
that nothing more could be done for Mak in the hospital.

The family took Mak to Sago Lane and placed her in

“Guo Wen” - a sort of hospice where patients who were
terminally ill just waited for death. Sometimes, the

78
sinsehs were summoned to attend to the patients, but
generally they were left to die. The weeks that followed
were depressing for the family, seeing Mak sleeping
there in a drowsy and semiconscious state. Lin had
preparations for the moment of death. She had taken
out a black wooden box where she had kept Mak’s new
clothing, shoes, a comb, gold plaited ornaments and other
paraphernalia for the preparations.

Mak passed away peacefully in her sleep at night. God’s

merciful hands lifted her up, relieving her from the heavy
worldly burdens and the never-ending toils and
tribulations of earthly cares. If there were a suitable
inscription to be sculptured on her gravestone or an
Obituary, it would be “Rest in Peace. Here lies a
courageous and caring woman.” But actually she was
more than this. She represented the spirit of the early
Chinese immigrants, and the pioneering and
entrepreneurial spirit that eventually made Singapore
such an astounding success.

Spare a thought for an unsung heroine. Years of toil and

struggle had taken a toll on her.

Those fleeting years were a tapestry elegantly woven

with fascinating patches of bold and imaginative designs,
a culmination of endurance and self-sacrifice. She
epitomized the spirit of the early Chinese immigrants,
pioneers of new frontiers of hope. Leaving the comfort
of her home in Cha-Shan in Guangdong, she ventured to

79
start a life in Hong Kong. She started a family there.
With the death of her husband, she made another bold
move and took her family to Singapore to seek a better
life. Hers was a spirit of hope and faith, of perseverance
and endurance, and of adaptability and tolerance. Never
mind what the challenge were; never mind the humiliation
- she persisted with sweat, blood and tears to raise her
family and fulfilled her dreams of securing a future for
them.

In the cold and blustery predawn darkness, a lonely

figure of an old lady, slightly crouching and bent, was
seen shambling up a Chinatown street pavement, with
her grandson on her back. She struggled up the steep
steps leading to Qian Hong School. Gingerly she removed
the cloth straps that bound her young grandson to her
back, and put him down on a wooden chair. She made
him pray for scholastic endeavour and excellence and
spiritual guidance in a ceremony that marked the start
of Chinese education for him. This was a ceremony she
had repeated for each of her six grandchildren.

After the Japanese Occupation, she returned to China

with her daughter and stayed there for a while. She still
thought about those she left behind in China, particularly
her adopted son. Whenever possible, she sent things to
her Chinese relatives. She could not have accumulated

80
much for her family in Singapore, because any surplus
money and extras were frequently remitted to feed and
clothe her relatives in China. Her daughter-in-law, Lin
continued with this practice for many years.

During the depression years, when the grocery store

started by her, failed to yield sufficient income for the
family, she could be seen near the United Engineers
Building where her son worked as a lathe-operator.
There under a tree whose branches and leaves provided
her with some shade from the sweltering heat of the
noonday sun, she sat there with an infant grandson. She
was not waiting for her son to finish work; neither was
she visiting her son. She was doing sewing, doing repairs
for torn garments and other forms of needlework.

Occasionally, outside her grocery shop, she put a few

tables and chairs on the roadside, and prepared some
food items for sale at a street stall. There were numerous
such roadside stalls on the road, but the stallholders had
to be on the alert all the time for fear that the police
might confiscate their stalls. Police arrests were
common in the Postwar years, when successive
governments, unable to tackle the root cause of this
street phenomenon; resorted to confiscature of stalls and
even arrests to deal with the hawker problem. In the
twilight of her years, she joined the 18,000 hawkers in
Singapore at that time, playing a hide-and-seeks game
with the police and the corrupt hawker inspectors.

81
Failing to achieve much with her food stall, Mak turned
part of her shop premises into a factory to manufacture
joss sticks with the help of Yip. For a few years, the
marketing of Zi-Zi-Xiang was successful, but it was
discontinued when such factory operation did not get
government approval. Mak switched to the preparation
of Cha chai, a crude form of powder for hair wash for
old ladies; this also failed.

Despite their difficulties, on occasions, she and her son

took in men with no names, no identities, dying of hunger
and gave them accommodation, food and work - in her
shop and in the makeshift farm on the Hilltop.

What does this take? Bigness - being free of prejudice,

being compassionate, seeing another in need and
reaching out in solid human maturity. It is caring
unconditionally and caring unassumingly, and seeing
beyond the labels. It is not done to impress others. Giving
an outstretched hand of help to someone unknown and
bringing him or her into the home in those turbulent
days could pose trouble and considerable danger. Yet,
Mak still lent a hand to others more unfortunate than
her.

Even with old age, she struggled on to try other business

ventures that failed including making toys made of tin.
Such was her persistence and determination to survive
or to enable her loved ones to survive in those grim and
gray years of despair.

82
A mother’s love - people tend to take this for granted.
In the hustle and bustle of modern living with one’s
senses being bombarded by alluring sounds from popular
music and songs, noises from all directions and sources,
and the sights and sounds of all sorts of fads and fetishes
of modern culture, the simple gesture and expression of
love and kindness is often unnoticed and easily forgotten.
If tears were indelible ink in a mother’s eyes, her face
would have been completely stained and smeared for
life as she struggled through the twists and turns of life
and the heartaches and broken dreams of raising a
family.

