Toh* Hua Lam, my Father
was born on 13th April 1950. He has five siblings, in the order of Zhou
Qiang, the eldest son, followed by Zhou
Qing. Zhou Xiuling and Zhou Pohlan are
his sisters and he’s the fourth child in the family having 2 elder brothers,
one elder sister and one younger.
This is my father’s
story as he told it to me.
My father was a
vegetable seller. His name was Zhou Ya Xin and my mother, Lee Quan. My mother
helped my father out. Being poor, they lived in a kampong like many other
people.
My primary school was Nanshan
primay. I remember my primary one teacher, Chen Zhou Le. I was frequently
beaten on the palm of my hand by her. At that time, school only had about three
to four subjects, Civics and Moral education, Chinese, Mathematics and Science.
Due to my family being poor, I only studied up to primary three, hence I had a
very low level of education. During my school days, I was notorious. I did not
like to go to school hence I skipped it a lot. I frequently fought with the
other children at school. My favorite childhood games was spinning tops and
‘go-li’ (marbles).
As I was the youngest
male child in the family, I didn’t have a lot of responsibilities. I remember
there was once when I was 14 years old, being mischievous, I sneaked off and
drove my father’s car without a license. I could have been caught by the police
but the kampong was very big.
When I was fourteen
years old, I had a fight with my younger sister, Zhou Pohlan. My father was not
happy that we were fighting and I argued back. My father shouted at me and it
was as if his voice could bring the house down. I was upset and I argued back. My
father having as strong a personality as me told me that the house was his and
he could do anything he wanted in it. With that sentence, I stomped out of the
house at fourteen years old and never went back. I left with just the clothes
on my back.
I drifted from place to
place. I didn’t have a fixed home. As I
didn’t have a place to stay, I found a friend and stayed over at my friend’s
shop house in the kampong.
During that time I also
started working. I have worked at many odd jobs like construction worker and painting
ships. Life working as a construction worker was very hard, due to my size at
that time. The goods were very heavy. I worked one day and rested the next. One day’s salary was about five dollars. Five dollars wasn’t enough for me even though
a meal only cost 50 cents. I was also smoking and drinking at that time and had
to pay for all these expenses as well. After paying for them, sometimes there
was no money for me to buy food. So when there was no food to eat, everyday I
drank water to fill my stomach.
When I found work as ship
painter, life was easier. Once in a while, we would get really big ships to paint. A
day’s salary could sometimes go up to more than ten dollars which was A LOT in
those days, as it only cost 50 cents to buy a bowl of fishball noodles.
I used to smoke a lot in
my younger days, when I was fifteen or sixteen but after I met my wife, I
managed to kick the habit in my twenties. It took half a year to stop smoking.
Even though I stopped, I was tempted to pick up smoking again, which I did. I quit
two times. I used to smoke before I fell asleep. Once I lit a cigarette and
fell asleep before I even took a puff and the cigarette fell onto the sheets
and nearly caused a fire if my wife hadn’t notice the smell.
I entered National Service
(NS) in year 1968. Due to my poor education, I wasn’t a soldier, but rather in
the civil defence.
I started my job as a
taxi driver when I was 22 years old. At that time I still didn’t have a home
and simply rented a place to stay. Many people – around eleven were living in
the same place in double or even triple-decker beds.
At that time when I was
working as a taxi driver, I met my wife, who was working at the main taxi stand
as the operator. Because her house was very deep in the woods, I always sent
her home after her work and bought her lunch. My future mother-in-law used to
advise her not to take any red cars home because my car was red at that time.
During the past the people were more conservative about dating and marriage. Our wedding was a huge one, a lot of people
came and there were around 90 tables.
Life during my younger
days was hard but it was peaceful under Lee Kuan Yew’s time. But during the
time when we joined Malaysia, I remember that there were riots
between the Malays and the Chinese. All of us gathered in one house. Women
and the children were huddled together while the men were holding weapons of
all kinds – knives, wooden poles, axes to guard the house.
*Toh in Chinese is Zhou.
Sherlyn Toh (16) 2E4
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