There may be a simple message for us. It is a timely

reminder to the new generations of young people who
may be living within gay bubbles of contemporary living
and wallowing in carefree or hedonistic lifestyles. True,
the SARs menace and a little downturn of the economy
gave them a scare, but they still had not tasted real
hardship or learnt from the lessons of the past; nor had
they really understood the courage and sacrifices of the
early immigrant pioneers. The simple message is never
to forget one’s roots and never to turn away from those
loving hands that once held us, whatever the
circumstances and irrespective of one’s status,
upbringing, social ties, inclinations or persuasions. To
those who still think of Chinatown as a place for “Les
miserables”, think again. Period.

83
Yip had not been using his cameras for sometime. Fear
of the Japanese drove him to put photography aside. He
had hidden his cameras and photographic equipment
during the three years of Japanese Occupation. Under
the British Military Administration, he resumed the
activity. On liberation day, he was seen with his cameras,
taking pictures of the Japanese surrender, and the
Commonwealth troops.

Apart from photography, Yip also spent his leisusre time

at Tamfa, a social club located at the junction of Keong
Saik Road and Teck Lim Road. He played the violin in
the orchestra, and sometimes stayed for a few games
of mahjong. But after the death of his mother, he plunged
deeper into photography. Lin’s steady hands in looking
after the family business enable him to have the free
time to concentrate on developing his artistic talents.

At this time, Yip enlarged his engineering workshop

business. He had about eight workers under him. Two
of his children were also employed on a part time basis
as apprentices. During the postwar period, the control
over engineering workshops was lax or nonexistent. It
was thus possible for Yip to use the back of shop
premises as workshops. There were no technical
institutes or polytechnics then. Learning
technical skills was a matter of on-the-job training under
masters who were experienced mechanics, fitters or
turners. From time to time, young boys were recruited
as apprentices under such a training system. His eldest

84
son, who had undergone such apprenticeship training,
eventually went to England to study engineering. After
graduating from a British university, he became the chief
railway signals engineer of the Malayan Railway. Yip’s
second son, who was also trained as an apprentice in
his workshop, became a school teacher, but because of
his engineering experience and interest, he received
further training in technical studies and was later
appointed as Head of a Technical Institute in later years.

Photography and engineering skills – this was a rare

combination. Yip made use of his engineering skills in
his photographic work. This could be seen in the way he
improvised things used as photographic stands, the
enlarger and a number of equipment for darkroom work.

He also used his engineering skills to manufacture toys

such as aeroplanes, but these toys were made of tin and
other metals. In later years, plastics came into the market,
and there were better and safer toys made of plastic
materials in the toy market. This line of his business
was then discontinued, and treated as a business failure.
After this, he worked as a technician for a large printing
company until he retired at the age of Seventy. It was
fortunate that he was able to devote much time to
photography, while working in the printing firm.

85
 Yip, the photographer with a unique camera

86
Chapter Ten
Those Turbulent Years

Riots and Strikes

In the early Fifties, things were not always peaceful.
In 1950, the first major riot occurred. It was commonly
known as the Maria Hertogh riot, named after a Dutch
girl, Maria Bertha Hertogh who was born in Java in
1937 to Dutch catholic parents. When she was about 5
years old, her father, a soldier, was made a prisoner-of-
war by the Japanese when they invaded Java. She was
then taken to Bandung by a family friend, Aminah Bte
Mohammad. The girl was brought up as a Muslim, and
was given the name Nadar by Aminah. The whole
question that was to develop later, centred on whether
Aminah had been given adoption rights over he child.
After the war, the Dutch mother returned to reclaim her
daughter, but Maria’s “foster” mother, Aminah, refused
to give her up.

In 1950, the Hertoghs sought to reclaim the daughter

through the courts in Singapore. The Judge ruled that
Maria should be returned to her biological mother,

87
although by then, Maria had already embraced Islam.
Maria was then placed under the custody of the Social
Welfare Department. Aminah then appealed and on 28
July 1950, Maria was returned to Aminah. A marriage
was hastily arranged and on 1st August 1950, Maria
was married to a 22-year old Malay teacher. On 13
November 1950, the Hertoghs revived their custody
battle. The Judge then ruled that Maria be returned to
her biological parents on the ground that the girl’s
father was not consulted when Aminah took her off to
Bandung. The court also decided that the girl be placed
in a Christian convent pending her return to the
Netherland. This caused uproar with the Muslim
community. Calls were even made in the Sultan Mosque
to start a holy war to return Maria to Aminah if all legal
avenues yielded no result.

The colonial authorities were not sensitive to the racial

and religious feelings of Singaporeans . Little was done
to get the cooperation of the Media to ease the tension.
Instead, reporters and photographers entered the convent
to take more pictures and get more leads. Pictures of a

88
Muslim girl in a Christian convent appeared in
newspapers and that aroused the religious feelings of
the local Muslims. So when the Appeal Court sat to
hear Maria’s case on 11 December 1950, and threw out
Aminah’s appeal after only five minutes, the crowds that
gathered outside the court and at the Padang became
inflamed. They felt that the judge sided with the
Caucasians.

The Maria Hertogh riot

According to a report, a scuffle broke out between the

group gathered outside the court and a Eurasian, Henry
Velge, a member of the Special Constabulary. When
the crowd attacked him, he drew his revolver and fired
three shots in self-defence. Two persons were wounded,
one in the head. The crowd became furious, and started
to throw sticks, stones and bottles at all the policemen.

89
After this incident, Henry felt extremely remorseful. His
whole life had changed. He was depressed but managed
to pull himself together. He later embraced Islam.

Fifteen years later, outside the Ministry of the Interior

and Defence, (MID) building, a very distinguished
military office was talking to Yip and his son. He still
expressed a great deal of anguish and pain and deep
regret about the unfortunate and tragic incident that
happened fifteen years ago . The man, both God-loving
and compassionate, and an upright gentleman, was
Lieutenant Colonel Hashim Velge. He was not to be
blamed for things beyond his control. If blame were to
be apportioned, it should be shared equally between the
mass media and the insensitive colonial authorities at
that time .

So the riots started the moment Aminah’s appeal was

thrown out after just five minutes. The mob rushed to
the streets in droves, and many enraged Malay and
Indian Muslims started to drag Caucasians from their
cars and set fire to the vehicles. Any European and
Eurasian in sight was attacked. Cars were overturned
and burnt. At 10.30 am. , 300 Indian and Malay Muslims
lined both sides of Anson Road opposite C.F. Pope’s
motor garage. They were armed with planks an sticks.
The Indian and Malay Muslims rioters took control of
districts like Sultan Mosque, North Bridge Road and
Jalan Besar, and set up roadblocks. A riot soon erupted
all over the island. Even the riot police were attacked.

90
 An angry mob

This incident shows the dangers of allowing unfettered

and sensational coverage of racially and religiously
sensitive issues. This is a lesson to be learnt.
Singaporeans must not take our racial and religious
harmony for granted. We must constantly adhere to our
firm belief in multiracialism and be committed to our
ideals of brotherhood, tolerance and mutual respect and
understanding in our relationships with our fellow
Singaporeans of different ethnic origins and creeds.

In the Maria Hertogh riot, rioting was at its worst on

the afternoon and night of 11th December. It continued
for three days. A 24-hour curfew was imposed and
military was deployed to assist the police before law
and order was restored. A total of 18 people were killed
and 173 injured and about 200 vehicles were destroyed.

91
But people in Chinatown were hardly affected, as the
rampaging crowd singled out only Caucasians for
attacks. Little did the Chinese community realize that a
few years later, they would be affected by the Hock
Lee Bus riots.

During the postwar period, there were two types of

schools – English medium schools and Vernacular
Schools. Students, who completed their secondary
education from the English-medium schools, could easily
find jobs both in government services and in the
commercial sector. Those from the vernacular schools
found greater difficulty in getting suitable jobs. There
was thus an undercurrent of discontent. Political elements
including communists fanned up this discontent and
created unrest.

There was anxiety in the family when one of Yip’s sons

was trapped within the school compound of Chung Cheng
High School, of which he was a part time English teacher.
Things were all too familiar in those days of student
unrest. There were mass protests by students against
the Government, and they camped within the school
compound. Hundreds of boys and girls refused to leave
the school, while the police cordoned off the whole area.

Yip was in the grocery shop. He was sitting by his desk

doing some touch-ups to a set of negatives. He used a
Chinese writing brush (mao-pi) to do this. He dipped it

92
in black ink and lightly made a tiny mark on a negative.
He blew on the negative to dry the ink. It was afternoon.

The phone rang. He took the handset and placed it against

his left ear. He heard loud voices in the background.
Then he heard the excited voice of his son. “Ah Pa, I
am trapped with the students in the school. Please come,
speak to the police so that I can come home.”

Yip quickly hopped into his Skoda car. He carried his

camera equipment with him, and sped off in the direction
of School. He still remembered that day in the black
month of May in 1955.

Yip arrived at the School. At the entrance, he happened

to notice a familiar face, an Assistant Superintendent of
Police, Mr. Low. He spoke to him and told him that he
wanted to fetch his son home. Mr. Low said that the
police were well aware that some teachers were there
on the instruction of the Principal to persuade students
to leave the school premises, though it was a vain effort.
After waiting for a while, Yip met his son, and they left
the school together. To Yip, it was a relief to get his son
safely out of the place.

Singaporeans had enjoyed many years of political and

social stability. They sometimes took this stability for
granted. But in the mid Fifties, things were not always
that peaceful. At that time, both the British authorities
and the Labour Front Government under David Marshall,

93
faced strikes and student unrest, started by pro-
communist politicians.

It started off with the Hock Lee Bus workers who were
members of pro-communist trade unions staging a strike.
They protested against the work rosters and tried to stop
buses from leaving the depots. Later on, the strikers
went on a hunger strike and picketed the bus depot. In
April 1955 the police tried to break up the strikers,
resulting in 15 of them being injured.

There was threat of a general strike, when other workers

joined in to stage sympathy strikes. The situation got
worse. The police brought in the riot squad to disperse
the picket as the government decided that decisive action
had to be taken. On 12th May, the students were
intimidating bus drivers, setting up a convoy of 20 lorries
at Alexandra Road Circus. Then they stared to attack
the buses. The police moved in to disperse the mob.
They also tried to break up the pickets. The police used
jets of water from fire hoses while the pickets retaliated
by throwing stones and bottles. Then the riots erupted
and the violence that followed resulted in the death of
four people and the injury of another 31.

The strikes by the bus workers were due to their poor

working conditions and low pay. Many of the bus
workers joined unions, which were then under the control
of pro-communist unionists. The unionists wanted to
foster unrest and even violence to discredit or upset the

94
government. The workers went on strikes supported by
students from the Chinese Middle Schools, who provided
song-and-dance for their entertainment. Eventually, some
students organized sit-ins at schools as well. The Hock
Lee Bus Riots was the most serious and bloody of the
275 strikes in 1955.

About 2,000 students took part in the riots. They were

aggressive, fanned by the fire of hate against Police
brutality. At that time, one student was shot and wounded
in the lung, one mile away from the nearest hospital.
Instead of sending him there to receive medical
treatment, pro-communist students made a martyr out
of him during the Riots, parading him around for two
and a half hours to further inflame the emotions of the
mob. By the time he was sent to the hospital, he was
already dead.

Apart from this death, a journalist, Gene D. Symonds

and two police officers were set upon by the mob and
were killed. It was a black month for Singapore, a bloody
chapter in Singapore’s history, which was etched in the
memory of all old folks in Singapore.

Less than a year later, major riots again broke out at the
18 March 1956 Merdeka Rally at Kallang Airport. Fifty
people were injured. Following this, a curfew for the
first time was imposed. Later that year, more communist-
inspired riots occurred resulting in the death and injury

95
of a few people. Despite the riots, Singapore was given
full self-government in 1957 by the British
with Lim Yew Hock at the helm.

Merdeka

The black days came to Chinatown soon after. Under

the Lim Yew Hock government in 1956, the hawker
problem was considered top priority. An effete
government with hawker inspectors known to be corrupt,
wanted to clear all hawkers from the streets, without a
thorough study of the problem and the consequences of
such clearance.

It started off as a cat and mouse game between the

street hawkers and the police and officers from the
Hawker Department. Sometimes it turned ugly, as the
police used force on the street vendors. Even old ladies

96
and children were manhandled and their belongings and
goods were taken away.

Fanned by pro-communist and other political elements,

there were strong feelings against Lim Yew Hock’s
Labour Front government. Later on, the oppositions
accused Lim’s Education Minister for having corruptly
accepted funds from the Americans for his party’s
political campaigns. All these led to the collapse of the
political party.

In 1959, the People’s Action Party won the general

election. From then on, some peace and calm returned
to Singapore. People could start concentrating on
developing their careers or business. Students could then
put their heart and soul on the acquisition of knowledge,
values and skills to ensure their full development as an
individual and a citizen, socially competent and able to
make a contribution to the country’s development.

The new government realized that the myriads of hawker

stalls brought a certain charm to the social and cultural
landscape. But the fact remains that many stallholders
operated under less than desirable conditions. More often
than not, the stallholders in the past operated under
unhygienic conditions, due to lack of piped water supply
and inadequate facilities to prepare and cook their food.
To compound the problem, the authorities and the general
public had to deal with the indiscriminate disposal of
wastes into drains. This caused a pollution problem.

97
The myriads of Street hawkers
The hawker problem was tackled in a comprehensive
way since 1968 when an island-wide census was carried
out. Following this, hawkers were registered, who were
then issued with temporary hawking licenses. Later on,
hawker centres were built, and in 1970, an exercise to
re-site the hawkers was started. In Chinatown, at the
corner of Smith Street stood one of the many hawker
centres controlled by the Environment authorities.

But the path to nationhood was not altogether smooth.

With Singapore’s independence in 1963, there were some
problems of attrition with the formation of Malaysia, of
which Singapore was a part. Unable to accept

98
Singapore’s desire for a Malaysian Malaysia, the Federal
Government, which insisted on special rights for the
Malays, decided on separation. Singapore became a
nation in 1965.

But the process of attrition between the races went on

in Malaysia, culminating in bloody riots on May 13, 1969
in Kuala Lumpur and elsewhere in Selangor. According
to police statistics, in three days of rioting, 184 people
died and 356 were wounded. A total of 753 cases of
arson to buildings and 211 vehicles were destroyed or
damaged.

The hotspots were Kuala Lumpur and parts of Selangor,

which were put on 24-hour curfew. There were a few
minor incidents in Malacca, but other states were spared.
The Prime Minister at that time, Tunku Abdul Raman,
blamed members of Chinese-based parties who shouted
insults at Malays in a procession; he also said Chinese
secret societies and the Malayan Communist Party
played major roles. The official records of May 13 skip
many details; they are a sanitized version of what really
happened.

Although this happened in Malaysia, Singaporeans had

to go through great anxiety and pain during those dark
days in a neighbouring country. This was only natural
because such incidents could spill over to Singapore.
But the fact remains that irrespective of the political
division, the two peoples, Malaysians and Singaporeans,

99
are one historically. Links between peoples could not be
easily severed like political relations. People travelled
to and from the causeway, whether for work, business,
and leisure or for visits to relatives and friends. The social
links between the people are inextricably bound.

To some people, things that happened across the

causeway are matters of no concern. They may hear
the distant drums and rolls of thunder across the horizon,
and be completely indifferent. The politically astute
observers knew that Singapore must be prepared. From
then on, it became imperative that new generations of
Singaporeans and Malaysians do not forget the political
trauma of May 13, and fostering racial harmony and
tolerance must be the key objective in national
development.

As soon as news came over the radio about the riots,

Yip was worried. His eldest son’s family was in Kuala
Lumpur at that time. He quickly closed his shop, and
was pacing to and fro. He was waiting. He had called
his son on the telephone but there was no answer.

At six –thirty, he called again. His son answered after a

few rings. ‘Who is this?’

‘It’s me. Are you okay?’ He shouted loudly.’

‘We are safe for the time being. Just now, a small mob
came, armed with knives and parangs. They knocked at

100
the door of our Kenny Hill house, but our Malay
neighbours intervened and persuaded them to go away.
We have bolted our doors, and some of our Malay
neighbours kept us company. They were protecting us
from any intruders. I heard things are pretty bad in town.
We are all right in this estate with so many friends staying
closely together. They are mainly Malay employees of
the Malayan Railway. Please do not be unduly worried.
Do call again after a short while.’

The receiver clicked in his ear. He stared at it for a

moment, and then slammed it down. ‘Why must he
worked in Kuala Lumpur? He had that posting for Johor
Bahru, and he turned it down – just because he was
allotted a huge colonial bungalow at Kenny Hill. It’s not
safe to reside there. Kuala Lumpur is a political hotspot.’
As he muttered, he looked at the grim faces surrounding
him. Everyone was frightened and worried.

His wife, Lin went to the family altar and started praying.
She knelt there in solemn prayer, holding some joss sticks
in her hands. In moments of crisis, she appeared to be
strong and knew exactly what to do. Then she went to
the back of the house, and started praying again to some
other altars. The rest of the family just stood around,
listening to the news, and wringing their hands.

Another phone call was made to Kuala Lumpur, and

another and another. It went on for three long days, until
things became calm in the Malaysian capital.

101
 Yip Cheong Fun in a pensive mood

102
Chapter Eleven
China revisited

In the Seventies, Yip made several trips overseas. Some

of these trips were organized by the Photographic
Society, involving participation in overseas photographic
exhibitions. His trip to China was most memorable.

At that time, China was a closed society, and was just

opening up its doors to foreign visitors, especially
overseas Chinese. It was the overseas Chinese that
helped the country to leapfrog Russia and Eastern Europe
in later years. This was a China that had awakened from
a hopeless revolutionary dream. It had remained in that
dream for a long time, and with the revolutionary zeal of
some communist leaders who later became disgraced;
it was still a China that viewed poverty with some
indifference. China could have taken the road that would
have left the country in the grips of this indifference.
But conventional wisdom prevailed when the country
took another road that has led the country to rapid
modernization and industrialization and made a quantum
leap to technological progress and a better life for all.

103
Yip landed with a few friends at the Bai Yun Airport in
Guangzhou after a few hours’ flight. After waiting for a
very long time, they managed to retrieve their luggage,
and made their way to the Chinese immigration. The
immigration officer checked the passports against a huge
book containing thousands of presumably blacklisted
names in handwriting. Computer was not used, and the
process of checking took a long time. They then spilled
out with their heavy luggage to the airport exits, where
they were greeted by a sea of people, all dressed in
blue, as though they were wearing some sort of uniform.
Because of their distinctive attire in lounge suits, there
was no difficulty for the two Chinese officials to find
them. Both spoke Putonghua. They appeared to be
high-ranking officers of the government from Beijing.

Out on the streets, their minibus ran into a human tidal

wave, and had to inch its way through an enormous
swarm of cyclists. There were few cars on the road, as
only important government officials were allowed to use
this mode of transport. The minibus travelled along
slowly; its driver kept on horning to get the cyclists and
other light vehicles to give way. The air reverberated
with the sound of bicycle bells, and the sounds of car
horns and the yells and yaps of pedestrians and stall
vendors.

The group checked into the Yu Yi Hotel, a five storied

building. The hotel rooms were very Spartan. No room
keys were given. A female attendant would open the

104
room door every time a hotel guest needed to enter it.
In the room, the two Chinese officials gave a short
briefing to the group before leaving the hotel. They
promised to take the group for sightseeing the next day.

Early next morning, they witnessed an unusual scene on

the streets. At eight sharp, the shop assistants as well
as shopkeepers stood on the streets outside their stalls,
shops or departmental stores to participate in compulsory
morning exercise. For over ten minutes, they went
through the exercise routine with musical accompaniment
from the loudspeakers hung on lampposts or on top of
buildings. Later, they went into the shops, all of which
were owned and operated by the government or
government agencies. The shops were not well
decorated, and they looked a little austere. In fact, most
of the buildings looked dilapidated with squeaky ceiling
fans. The shop assistants appeared to be government
employees. True, they were disciplined and courteous,
but they showed no drive and little enthusiasm in their
work. Such was the drawback of a centralized economic
system in marketing and sales.

Surprisingly, the local people were prevented from

purchasing luxury items. At a store, one local Chinese
standing beside Yip was examining a transistor radio
and some batteries. The sales assistant, obviously a
government employee, told the man, “You cannot buy
these; but these people with the Foreign Exchange
Certificate, can buy them.” But it was not always an

105
advantage to hold just the Foreign Exchange Certificates,
with which you could not purchase food items from the
small eating-houses. The problem was resolved when
the group got hold of some Ren Minbi and some ration
coupons, and managed to exchange them for some cheap
local food items from the food stalls meant for local
people.

For a photographer like Yip, sightseeing meant taking a

lot of photographs. Guangzhou, a city with a rich history
and heritage, captured the imagination of any artist. From
streetscape to the scenic beauty of rural areas, from tall
commercial buildings to residential flats to the low-rise
shop houses, with the inclusion of a few scenic spots,
the myriads of interesting pictures captured in a few
days would give a lifetime of viewing pleasure. Yip,
however, found a China quite preoccupied with the past.
The guides would take the group to museums to show
how the Communist Party fought the Japanese and the
Kuomintang forces. They took them to memorial sites
and other places of historical interest. After being taken
around in the minibus for three days, Yip boldly asked
one of the guides whether it would be possible for him
to see a relative in China. He was thinking of Mun who
was banished to China from Singapore by the British
administration. To his surprise, the answer was in the
affirmative.

“Yes, he and his family will meet you in the hotel in

Nanking,” one of the guides spoke emphatically.

106
It was a cold day when the group reached Nanking. A
long ride from the Airport to the town centre followed.
Here the streets were also crowded with bicycles and
trishaws. The streets were noisy - noisy with bells and
yells.

Yip later left the hotel with a friend as he had an

appointment with the Managing Director of a shopping
centre. He waited anxiously outside the shopping centre
for him. He was somewhat perplexed when this important
guy arrived in his bicycle and waved at him. Yip was
amazed at that time, because he had been to America
and the United Kingdom where formal attire and
decorum ruled big business.

When Yip returned to the hotel, he received a message

from the hotel reception that some relatives were waiting
for him outside the hotel. At that time, the locals could
only enter the hotels meant for foreign visitors if
permission either from the hotel guests or from the
management, had been obtained. Yip rushed out of the
hotel. He found some people sitting around a marble
table placed in the courtyard outside the hotel. He peered
at them as he walked inside the courtyard.

Yip expected to see a young man with a handsome face,

who was his nephew and an apprentice in his engineering
workshop, two decades ago. But instead he saw the
grim and gaunt face of a middle-aged man who looked

107
twice his age. He looked haggard, scraggy and hollow-
eyed. He wore a blue shirt that looked too large for his
thin body. There were just a few strands of hair on his
balding head, and only a few front teeth could be seen
in his mouth. It was obvious that the hardships he
suffered had taken a toll on him. By his side was a plumb
lady who spoke with a strong country accent.
Accompanying her was a pretty young girl wearing a
floral dress and carrying a camera.

“Are you Mun?” Yip blurted out in Bai Hua (Cantonese)

after a moment of hesitation. He was glancing at the
family for a while, as though he was about to take their
portraits.

“Yes, I am Mun, uncle” was the reply in Putonghua.

It appeared that Mun at the age of forty could not

converse in Bai Hua (Cantonese). Just imagine, a young
man born and bred in Singapore’s Chinatown where
everybody spoke Cantonese, could not speak the dialect
after two decades. This is a phenomenon worthy of some
study by linguistic experts. Yip found it unbelievable and
unexpected. He also did not expect to find Mun and his
family waiting for him outside the hotel, when he returned
in the evening. It seemed that Mun received a telegram
from Guangzhou, and this authorized him to obtain
permission to leave his town in Zhen Cheng for the first
time after twenty long years. For some reason,
permission to leave one’s dwelling place must be obtained

108
from the authorities. So Mun and his family managed to
see Nanking for the first time. To him, it was an important
occasion, and he told Yip very clearly that he spent a
fortune having to take a train ride with his family to
Nanking.

Recounting from the day he was banished to China, Mun

revealed that he expected that he would return to
communist China like a hero. But he did not get a hero’s
welcome; neither did he get any privilege or recognition.
From the day he arrived in China, he was sent to Zhen
Cheng where he worked as a lathe-operator. He still
remained a lathe-operator after two decades, but he got
married and had two daughters.

It was clear that Mun had arrived in a China that was so

preoccupied with its own economic and political
problems that it had no interest in the past activities of
this young man or any of his friends who had stirred up
trouble in Singapore.

Mun introduced the plumb lady as his wife and the pretty
young girl as his daughter who was studying to be a
photographer. She showed him the camera she was
carrying, which appeared to be an ordinary camera with
very little features. Yip was delighted to find someone
related to him in China, who shared his interest in
photography.

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In the days that followed, Yip gave the grandniece a
camera and many tips on how to take a good photograph.
The Chinese family also followed his friends around,
taking photographs and sightseeing. The scenic beauty
of the Yangtze River was breath taking, but occasionally
they were startled by the appearance of soldiers patrolling
around the riverbanks. The soldiers looked suspiciously
at the visitors, and created some fear amongst them. At
that time, there were few foreign visitors going to cities
like Nanking. Anybody not dressed in blue or in army
uniform would arouse curious and sometimes
uncomfortable stares.

After his visit to Nanking, Yip returned to Singapore. A

few weeks later, his wife received a request for
remittance of money from Mun. It appeared that he had
spent a lot of money travelling to Nanking, and as a
result he faced financial hardship. He also stated that
he needed money to build an extension to his house.

Another China visit

Yip revisited China in early 1989. It was a different
China.

It was dark and chilly when he arrived at the Macau

airport. He took a cab from there to Zhuhai immigration
checkpoint. Recalling his previous visit to China in the
Seventies when there was hardly any visitor at the

110
immigration checkpoint, he was amazed to see a vast
crowd. It was a stark contrast. Everything seemed
different.

There were at least twenty long queues for people from

China who were returning home after visiting Hong Kong
or Macau. Two other queues were reserved for foreign
visitors including those from Taiwan and Hong Kong.
The crowds were terrifying. It took more than an hour
to be cleared through immigration, and on this occasion,
clearance was done with the aid of computers. The
huge book with names of people who were blacklisted
had disappeared. Computer technology had arrived, and
it had helped to propel China forward into modernisation
at an incredible speed.

There was no longer a sea of blue, whether at the

checkpoint or beyond. Men and women dressed up
fashionably. China’s fashion garments had been
marketed all over the world. They produced quality
blouses, T-shirts, gowns, sportswear and jeans, as well
as men’s fashion wear. The world of fashion had entered
into every city in China. People bought what they wanted
to wear; not what the government issued to them in the
form of blue shirts and pants.

These changes appeared unreal, but every aspect of

life seemed to have undergone a dramatic transformation,
with the magic wand of capitalism.

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There was no longer a picture of militarism. Gone were
the men in green uniform, not just the soldiers, but also
the “comrades” who used to don the military garb to
show their patriotism. It would be foolishness to think
that the soldiers just disappeared overnight. They were
just kept somewhere in barracks and training camps, or
were in civilian dress.

The presence of security officers or policemen had

become more pronounced. The maintenance of law and
order was given top priority in the city. The men in
uniform in whatever departments or authorities were
there to impose authority. Any government official, once
he donned his uniform, whether he was in Macau, Hong
Kong, Zhuhai or Guangzhou or any part of China,
immediately became a powerful figure; he became a
different person, disposing authority with curtness, even
to the extent of being impolite.

Perhaps this was an attitude of superiority of the men in

uniform and those in the government service. One could
see it every where – from the policeman who signalled
or yelled at the motorist, motorcyclists or cyclists to stop,
to the health officer who took action on the street
hawkers. One could also notice that little concession
was given to ethnic Chinese foreigners by customs and
immigration officers. They were treated with the same
curtness. Instructions were given to them in the form of
yelling. This might not be a form of rudeness; that was
just how they behaved towards their own people.

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As Yip hopped into a taxicab, the meters were turned
on. One distracting feature was the radio communication
between cab drivers. Immediately, one would know that
they were from another province in the north in the way
they gossiped with one another through the radio
communication, while they were driving. They told each
other where they were heading, including what roads to
avoid. It’s almost like children playing with their toy
walkie-talkies.

Some of them were dishonest by taking a longer route

to earn more. Perhaps they could spot a non-Chinese
resident, and were out to fleece them.

There were frequent traffic jams, much the same as in

any large city in the world. But the traffic jam was more
like those found in Bombay or Manila. The traffic snarls
were taxing anyone’s patience and endurance. There
were ample traffic lights and they were modern gadgets
that could make any modern city proud. But motorists
liked to make detours around them. There were traffic
rules, but motorists ignored them. Some could drive along
the wrong side of the road, or make U-turns from any
point.

No longer were roads filled with a swarm of cyclists or

trishaw riders. The roads were packed with cars of all
descriptions – from huge tourist buses, minibuses, the

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latest Mercedes, Honda, Citroen or Toyota to aged old
Volkswagens and China manufactured cars.

Unlike other countries, the roads were packed with

motorcycles. Men and women donned their helmets,
often carrying two or even three pillion riders, and rode
along the busy roads. They travelled slowly but could be
expected to zigzag along, switching lanes or making
unexpected turns. Fortunately, all motorcar drivers were
cautious when they got near to the motorbikes.

One advantage in using the motorbike was the fact that

one could go anywhere with it. The motorbike in many
cities in China is like the bicycle. It can go against the
flow of traffic. It can go along street pavements. It takes
one into the wet market – right inside the market to the
stall selling meat or vegetable. One can use the horn to
frighten the pedestrians walking along the pavement
blocking one’s path. One can take two or even three
young boys or girls as pillion riders. Above all, one can
use it as a taxi bike. There are thousands of these on
the road. Most of them were licensed; some were not.
The licensed ones could be identified through the uniform
the rider wore, with words stating that they were security
volunteers as well. It is a common sight to see
fashionably dressed young ladies sitting as passengers
on these bikes; they sat with both legs on one side, not
astride the seat.

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Like any modern society, the mobile phone had become
the latest status symbol. People in China used hand
phones to a greater extent, because they were cheap
and the charges for calls were no different from the
house phones. Moreover, the phone numbers could be
retained indefinitely. Just look at the billboards. The
number to call in the advertisements was a mobile phone
number. Even the taxicab driver was using the mobile
phone, while the car sped along the expressway, with
Yip in the back seat.

As the taxicab cruised into town, the stereo set was

turned on. The taxi coasted past rows and rows of tall
buildings in the city. Guangzhou had been transformed
into a modern city with skyscrapers everywhere. Here
the streets were wide and lined with trees. The street
lamps looked ornamental.

How differently the streets looked in the Seventies with

rows and rows of old two or three-storied shop houses,
forming a typical rectilinear pattern in any street block.
Obviously, the authorities had cleared all the dilapidated
structures along the main roads, and new buildings had
sprung up, giving the town and city an ultra modern look.
It was really impressive engineering to give an old city
such a face-lift within such a short time. However, it
was evident that land use zoning laws were still loosely
enforced or nonexistent, as mixed industrial and
commercial uses could be found along most roads.

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The commercial hub of the city resembled those of any
modern city. Shopping centres, fast food restaurants,
discotheques, massage centres, modern offices, and golf
clubs, day care centres – all these could be found. There
was an air of new freedom.

But large numbers of people from the north had invaded

the cities in the south. Most of them were from rural
villages. They came to the south as close to Hong Kong
as possible, looking for jobs and a better livelihood. Some
made it; others did not and there were hordes of them
sitting by the roadside to queue up for odd jobs everyday.
They took over almost all the hard, dirty or menial jobs,
while many locals just relaxed to play mahjong everyday
while collecting rents as their means of financial support.
This might be a little exaggerated, as there were
successful Chinese businessmen amongst residents of
Guangzhou and the migrants from villages in the North.

As the taxicab came to a halt in Guangzhou in front of

the Liuhua Hotel, Yip paid the cabdriver twenty Yuan.
He checked into the hotel, and took his luggage into his
room. He then made a few calls to friends and relatives.

The next day, a relative’s son drove him to Wan Niu

Dun, a small town to meet his relatives. These relatives
had lodged in his house at Kreta Ayer in Singapore
before.

116
They were ecstatic when they met Yip. Xiang, an old
lady with many grandchildren was in her sixties, but she
looked much older. Her hair was white. She was bent
with age, and there were deep wrinkles on her tired
face. This was a woman who had struggled to bring up
her children. Backbreaking work and onerous duties had
taken their toll on her. But in recent years, things had
turned around for her. Her daughter married a rich and
successful businessman from Hong Kong and they were
living in a huge mansion.

Yip was full of admiration for these folks. They exuded

a warmth and friendliness that was devoid of sham and
artificiality. In his eyes, these were good people, as they
were courageous, secure, productive, not afraid of hard
work, and not intimidated by the odds against them.

Like many local people, they were village folks before,

but now their lives were touched and changed by the
relentless transformations around them – modernization,
urbanization and rapid industrialization. They still stood
at the fringe, partly urbanized and partly entrenched in
their accustomed rural traditions and activities. Just look
at their huge mansion. The house was a picture of
modernity, but the garden was at once a vegetable plot,
a poultry farm and an orchard. Look at the livelihood of
her children. They drove new Japanese cars, tapped on
the keys of their newly acquired and the latest brand of
mobile phones and they were dressed in their tailor-made
fashion splendour, but they worked in the neighbourhood

117
farms and ponds as farmers and fishermen, and
undertook various kinds of rural jobs.

A few other visits to nearby towns were also made.

Yip fulfilled his wish to see these people in his old age,
and took some pictures of them. He then returned to
Singapore alone.

It was an exciting visit to China. But a few months later,

tragedy struck his family once again. This time it was
the death of his second son. Following that, his daughter-
in-law took her family to stay in Canada. Yip became
quite sad and depressed over this.

Yip cherished his love for photography literally till his

dying day. At 9 a.m. on 16th September 1989, he called
up a friend in the Photographic Society of Singapore to
enquire about his print. Later that day, he went to the
Chinese Garden at Jurong to take photographs at the
Lantern Festival. True to his nature, he still had a loaded
camera with him when he collapsed at a Jurong MRT
Station on that fateful day at midnight after completing
a long phostographic session at the Lantern Festival.

118
Chapter Twelve
Photography as a creative art
The ‘Grand Old Man of Photography’ - that’s what
the newspapers called Yip Cheong Fun before and after
his death. We have given here in some detail, information
about his life and times. Some examples of pictures taken
by him and exhibited recently in various countries are
shown here to shed some light about his creative
photography, that has captured the imagination of many
young photographic enthusiasts in Singapore.

At the break of gray dawn 119

The photograph “Rowing at Dawn”has won several gold
medals in photographic exhibitions in a number of
countries. Many experts agreed that the picture showing
a solitary boatman rowing towards several junks against
the morning light was a memorable work of art. The
motif of shimmering reflections soon emerged as a
distinctive style of the photographer’s works.

Rowing at Dawn

120
Yip’s dark room techniques enable him to work on tone
and texture thus bringing life to still pictures. Through
his darkroom skills, he could make pictures vivid like
paintings, and to achieve this, he often combined the
negatives of different pictures into one print. Like the
painter who used different brushes and strokes and a
selection of colours, he developed pictures that resembled
paintings, using lights and shadows in different tones and
textures and occasionally embellished with silhouettes
and other lines and forms in great detail. International
salons wrote about him as master of darkroom
techniques. They praised his ability to “burn in”
superfluous details, thus forcing the viewer to
concentrate only on what he wanted. He also
experimented with infrared film and solarisation.

Casting the net

121
 The sea is always mysterious and often evokes strong
feelings, unpredictable and raw. To poets and artists, it
poses a challenge to their hearts and souls, inspiring them
to express their feelings and emotions. Likewise for the
photographer, the sea and the things and activities
associated with it including its scenic features or lifestyles,
pose a formidable challenge. It is not just to capture
images, lights, shades and shadows, lines or patterns,
but also to express the movements, drama as well as
moods and feelings in dramatic angles and compositions.

A Fishing Boat
Even human activities related to the sea, can pose a
great challenge to the photographer. Fishing or casting
the net or children playing on the beach can be a real
fascination.

122
The Long Haul of the Fishing Net

Boys playing on the beach

123
Another element that drives the creative process in art
is empathy. To express such feelings in paintings or
poetry requires a process of identification with others.
In photography, just clicking a button cannot do this. A
great deal of patience to capture the mood and
expressions of the subject, and painstaking work to
produce the texture and tone that best display the
emotional qualities, is needed in the dark room.

Just watch the face of the old lady. She went daily to
Raffles Place pouring her heart out over the untimely
death of her son who fell from the scaffolding of a tall
building there. Those feelings in her heart have been
captured in this portraiture.

124
Take this further to child portraiture. Photography is the
best tool for the artist to capture the innocence and
purity of childhood, and the many moods and expressions
and the dynamic interplay of social relationships affecting
little children.

Curiosity
For the photographer, each picture tells a story, a
distillation of thoughts and emotions - a study of the
essence of childhood itself, whether this is expressed in
the spark of life in the child’s eyes, the smiles on their
faces, their mischievous glances or expressive
movements or even their tears. That is what child
portraiture is about.

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 Those eyes and hands

A kampong boy

126
Dark room work can also produce certain special effects
evident in some of the photographs .................

Rare Beauty

Silhouettes

127
Women at work - Samsui women in old Singapore

128
 Tranquillity in the pond

The Esplanade in Singapore in the Fifties

129
Braving the rain

130
A fishmonger in Chinatown

131